BACKGROUND Most of the about 140 million informal sector workers in urban China do not have health insurance. A 1998 central government policy leaves it to the discretion of municipal governments to offer informal sector workers in cities voluntary participation in a social health insurance for formal sector workers, the so-called 'basic health insurance' (BHI). METHODS We used the contingent...

This paper contributes to analysing and understanding the demand for (social) health insurance of informal sector workers in Kenya by assessing their perceptions and knowledge of and concerns regarding health insurance and the Kenyan National Hospital Insurance Fund (NHIF). It serves to explore how informal sector workers could be integrated into the NHIF. To collect data, focus group discussio...

This paper investigates the role of risk-aversion in the allocation of workers between formal and informal jobs in Ghana. In the model I propose risk-averse workers can opt between the free-entry informal sector and queuing for formal occupations. Conditional on identifying the riskier option, the model yields testable implications on the relationship between risk-preferences and workers’ alloc...

BACKGROUND & OBJECTIVES Unsafe injections in health settings contribute to a large burden of preventable blood-borne diseases. Current strategies to enhance injection safety in India almost exclusively target the formal health sector. However, injections are provided not only by doctors and nurses in the formal sector, but also by practitioners from the informal sector, such as traditional heal...

An optimal commodity tax approach is taken to compare trade taxes and VATs when some commodities are produced informally. Trade taxes apply to all imports and exports, including intermediate goods while the VAT applies only to sales by the formal sector and imports. The VAT can achieve production efficiency within the formal sector, but unlike the trade tax regime, it cannot indirectly tax pure...

This thesis highlights the significance of the informal network and industry performance of rural-based creative sectors in China. The rural based creative class is characterized by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and relies on tacit knowledge exchange and information transfer. Facing the rural economic development challenges in China, the formal network, like official and governmental orga...

Background & Aims: People`s health, life expectancy and quality of life have been affected by social determinants of health, significantly. Also, socio-economic factors may affect health expenditure, considerably. This study has evaluated the effects of socio-economic determinants on health expenditure for the low-income urban householdsin the informalsector of employment. Methods: In this stud...