Byung-Yeon Kim

Abstract This paper uses a household survey of the Romanian informal economy to analyse the effects of poverty on informal economy participation. We begin by developing a simple theoretical model, which shows that the participation is driven by low income and the gap between desired and actual income level. We then estimate the determinants of households’ participation in the informal economy. Empirical findings are consistent with the theoretical prediction. In addition, a positive association

Abstract This paper uses the Russian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey (RLMS) to analyse the dynamics of moonlighting by the working‐age population. We find that moonlighting is transitory and that a desire to switch jobs expressed in the past is positively related to moonlighting in the present and to actual job changes in the future. We also find that workers who moonlighted as self‐employed in the past represent 26.5 percent of the new self‐employed. These results suggest that moonlighting in Ru

North Korea is one of the most closed and secretive societies in the world. Despite a high level of interest from the outside world, we have very little detailed information about how the country functions economically. In this valuable book for both the academic and policy-making circles, Byung-Yeon Kim offers the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of the present day North Korean economy in the context of economic systems and transition economics. It addresses what is really happening i

North Korea is one of the most closed and secretive societies in the world. Despite a high level of interest from the outside world, we have very little detailed information about how the country functions economically. In this valuable book for both the academic and policy-making circles, Byung-Yeon Kim offers the most comprehensive and systematic analysis of the present day North Korean economy in the context of economic systems and transition economics. It addresses what is really happening i

This article uses material which has recently been made available from Russian archives to analyse the causes of repressed inflation in the Soviet consumer market. It finds that retail price subsidies, which increased as a proportion of state budget expenditure from 4 per cent in 1965 to 20 per cent in the late 1980s, intensified consumer market disequilibrium. The provision of these subsidies had negative effects on the market by maintaining the purchasing power of households for consumer goods

Abstract This article uses Russian regional data to estimate the determinants of the informal economy and to examine the relationship between the informal economy and the growth of legally registered small private enterprises during the transition period. After obtaining an estimate of the size of the informal economy in each Russian region from 1992 to 1999, an analysis is performed to find whether reform progress and institutional qualities account for the informal economy. An evaluation of th

This paper uses a survey of North Korean refugees to look at the size and the determinants of informal economic activities. In addition, we estimate the effect of internal economic participation on labor supply in the formal economy. We find that the informal economy is very large in North Korea with the share of income from informal economic activities at 78% of the total income of North Korean households. Hoewever, there is little evidence that supports a deepening informalization from 1966 to