Marc Levinson – (…) In “Stealth of Nations,” Robert Neuwirth offers a fascinating tour of System D, a world largely ignored by academics and government officials but a world familiar to anyone who has visited developing countries. (…) In Morocco, the consumer-goods giant Procter & Gamble has built an entire network of wholesalers and agents and subagents to sell diapers and soap through merchants in villages so remote that they have no retail stores. “Stealth of Nations” is a valuable book because it challenges conventional thinking about what it means for an economy to develop. Since at least the 1960s, economists have described underdeveloped countries as places with large “informal” economies, in which people work off the books and outside the law. One measure of progress, it is claimed, is the movement of workers and businesses into the “formal” economy, in which employers are registered, income is taxed, and firms are subject to government regulations and legal judgments. Mr. Neuwirth rejects this distinction. In many places, he notes, formality and informality are not opposites.
On the Move, Off the Books (Wall Street Journal)
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