While examining the macroeconomic effects of increased government control of the informal sector, this paper develops a two-sector general equilibrium model featuring matching frictions and worker-firm wage bargaining. Workers search for jobs in both the formal and the informal sector. We...

The underground economy crucially affects growth and unemployment in both developed and developing countries. Nevertheless, this widespread phenomenon does not appear in the basic model for macroeconomic analysis, namely the Aggregate Demand-Aggregate Supply (or simply AD-AS) model. Therefore,...

Fiscal consolidation literature often neglects that there are economies with a sizable underground sector and that most of time it is accounted in GDP statistics. This produces non negligible effects on fiscal multipliers. This paper explores a fiscal consolidation plan calling for a downsizing...