The informal economy continues to grow as several efforts are made by researchers to understand its size, nature, causes, and indicators. The federal government and other stakeholders must roll out measures to provide temporary support to the informal sector. The sheer size of the sector makes it practically difficult to ascertain the actual membership and activities of the sector. The informal sector consists of micro, small and medium scale enterprises including traders and artisans and constitutes a significant portion of the Nigerian economy. The Informal Sector in Nigeria: From Neglect to Recognition. Oduh et al (2008) used the general MIMIC model to estimate the size and determinants of the informal sector in Nigeria over the period 1970 to 2005. In 2006, national . Within the region, however, there is significant variation in the size of informal economies. If you continue to use this site we will assume that you are happy with it. Nigeria’s GDP as at the end of 2015 was about N94.1 trillion out of which N38.7 trillion is from the informal and another N55.3 trillion formal. The economy of Nigeria is a middle-income, mixed economy and emerging market, with expanding manufacturing, financial, service, communications, technology and entertainment sectors. ROLE OF INFORMAL SECTOR IN EMPLOYMENT GENERATION IN NIGERIA CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background to the study. Hassan and Schneider (2016a) noted that the informal economy promotes: resource distortion; underutilisation; and bias in official data like the unemployment rate and GDP statistics. Informal sector The results show that since 1970, the size of the informal economy has hovered between 53.6 – 77.2% of GDP, and that the average size of the informal economy was about 64.6% of GDP. Over the past years, scholars have debated on whether the informal sector should really be seen as a marginalized sector, which mops up excess or entrenched workers or as a vibrant, entrepreneurial part of the Nigeria economy which can Results suggest that informal economy in Sub-Saharan Africa remains among the largest in the world, although this share has been very gradually declining. The size and role of the informal sector in an economy increases during economic downturns and periods of economic adjustment and transition. International Journal of Economics, Commerce, and management, VIII(7), 204-227. the informal sector in Nigeria and the impact the choice of definition has on the size of the sector. And every researcher tends to adopt different methods and approaches based on perceived peculiarities to an economy under investigation. It involved the actual recording of all goods going out/coming into Nigeria from the neighboring countries for one week in each month. African taxmen are in Nigeria strategizing on taxation of informal sector. A BRIEF PROFILE OF THE NIGERIAN INFORMAL SECTOR Nigeria has the largest informal sector in Africa, a predominance that stems from its massive population of 153,9 million,3 and decades of poor economic performance denoted by a high unemployment rate of 12.9% and soaring poverty incidence of up to 54% (CBN, 2009: xxxvii). NIGERIA: Informal Trade With Neighboring Countries Introduction Several studies have shown that informal cross border trade (ICBT) across custom frontiers is thriving globally, especially in Africa. Nigeria’s informal sector is also the employer of the largest number of citizens. The informal sector thus, constitutes the final destination of an ever increasing number of job seekers. Accordingly, regulation burden, unemployment, and institutional deficiency are the major drivers of informal economy in Nigeria. Informal Trade and the Price of Import Bans: Evidence from Nigeria Sami Bensassi Joachim Jarreau Cristina Mitaritonna AGRODEP Working Papers contain preliminary material and research results. ... size of informal se ctor. Savings Association 13 8. This work was motivated mainly by the need to empirically examine the magnitude of economic loss attributed to informality in Nigeria. This study aims to innovatively estimate the size of the informal economy of Nigeria using the MIMIC Model and the amount of tax revenue the government loses yearly to the growth in the informal economy. The size of the informal economy of Nigeria as at 2018 is 67% of the GDP. The size of the informal sector in Nigeria is estimated at about 65% and consists of activities that range from agricultural production to mining and quarrying, small-scale building and construction and machine-shop manufacturing. • Services industries that contributed large shares of Nigerian GDP in 2014 include wholesale and retail trade (17.6%), real estate (8.4%), and telecommunications and information services (8.3%) (figure 1) . Specifically, the size of the informal economy in Nigeria ranges between 47 and 67 percent from 1970 to 2018, and averages 56 percent of the GDP over the same period; and that the nation, on average, losses 56 percent of her potential tax revenue yearly to informality, with the estimated tax revenue loss being around ₦3.5 trillion in 2018. To date, only two studies – Ogbuabor & Malaolu (2013) and Oduah (2008), have attempted to estimate the size of the informal economy in Nigeria using the MIMIC approach. 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