The urban informal economy: Street vendors in Cali, Colombia

Martínez, Lina; Short, John Rennie; Nates, Daniela Estrada

doi:10.1016/j.cities.2017.03.010

Cited by 66 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…Urban informality can be broadly defined as the activities take place outside formal systems of regulation and state control [23,24], yet it is often tolerated as a safety valve to prevent insurrection [25]. It is also critical to understand that the boundaries between formal and informal are loosely defined [26,27]. Discourse on urban informality and informal trading has focused largely on the distinctions between formal and informal, where one tends to erase and undermine the other.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating Space and Visibility: Forms of Informality in Public Space

Kamalipour

Peimani

2019

Sustainability

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Street trading has become integral to how public space works in cities of the global South. It cannot be considered as marginal since it gears to the urban economy and works as a key mode of income generation for the urban poor to sustain livelihoods. A poor understanding of how forms of street trading work in public space can lead to poor design and policy interventions. While many practices of formalization aim at the elimination of informality, the challenge is to explore the complex informal/formal relations and the dynamics of street trading to understand how forms of informality negotiate space and visibility in the public realm. In this paper, we propose a typology of street trading, based on the criteria of mobility within public space and proximity to public/private urban interfaces. While exploring the degrees of mobility in informal street trading can be crucial to the modes of governance and adaptability involved, of critical importance is to investigate how street trading takes place in relation to the built form—particularly the edges of public space where public/private interfaces enable or constrain exchange and appropriation. The developed typology provides a better understanding of the dynamics of street trading and contributes to the ways in which the built environment professions can most effectively engage with interventions in public space without eradicating the scope for informal adaptations.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Negotiating Space and Visibility: Forms of Informality in Public Space

Kamalipour

Peimani

2019

Sustainability

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“…En el presente estudio, el 72 % de los trabajadores encuestados son hombres y el 28 % mujeres. La estructura es similar a la de otros países de Latinoamérica como Chile (Ruiz et al, 2017) y Colombia (Nuñez, 2002;Martínez, Short y Estrada, 2017).…”

Section: Condiciones Socioeconómicas De Los Trabajadores Informales Eunclassified

El sector informal en la Ciudad de México. Caso de estudio de la Delegación Iztapalapa

Martínez-Luis¹,

Fernández²,

Fernández³

et al. 2019

Estudios Sociales

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Objetivo: analizar las condiciones socioeconómicas y la eficiencia económica de los trabajadores informales; así como, determinar los factores que contribuyen al crecimiento del empleo informal en la Ciudad de México. Metodología: la información se obtuvo a partir de un cuestionario aplicado a trabajadores informales considerados de subsistencia y se estimó una función de producción Cobb-Douglas para determinar la eficiencia de las actividades informales. Resultados: los trabajadores informales tienen diversas carencias sociales relacionadas con servicios de salud, vivienda, educación, entre otros. También se encontró que los trabajadores informales perciben ingresos diarios mayores a la media nacional y con las mismas horas trabajadas. Limitaciones: sólo se consideró una porción específica de la población porque la economía informal es compleja y heterogénea. Sin embargo, los trabajadores entrevistados realizan su actividad en condiciones precarias y carecen de protección social por lo que deben ser atendidos por las políticas públicas. Conclusiones: las actividades informales con baja inversión son eficientes económicamente, pero el aumento de su productividad es limitado y por lo tanto es difícil que los trabajadores informales mejoren sus condiciones socioeconómicas. Una política enfocada a la creación de empleos formales de calidad y bien remunerados puede influir en la reducción de la actividad informal.

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“…In Colombia, the market of football stickers attracts both vendors and buyers. Street vendors, part of the informal labor force, are not marginalized and typically can afford the acquisition of seasonal products (Martínez, Short and Estrada, 2017). During the Football World Cup, these products include jerseys and flags, and stickers that are sold individually.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Price discrimination in informal labor markets in Bogotá: An audit experiment during the 2018 FIFA World Cup

Zamora

Mantilla

Blanco

2019

Preprint

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We conducted an audit experiment to examine whether street vendors in Bogotá (Colombia) exert price discrimination based on buyers' attributes, such as gender and nationality; and based on product characteristics, such as the increasing marginal valuation of items needed to complete a collection. We exploited the seasonal demand for album stickers related to the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018. In our within-subjects design, experimenters carried out in-person audits and quoted a pre-determined list of missing stickers. They interacted with 59 sticker vendors located in five geographic clusters. We find that prices quoted to foreign buyers are higher than prices quoted to Colombian buyers. By contrast, we do not find evidence supporting direct gender-based discrimination, neither that vendors charge a higher price per sticker when the list of missing stickers is shorter. We complement the study with a qualitative analysis based on interviews that reveal vendors' pricing strategies, their awareness of price discrimination, and the trade of counterfeits.

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The urban informal economy: Street vendors in Cali, Colombia

Cited by 66 publications

References 10 publications

Negotiating Space and Visibility: Forms of Informality in Public Space

Negotiating Space and Visibility: Forms of Informality in Public Space

El sector informal en la Ciudad de México. Caso de estudio de la Delegación Iztapalapa

Price discrimination in informal labor markets in Bogotá: An audit experiment during the 2018 FIFA World Cup

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