Formalisation through taxation: Paraguay's approach and its implications

Jonas Richter, 7 May 2018

The informal economy encompasses all transactions of legal goods which are not reported to the government. It is estimated that, globally, one third of the non-agricultural workforce makes their living from the informal economy. In Latin America, sub-Saharan Africa, and Central Asia, 40% of GDP is informal.

The benefits of formalizing the informal sectors of a given economy are clear. Most obviously the government would see an increase in revenue from taxes, and such economies would be given access to credit and the ability to legally enforce contracts. It has also been shown that there is correlation between a broad tax base and successful democracy. This is quite logical as citizens who pay tax will be much more likely to take interest in how the government spends their money. While it is obvious that it is desirable to formalize an economy, convincing a large segment of a given population to start paying taxes is a difficult proposition.

A feminist analysis of women’s work experiences in finance

Kristina Keampfer, 7 May 2018

Kristina Kaempfer began her talk with a description of an ad recently run by Commerzbank. In it a woman is shown travelling while the history of the bank is described; the ad has the twist ending of the woman entering Commerzbank showing that she is an employee there. This symbolic depiction of Commerzbank’s commitment to gender equality seems contradicted by the reality that only 1 in 7 of the bank’s executive board members are women. In the advisory board things are slightly more equal, with 6 women out of a total of 22, as it is required by German law that 30% of advisory board members must be women.

In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis many have lamented that, had the financial sector had a higher proportion of women, this crisis could have been avoided. These comments come from an assumption that women are naturally more thoughtful and less willing to take risks. While such statements about women may have been positively intentioned, Kaempfer suggests that depictions of women as saviours have the effect of disempowering women.