The existence of a broad range of economic activities in the “shadow” of the official economy is nothing fundamentally new. However, there are signs that the shift into the shadow economy has been increasing considerably from the seventies onwards. Whereas growth in the “official”...

Not only has the shadow economy obviously been growing much more rapidly than the official economy in the Western industrialised countries, it also appears to have a growth cycle of its own, running counter to the official economy's growth cycle. This raises a number of important questions for...