Abstract
This chapter explores the informal consumption of 89 goods and services in South Texas across five informal groups: Health Care Informality, Household Work Substitution Informality, Home Project Informality, Household Service Informality, and Household Goods Informality. Each informal good or service is examined for consumption patterns by income and modeled to better understand the determinants of informal consumption.
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Notes
The statistical test is a cross-tabulation, with a Pearson Chi-square value at.10 or lower. This procedure is followed throughout Chapters 3 and 4.
Logisitc regression is the appropriate statistical technique for use with a dichotomous dependent variable (e.g., consumption [yes or no] of aninformal or underground good or service with multiple independent or predictor variables (Menard, 2002; Pampel, 2000)).
This is also the case for each informal good or service as well as for each underground good or service discussed in Chapter 4.
Locally, the terms for those who provide home cleaning services and lawn and landscaping services are maids (domestics) and gardeners, respectively.
This category includes those who are divorced, separated, and widowed. For ease of exposition, divorced or divorcee is utilized synonymously.
Specific results for each informal service are as follows: 1) hair cut/ styling—fewer persons in the household increase the likelihood of consumption; on the other hand being male, high school or college educated, one who pays sales tax when purchasing informal products, and those who believe that buying informally is somewhat wrong and somewhat right reduce the likelihood of informal hair cut/styling consumption; 2) pedicure/ massage—fewer persons in the household as well as an undocumented status increase the likelihood of consumption, whereas being male as well as paying cash for informal services decreases the likelihood of purchasing these informal services; 3) fewer persons in the household increase the likelihood of consumption of informal tanning/ear piercing, while being male reduces the odds of purchasing these same services.
Farming and ranching has a long history in South Texas (Richardson, 1999). Data from the 2007 US Department of Agriculture report the following information by county: Cameron County—1,241 farms, with an average size of 282 acres, and annual farm sales of $;90,532; Hidalgo County—2,151 farms, with an average size of 336 acres, and annual farm sales of $;146,098; Starr County—1,104 farms, with an average size of 591 acres, and annual farm sales of $;58,290; Willacy County—352 farms, with an average size of 960 acres, and annual farm sales of $;145,453.
Tandas originated in Mexico where a collective or group collects money and disburses the collected money to a single individual in turns. This cultural and economic practice spills over into South Texas (Richardson & Pisani, 2012).
Notaries are much more important in Mexico than they are in the United States. For those South Texas residents new to the US, use of a notary is misunderstood and often used needlessly (Richardson, 1999).
At the time of the survey, the cigarette tax for a pack of 20 cigarettes in Texas was $;2.42, divided as $;1.01 for the federal government and $;1.41 for Texas. The cigarette tax was raised significantly in Mexico beginning in steps over four years from 2010; these new measures were instituted primarily after the informal consumption survey was taken. In 2009, the Mexican value-added tax on cigarettes was 16%, a much smaller percentage than that in Texas (Waters et al., 2010).
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© 2013 Michael J. Pisani
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Pisani, M.J. (2013). Informal Consumption. In: Consumption, Informal Markets, and the Underground Economy. Palgrave Pivot, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333124_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137333124_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave Pivot, New York
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