Risk attitudes and informal employment in Ukraine

Arbeitspapier

Using data from the four waves of the Ukrainian Longitudinal Monitoring Survey - ULMS (2003, 2004, 2007 and 2012), we analyze whether workers with a higher willingness to take risks are more likely to select into informal employment contracts. The data permit us to distinguish between five employment states: formal and informal self-employment, formal salaried employment, voluntary informal salaried employment, and involuntary informal salaried employment. The empirical evidence reveals risk attitudes as a strong causal determinant of the incidence of all types of informal employment but involuntary informal salaried employment. We also provide evidence that our results are not driven by reverse causality: risk attitudes impact on the choice of employment state whilst this latter does not influence risk attitudes. Linking risk attitudes with selection into employment states, we also can establish that along the formal-informal divide the Ukrainian labor market is predominantly segmented for salaried workers whilst it is integrated for the self-employed.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Series: IOS Working Papers ; No. 401

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Wirtschaft ; Micro-Based Behavioral Economics: Role and Effects of Psychological, Emotional, Social, and Cognitive Factors on Decision Making‡ ; Monopsony; Segmented Labor Markets ; Informal Labor Markets ; Socialist Systems and Transitional Economies: Factor and Product Markets; Industry Studies; Population
• Subject: Risk attitudes ; informal employment ; labor market segmentation ; Ukraine

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Dohmen, Thomas ; Khamis, Melanie ; Lehmann, Hartmut ; Pignatti, Norberto
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Leibniz-Institut für Ost- und Südosteuropaforschung (IOS)
• (where): Regensburg
• (when): 2023

Further information

• Handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10419/279399
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:44 AM CET