Author:  D. Mercer Affiliation:  Independent Researcher Abstract Economics is often introduced to students through formulas, models, and exam-focused summaries. While these tools are useful, they can make the field appear narrower than it really is. Economics is not only about prices, markets, inflation, or growth. It is also about power, institutions, inequality, labor, culture, development, technology, and the social meanings attached to value. For this reason, students nee

Author:  Nadia Karim Affiliation:  Independent Researcher Abstract The informal economy has long been an essential yet contested component of global development. While early development theories predicted that informal work would shrink as countries modernised, recent empirical evidence shows the opposite trend: informal employment remains widespread, dynamic, and deeply woven into the livelihoods of billions of people. Today, an estimated two billion workers worldwide operat