Mobilizing Informal Economic Sector to Uphold Urban Institutional Resilience: A Case Study of Rawalpindi, Pakistan

The informal economy is a large part of the urban economy. The informal economy accounts for about half of Pakistan's GDP. This research examined nine different areas of Rawalpindi's Central Business District's business sector (CBD). A survey of 404 respondents from 16 CBD marketplaces enables a comprehensive examination of who works in the informal and formal economic sectors, how much they earn, their goals, perception of their job, and their degree of similarity to the rest of the working population. Furthermore, the statistics illustrate the pro-cyclical connections between the informal economic sector and the formal economy. The Multinomial Logistic Regression (MLR) technique is used for the analysis. The MLR results indicated the informal economic sector holds positive relation with earning members in a family, business expertise, average business sale, and negative relation with education level, satisfaction with government tax policies, household expense, and average investment in the business. From a resilience standpoint, governance is considered an intentional collective action to preserve a stable system condition. Hence, the current study recommends tax reforms and government institution reorganization to mobilize the informal sector and make effective institutional governance.