The paper estimates the size of shadow economy for 111 countries for the years 1984 to 2006 based on the currency demand approach. An important innovation is our use of dynamic panel data methods, which allows us to make several important contributions. First, we estimate the shadow economy for...

We study the relationship between the underground economy and financial development in a model of tax evasion and bank intermediation. Agents with heterogeneous skills seek loans in order to undertake risky investment projects. Asymmetric information between borrowers and lenders implies a menu...

How do government-supplied institutional benefits and the taxation and regulation of produc- ers affect the propensity of private firms to enter the unofficial economy and evade taxation? We propose a model in which the incentive of firms to operate underground depends on tax rates relative to...

Using various methods (currency demand, physical input (electricity) measure, model approach), which are discussed and criticized, estimates about the size of 67 developing, transition and OECD countries are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (in % of GDP) over 1989-93 in...

The shadow economy is represented by the whole economic activities which are realized at the border of the criminal laws, social laws or fiscal laws or which are skipping (massive) from the inventory of national accounts. The paper is intended to quantify and analyze the impact of the shadow...

Using the DYMIMIC approach, estimates of the shadow economy in 145 developing, transition, developed OECD countries, South Pacific islands and still communist countries are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (in percent of official GDP) over 2002/2003 in developing countries is...

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...

This paper reports a negative relationship between the size of the shadow economy and generalized trust, in a sample of countries, both developed and developing. That relationship is robust to controlling for a large set of economic, policy, and institutional variables, to changing the estimate...

The purpose of this working paper is to identify the main factors that are at the origin of the Shadow Economy in Portugal, and to analyze its evolution over the period between 1977 and 2011. For the econometric analysis we used the Structural Model of Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes -...