The Rise of the Underground

经济学家一直认为，地下经济对全球经济来说是一种负面的东西。这个庞大的没有监管的市场上包含各种从业者，从街边小贩，到没有营业执照的出租车司机。如今，在金融环境日益黯淡之际，这个市场有了一个新角色，那就是：最新的避险天堂之一。这一变化促使分析师们重新思考他们的观点。在印度城市阿默达巴德拥挤的中心地带的Manek Chowk市场上，一排破旧的摊位后面，小贩们正在叫卖，猴子在他们的头顶上爬来爬去。他们推销的东西从豆子到铜锅五花八门什么都有。一个男人在用转刀修剪指甲，转刀连在一辆移动的自行车轮上。按照西方标准，他们的收入少得可怜。但在Manek市场上至少没有裁员一说。在那里工作的每个人要做的就是到那里去并扯开嗓子叫卖，这些天来，有越来越多的人加入他们的“行列”。印度老妇Surajben Babubhai Patni58岁的Surajben Babubhai Patni说，没有这个生意，“我们就一无所有了。她的“业务”是兜售堆在临时防雨蓬下面的土豆玉米和坚果。每天她能赚250卢比，只合5美元左右，但已足够供一家九口人吃饭了，其中包括她的儿子：做宝石磨削工的他最近刚丢了饭碗。正是Patni和数百万像她一样的人构成了“非正规的”地下经济的世界，这是全球商业中一个庞大重要但又很少为人理解的领域。现在，随着全球金融危机导致数百万人失去原本有稳定薪水的工作，这个领域变得更重要了。对发展中国家来说尤其如此，许多人靠从事地下生意谋生，在经济危机不断蔓延之际，这给他们提供了一个至关重要的防护网。几十年来，经济学家一直强调地下经济的消极面。的确，这些小商小贩通常不缴税；由于缺乏资金和专业技术，它们的产出能力没法跟大企业相比，因而也不会有多少创新可言，从业人员的生活水平也偏低。由于地下从业者缺乏医疗保险和其他保障，他们不得不多多储蓄以防不测。这让他们平时尽量减少临时性开支，从而进一步拉低了经济增长。华盛顿智囊机构全球发展中心（Center for Global Development）经济学家伯德塞尔(Nancy Birdsall)说，拥有庞大的地下经济并不是什么值得高兴的事。如果每个人都向别人兜售苹果，就没法创造新的财富，这不是一个显示一切良好的积极信号。眼下这轮衰退的可怕深度和广度迫使一些分析人士重新思考这个问题。据联合国下设机构国际劳工组织(International Labour Organization)预计，在这波全球经济危机中，可能会有5,200万人失去工作。如果没有地下经济的存在，许多人将无处可去。世界银行(World Bank)经济学家马罗尼(W.F. Maloney)说，未来一年，地下经济将吸纳许多人，并给他们提供一个收入来源。国际货币基金组织(International Monetary Fund)前首席经济学家约翰逊(Simon Johnson)说，的确，正是由于地下经济的存在，那些极度贫困国家的状况才没变得像人们预计的那么糟糕。去年12月底之前，33岁的Pilaporn Jaksurat一直在曼谷一家纺织厂的棉纺车间从事全职工作。她的日工资合7美元，还享有不错的福利，如果考勤出色，每月能拿到30美元的奖金。此外还有大约800美元的离职补偿。经济危机爆发后，她被工厂裁掉了。厂方表示，不得不削减成本应对危机。该厂生产的纺织品出售给欧洲服装生产商。由于来自欧美市场的订单大幅减少，想找个类似的工作并不现实，因为当地其他工厂也都在裁员。Patrick Barta/The Wall Street JournalPilaporn Jaksurat摆了一个路边摊销售药酒她决定自己做生意，在她家附近的公路边上向卡车和摩托司机售卖药酒，有点类似孩子们在住家附近兜售柠檬汁的那种小摊位。在朋友的帮助下，她用竹子在路旁空地上搭了个临时摊位。她说，她从离职补偿金里拿出275美元，用于准备开张的各种开销。几周之后，在过路卡车的轰鸣声中，Pilaporn大喊着说，除去草药和红酒等货品的进货开支后，她每天可以净赚10美元左右。比她在纺织厂每天挣的7美元还要高。她说，她喜欢自己当老板，而且这笔收入可以让她每个月寄钱给住在泰国北部乡村的父母和她两岁的孩子，供养他们的生活。“这里是有点吵，但会习惯的，”她说。如果生意“能一直这样下去，我就不用发愁了。”要准确定义什么是地下经济并不容易。一般而言，地下经济包括在传统的“正规”行业之外的任何种类的工作。正规行业的企业会在政府机构登记注册，会纳税并向员工提供固定的薪资和养老医疗等福利。而地下经济的样本则是开罗街头的个体商人墨西哥城里出售玉米饼的小贩，或是加尔各答的人力车夫雅加达的废品收购员。在美国和其他富裕国家也有一些从事地下经济的人，比如未登记的女仆园丁或开无照出租车的司机，不过，这种现象不像在发展中国家那么普遍。分析师称，地下经济的总规模有可能占到美国经济总量的10%，而且，随着企业纷纷裁员迫使更多人尝试自己开办小生意或从事一些兼职工作，这个比例或许会上升。在工业革命发生前，正规就业和地下就业的区别基本没什么意义。随着工厂和工会团体的出现，劳动力市场逐渐变得越来越高效和专业。越来越多的工人通过签定合同进入提供福利的机构就业，政府则通过立法制定最低工资标准社会保障计划和其他保护措施。二十世纪后期，欧美国家的劳动者大多采取了这种正规就业方式。经济学家曾预计，发展中国家将跟随这种潮流。他们认为，随着工业化和财富的日益普及扩大，地下就业岗位将被工厂和白领岗位逐渐代替。人力车夫将被大型交通运输公司取代，沿街兜售小吃的商贩将让位于纳税并遵守卫生条例的餐馆。然而，现实不尽如此。据国际劳工组织的数字，在发展中国家，仍有占一半甚至更多的非农劳动力在地下经济领域就业。在印度，83%的劳动者从事地下经济，在撒哈拉以南非洲地区，这个比例是72%。最近几十年来，在某些发展中国家，从事地下行业的劳动者比例有时甚至还在增加。据国际劳工组织的数字，在上世纪九十年代大约10年时间里，地下经济约占非洲新增就业岗位的90%。在墨西哥，以1997年为例，地下就业占全部就业岗位的大约54%，而1990年时是大约50%。委内瑞拉和巴西也有类似的增长。一些研究人员开始相信，在某些较贫困国家，随着人口增长速度超过就业岗位的增长，地下经济正在变成一种永久性现象，不论经济形势是好是坏，它都不会消亡。眼下这轮经济衰退迫使企业纷纷削减成本，从而可能进一步促使企业放弃使用成本昂贵的正规工人，转向廉价的不享受福利的兼职雇员。而随着企业越来越习惯于使用非正规工人的灵活性，许多被裁掉的工人或许永远不会被正规企业重新吸纳了。尽管印度近年来增长迅猛，但经济学家相信，新增就业大部分是在地下经济领域，而不是Infosys Technologies Ltd.或Reliance Industries这样提供不菲薪水的大公司。印度的基本问题是，经济不能提供足够多的稳定的付薪职位，来吸收每年进入劳动力市场的数百万新就业者。非洲亚洲和拉丁美洲的许多地区也是如此。根据来自印度政府部门的最新可用数据，在2000-2005年间，印度的正规就业岗位基本稳定在大约3,500万，而地下就业岗位增加17%，达到4.23亿。经济学家表示，自2005年以来，新增正规就业可能有所增加，但还不足以明显改变这一局面。印度研究机构Gujarat Institute of Development Research经济学家Jeemol Unni说，要改变这种状况，印度经济将需要维持近年的飞速增长。经济学家说，聘用全职雇员需要的成本比临时雇员要高很多，因此，印度大企业只在资金非常充足的时候才会这么做。因此，印度很多地方目前都在积极发展地下经济。Patrick Barta


Economists have long thought the underground economy -- the vast, unregulated market encompassing everything from street vendors to unlicensed cab drivers -- was bad news for the world economy. Now it's taking on a new role as one of the last safe havens in a darkening financial climate, forcing analysts to rethink their views.At the Manek Chowk market, in this Indian city's congested center, vendors peddle everything from beans to brass pots from a row of derelict stalls as monkeys scramble overhead. One man sharpens nails using a spinning blade attached to a moving bicycle wheel.Their wages are pitiful by Western standards. But there are no layoffs at the Manek market. All anyone has to do to work there is show up and start hawking -- something more