Throughout the western world, the informal economy is now a priority for action in public policy circles. This paper analyzes how the UK government has sought to tackle this issue by attempting to join-up the myriad of actions being taken across government with regard to this realm, and...

The aim of this paper is to unravel the heterogeneous nature of undeclared work across the European Union and to evaluate the consequences for tackling such work. Until now, most studies of undeclared work have sought to measure the variations in its magnitude. Far fewer have evaluated the...

The aim of this paper is to conduct an exploratory analysis of factors that might explain the cross-national variations in the level tax morality across the European Union. In order to do this, three competing explanations for the cross-national variations in tax morality will be evaluated which...

Drawing inspiration from institutional theory, a small sub-stream of literature has proposed that participation in the informal economy arises from the lack of alignment of a society's formal institutions (i.e. its codified laws and regulations) with its informal institutions (i.e. the norms,...

This paper evaluates critically whether the cross-national variations in the size of the informal economy are the result of: under-development (a modernisation perspective); high taxes, corruption and state interference (neo-liberal perspective), or inadequate state intervention to protect...

Undeclared work is socially accepted and widely practiced in Bulgaria, Croatia, and the FYR of Macedonia. More than 1 in 5 adults in these countries acknowledge that they have bought goods and services on the undeclared economy in the prior year. More than 1 in 12 report that they have...

Undeclared work is socially accepted and widely practiced in Bulgaria. The undeclared economy is estimated at roughly a third of GDP. Nearly one in ten people do some undeclared work. Undeclared work is motivated primarily by lack of trust between the people and the authorities. It involves...

To evaluate critically the policy options available for tackling the undeclared economy, this paper commences by evaluating the implications of four hypothetical policy choices, namely doing nothing, de-regulating the declared economy, eradicating the undeclared economy, or moving undeclared...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the public policy approach that seeks to tackle the underground economy in deprived populations by deterring people from engaging in such work by ensuring that the expected cost of being caught and punished is greater than the economic benefit of...