Informal economy, wage goods and accumulation under structural adjustment theoretical reflections based on the Tanzanian experience
分析了结构调整下非洲非正规经济兴起的两大因素：进口廉价工资品降低劳动成本，以及多元生计策略补贴实际工资；同时质疑其长期可持续性，因依赖外援且未能促进农业与工业的协同生产率提升。
Economic development in sub‐Saharan Africa under structural adjustment witnessed the upsurge of informal sector development—the development of unregulated labour‐intensive activities, in part export‐oriented. This paper argues that two factors played an important role in shaping the dynamics of informal sector development: (1) the process of the relative cheapening of wage goods as a result of their importation, partly financed through foreign aid, thereby lowering unit‐labour costs in labour‐intensive production, and (2) the processes at work of subsidising real wages by other forms of economic security as a result of multiple, diversified and spatially extended livelihood strategies. While these factors undoubtedly brought a new vitality to economic development, this paper questions the long‐run sustainability of this new trend for two reasons. One is its dependence on foreign aid to finance imports. The other is that it does not appear to propel endogenous increases in productivity by achieving greater synergy in intersectoral linkages between agriculture and industry.