How Different Are the Wage Curves for Formal and Informal Workers? Evidence from Turkey

Badi Baltagi, Yusuf Baskaya and Timur Hulagu

No 6836, IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA)

Abstract: This paper presents wage curves for formal and informal workers using a rich individual level data for Turkey over the period 2005-2009. The wage curve is an empirical regularity describing a negative relationship between regional unemployment rates and individuals' real wages. While this relationship has been well documented for a number of countries including Turkey, less attention has focused on how this relationship differs for informal versus formal employment. This is of utmost importance for less developed countries where informal employment plays a significant role in the economy. Using the Turkish Household Labor Force Survey observed over 26 NUTS-2 regions, we find that real hourly wages of informal workers in Turkey are more sensitive to variations in regional unemployment rates than wages of formal workers. This is true for all workers as well as for different gender and age groups.

Keywords: wage curve; formal/informal employment; regional labor markets (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C26 J30 J60 O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20 pages
Date: 2012-09
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ara, nep-geo, nep-iue, nep-lab, nep-lma and nep-ltv
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (10)

Published - published in: Papers in Regional Science, 2013, 92, 271-283.

Downloads: (external link)
https://docs.iza.org/dp6836.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How different are the wage curves for formal and informal workers? Evidence from Turkey (2013)
Working Paper: How Different Are the Wage Curves for Formal and Informal Workers? Evidence from Turkey (2013)
Working Paper: How Different Are the Wage Curves for Formal and Informal Workers? Evidence from Turkey (2012)
Working Paper: How Different are the Wage Curves for Formal and Informal Workers? Evidence from Turkey (2012)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iza:izadps:dp6836

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
IZA, Margard Ody, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IZA Discussion Papers from Institute of Labor Economics (IZA) IZA, P.O. Box 7240, D-53072 Bonn, Germany. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Holger Hinte ().