and more people are doing these days.Without this job, 'we'd have nothing,' says Surajben Babubhai Patni, a 58-year-old vendor selling tomatoes, corn and nuts from under a makeshift cloth tarp. She makes as much as 250 rupees a day, or about $5, but it's enough to feed her household of nine, including her son, who recently lost his job as a diamond polisher.Ms. Patni and millions like her are part of the 'informal,' or underground, economy, an enormous, vital and poorly understood segment of world commerce. It is becoming a lot more important now, as the global financial meltdown casts millions of people out of steady-paying jobs. Especially in developing economies, many of those people are landing in the informal sector, which has become a critical safety net as the economic crisis spreads.Economists have stressed the negative aspects of informal trade for decades. Informal businesses often don't pay taxes, and they routinely lack the capital and expertise to be as productive as big enterprises, leading to less innovation and lower standards of living. Since informal workers lack health benefits and other safeguards, they have to save more for emergencies, resulting in less casual spending that further drags down growth. Having a big underground economy 'is not something to be cheerful about,' says Nancy Birdsall, an economist at the Center for Global Development, a Washington think tank. 'When everybody is selling apples to each other, you're not creating new wealth -- it's not a sign that things are OK.'The frightening scale of the current recession is forcing some analysts to reconsider. As many as 52 million people could lose their jobs from the economic crisis world-wide, says the International Labour Organization, an agency of the United Nations. Without the informal sector, many of them will have nowhere to go.Informal jobs 'will absorb a lot of people and offer them a source of income' over the next year, says W.F. Maloney, an economist at the World Bank in Washington. Indeed, the jobs are 'one reason that the situation in desperately poor countries isn't as bad as you'd think,' says Simon Johnson, a former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund.Until late December, Pilaporn Jaksurat, 33, was working full-time on a cotton spinning machine in a textile mill in Bangkok. She made about $7 a day and her benefits included bonuses of $30 a month for good attendance and a severance package worth about $800.Then she was laid off when her factory, which sells fabric to clothing manufacturers in Europe, said it had to cut costs to cope with the global economic crisis. Finding a similar job wasn't an option, since other local factories were also dumping staff due to a massive decline in orders from buyers across Europe and North America. She decided to start her own business, selling shots of medicinal wine to truck drivers and motorcyclists on the highway by her home -- an adult version of the neighborhood lemonade stand. With help from friends, she fashioned a makeshift bamboo stand on vacant grass by the roadside. The start-up cost was about $275, she says, paid for with money from her severance package.A few weeks later, shouting to be heard over the roar of oncoming trucks, Ms. Pilaporn says she's making a profit of about $10 a day after expenditures for ingredients, including herbs and wine. That's better than the $7 or so she made at the garment factory. She likes being her own boss, she says, and the income allows her to keep sending money home every month to help support her parents and 2-year-old child, who live together in a rural area in northern Thailand.'It's a bit noisy here, but you get used to it,' she says. If business 'keeps up like this, I'll be fine.'Defining what makes a job informal isn't easy. Generally it includes any work outside the traditional 'formal' sector, in which companies register with the government, pay taxes and provide jobs with fixed salaries and benefits