The Informal Sector

In Novem­ber 2025, Bri­tish anthro­po­lo­gist Keith Hart died in Paris. He was 81 years old. Hart had many inte­rests, but sin­ce it was him who intro­du­ced the dimen­si­on of eco­no­mic “infor­ma­li­ty” into deve­lo­p­ment poli­cy deba­tes, my com­men­ta­ry is a tri­bu­te to his ori­gi­nal con­tri­bu­ti­on, loo­king back six­ty years when a field cal­led “deve­lo­p­ment eco­no­mics” was still in its for­ma­ti­ve years.