%0 Journal Article %T Economic expansion and increase in labout market formality: a poaching approach %A Corseuil %A Carlos Henrique L. %A Foguel %A Miguel Nathan %J Revista Brasileira de Economia %D 2012 %I Funda??o Get¨²lio Vargas %R 10.1590/S0034-71402012000200004 %X this paper investigates the relationship between economic expansion and the degree of formalization for the brazilian labour market in the recent period. we present a theoretical framework that attempts to explain this relationship through the dynamics of firms hiring strategies. the main predictions are: the share of formal employment rises as the unemployment rate falls, and that the formal-informal wage gap increases, at least at the beginning of the economic expansion. in the empirical part, we use longitudinal microdata from a brazilian household survey to check whether these two predictions are confirmed. to a large extent our results corroborate both predictions. %K informality %K business-cycle %K hirings. %U http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S0034-71402012000200004&lng=en&nrm=iso&tlng=en