SPATIAL EFFECTS OF INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT AND PRECARIZATION IN URBAN CENTRES AND REGIONS
SPATIAL EFFECTS OF INFORMAL EMPLOYMENT AND PRECARIZATION IN URBAN CENTRES AND REGIONS

Summary/Abstract: Informal employment constitutes a significant factor in economic development of large cities and regions. In this paper, we examine the informal employment within the context of instability and precarization of labor in the Russian cities and regions. We consider the negative effects in the higher education system as one of the factors in the formation of the precariat and informal employment. Universities and higher educational institutes have always been associated with the cities and their steady urban development. The aim of our study is to identify and assess the influence of the determinants of the development of employment in the informal sector in the Russian regions, taking into account the influence of spatial effects using spatial regression models and classical panel data models. The paper compares the use of spatial econometric models with classical panel data models to analyze the dependence of employment in the informal sector on various characteristics of regions. In order test the hypothesis of the influence of the spatial location of regions on the distribution of the share of employees in the informal sector, we employ the values of Moran and Geary indices of the global spatial autocorrelation. We use a matrix of inverse geographic distances between the centroids of the corresponding administrative units and a matrix of inverse shortest automobile distances as spatial weights. The persistently positive statistically significant values of the Moran and Geary indices confirm the presence of spatial autocorrelation. Moreover, the use of spatial econometric models also made it possible to obtain estimates of the coefficients taking into account the presence of positive spatial autocorrelation. Our results can be used for studying the instability in the labor market in the context of the formation of a stable precariat. Spatial effects can also be considered in relation to the evolution of the local institutional and organizational structure of the training system for regional labor markets.

• Details
• Contents