Mapping the Margins: Geospatial Tools for the Measurement of Informal Economies

Abstract

When and why do states permit the operation of informal industries? Understanding the politics of informality - its causes, effects, and responses to policy levers - is a rapidly expanding and theoretically rich area of study across disciplines in the social sciences. Of primary concern to all strains of this research question is the issue of measurement: how do we study something that is inherently in the shadows? How can we measure informal industries? The goal of this paper is threefold: First, to synthesize the existing literature discussing the disadvantages (including ethical) and the advantages to measuring informal industries with geospatial data. Next, I introduce a concept-to-measure approach to constructing spatially and temporally disaggregated datasets indicating the existence of - and enforcement against - informal industries using publicly available data and AI processing models underutilized in current political science research. I end with the construction of panel datasets measuring two types of illicit industries across Nigeria, Africa's largest country: illicit mining and informal road transport; as well as an R package intended to extend the dataset to other cases. I conclude with some analysis of these datasets, which suggests that the timing of informal industry enforcement at the subnational level depends on the nature of local political networks.

Recommended Citation

Pavlik, Melissa. 2025. "Mapping the Margins: Geospatial Tools for the Measurement of informal Economies." Working Paper.

Notes

Presented at European Political Science Association (EPSA), 2025.