Does the depth of informality influence welfare in urban Sub-Saharan Africa?
研究了撒哈拉以南非洲五个城市国家中，家庭非正规经济参与深度（按无社保工时或收入占比衡量）与消费福利的非线性关系，发现混合正规-非正规家庭的福利不低于完全正规家庭，且仅完全非正规家庭转为完全正规时福利显著提升。
Abstract We explore the relationship between household welfare and informality, measuring household informality as the share of members’ activities (hours worked or income) without social insurance. We discretize these measures into four bins or portfolios and assess their influence on consumption, as a measure of welfare. Cross-sectional regressions for five urban Sub-Saharan African countries reveal a non-linear relationship between the depth of informality and household welfare. A mixed formality household portfolio has at least the same welfare as a fully formal one. Using panel data for Nigeria, we assess household switches in informality portfolios, accounting for the selection on unobservables, and find it explains most welfare differences. Switching informality portfolios does not change welfare trajectories, with the notable exception of welfare gains for fully informal households becoming fully formal. From a policy perspective, our results suggest that policies incentivizing the formalization of the marginal worker may not result in perceivable welfare effects.