The main goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide a general overview of thecontributions to the literature on the informal sector, with a special focus on the PublicChoice approach; and (2) to compare these contributions across two institutionallydifferent types of countries: developed and...

Recent literature on tax evasion emphasizes the importance of moral considerations to explain compliance behavior. As a consequence scholars aim to identify factors that shape this so-called tax morale. However, the causal link between tax morale and actual compliance behavior is not established...

This paper develops a four-sector equilibrium search and matching model with informal sector employment opportunities and educational choice. We show that underground activities reduce educational attainments if informal employment opportunities mainly are available for low-educated workers. A...

Tax evasion is widespread in transition economies. There are two main reasons: the lack of infrastructure to collect taxes and the widespread belief on the part of taxpayers that there is little or no moral duty to pay taxes. This paper reports the results of a survey on the ethics of tax...

This paper provides an evidence-based evaluation of the competing ways of explaining and tackling the informal economy. Conventionally, participants have been viewed as rational economic actors who engage in the informal economy when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus participation is...

Business income is systematically underreported and accounts for a sizeable share of the US tax gap. In this paper, I examine the importance of tax evasion in the entrepreneurial sector for the effects of tax reforms. In particular, I analyze the long-run effects of switching from a progressive...

In order to reduce the shadow economy, in 2013 and 2014 the Hungarian government introduced mandatory online cash registers (OCR) in some sectors. As a result, almost 200,000 OCRs have been installed by 100,000 enterprises. In this paper we use micro data to estimate the effect of OCR...

The extent of tax compliance has important implications for revenue yield, efficiency and the fairness of any tax system. Tax evasion undermines revenue collection, distorts competition, and undermines a country's development prospects. In this paper, we investigate whether higher productivity...

Recently, there has been growing recognition that some formal employees receive from their formal employers two wages, namely an official declared wage plus an additional undeclared (envelope) wage, which reduces the tax and social contributions paid to the authorities. The aim of this paper is...

While examining the macroeconomic effects of government tax and punishment policies, this paper develops a three-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Workers are assumed to differ in ability, and the choice of education is determined...