The main focus of this paper lies on the driving forces of the development and size of the shadow economy in 39 highly developed OECD countries. The most influential factors on the shadow economy are tax policies and state regulation, which, if rising, increase the shadow economy, though other,...

This paper presents an empirical analysis of the relationship between fiscal illusion and the shadow economy for 104 countries over the period 1989-2009. We argue that both unobservable phenomena are closely linked to each other, as the creation of a fiscal illusion may be helpful if governments...

This paper presents the various methods to estimate the size of the shadow economy, their strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it demonstrates that no ideal method to estimate the size and development of the shadow economy exists. Because of its flexibility,...

The issues of privatization (and sometimes deregulation) have been reviewed in a large literature on the various aspects of privatization, that has emphasized the potential efficiency gains. Hence, we provide some theoretical reasoning why privatization is useful as well as profitable for an...

There is a widespread feeling that a substantial and increasing share of activities take place outside the official economy. This holds, in particular, for developing and transition but also for high income economies. Such activities are unrecorded by the system of national income accounting,...

The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour markets in the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States and candidate countries of the European Union. First, the current situation of the labour market is described, focusing on the recent developments since the breaking up of...

This paper analyses how tax morale and countries’ institutional quality affect the shadow economy, controlling in a multivariate analysis for a variety of potential factors. The literature strongly emphasizes the quantitative importance of these factors to understand the level and changes of...

Using the currency demand approach size and development of the Colombian shadow economy are estimated over the period from 1976 to 2002. In the 70s the size fluctuated around 20% of official GDP and rose to 50% in the 90s. The most important factors driving the shadow economy are unemployment...

The study evaluates the efficiency of government intervention using a vertical structured model including imperfectly competitive agricultural input markets, the bread grain market, and the imperfectly competitive food industry. To test for policy efficiency the actually observed bread grain...

Using various methods estimates about the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition and OECD countries are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (in percent of GDP) over 1989-93 in developing countries is 39 %, in transition countries 23 % and in OECD countries 12 %. An...