like pensions or health care. It includes self-employed street vendors in Cairo, tortilla sellers in Mexico City, rickshaw drivers in Kolkata and scrap collectors in Jakarta.There are also some informal workers in the U.S. and other wealthy countries, including off-the-books maids, gardeners and 'gypsy' cab drivers, though the phenomenon isn't nearly as widespread as in the developing world. Analysts say it may add up to as much as 10% of the overall U.S. economy, and probably is growing now that employers are slashing staff, forcing more people to try their own small-scale businesses or make do with part-time contract work.Before the Industrial Revolution, the difference between formal and informal employment was largely meaningless. With the rise of factories and trade unions, labor markets became more efficient and specialized. Workers increasingly entered into contractual relationships with employers that set benefits, while governments passed laws establishing minimum wages, social security plans and other protections. By the latter part of the 20th century, most American and European workers were in these formal arrangements.Economists assumed developing countries would follow. With the spread of industrialization and wealth, they thought, underground endeavors would be replaced by factory and office jobs. Rickshaw drivers would get replaced by big transport companies, while street-cart vendors would give way to restaurants that paid taxes and observed health codes.That isn't always happening. One-half or more of the developing world's nonagricultural workers are employed in the underground informal sector, according to the International Labour Organization. In India, 83% of workers are informal, while in sub-Saharan Africa, about 72% are.The percentage of workers in informal trades has even increased in some developing countries at times in recent decades. According to the ILO, informal activities accounted for about 90% of the new jobs created in Africa over a roughly 10-year period in the 1990s. In Mexico, informal employment rose to about 54% of all jobs in 1997, from about 50% in 1990. Venezuela and Brazil saw similar increases.Some researchers are starting to argue the informal economy is becoming a permanent fixture in some poorer countries -- in good times and bad -- as population growth outstrips job creation. The current recession, which is pressuring companies to cut labor costs, could intensify that process by pushing companies to ditch expensive formal workers in favor of cheaper part-time employees without benefits. Many laid-off workers may never be re-absorbed by the formal economy, as companies grow more accustomed to the flexibility of their informal counterparts.Despite India's rapid growth of recent years, economists believe the bulk of new jobs created were in the informal sector, not the flashier salaried positions of corporate titans like Infosys Technologies Ltd. and Reliance Industries.India's basic problem -- as with much of Africa, Asia and Latin America -- is that its economy can't create enough steady, salaried positions to absorb the millions of people entering the labor force each year. Between 2000 and 2005, the most recent year for which data are available, the number of formal jobs in India stayed flat at about 35 million, while informal jobs grew 17% to 423 million, according to the Indian government. Creation of new formal jobs has probably picked up since 2005, but not by enough to dramatically change the situation, economists say.To alter that equation, the Indian economy would have to maintain stellar growth rates for years, says Jeemol Unni, an economist at India's Gujarat Institute of Development Research, a research center. It costs a lot more to hire full-time employees than take on temporary workers, so big corporations in India only add them when they're really flush, economists say.As a result, much of India is now embracing the underground economy.Patrick Barta