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...

When seeking to harness entrepreneurship and enterprise culture, governments often seek to transfer policy measures successful in another country to their own. Until now however, governments have often lacked a practical evaluation framework for selecting policy measures and then appraising the...

The aim of this article is to evaluate competing theories that variously explain the greater prevalence of envelope wages in some countries either as: a legacy of underdevelopment (modernisation thesis); due to high taxes, state corruption and burdensome regulations and controls (neo-liberal...

This paper proposes a way of explaining the undeclared economy that represents participation in undeclared work as a violation of the social contract between the state and its citizens, and as arising when the informal institutions comprising the norms, values and beliefs of citizens (civic...

The aim of this article is to evaluate the competing theories that variously explain the greater prevalence of undeclared employment in some countries either as: a legacy of under-development; a result of the voluntary exit from declared employment due to the high taxes, state corruption and...

Attempts to nurture community self-help in deprived neighbourhoods presently tend to pursue the ‘third sector' route of developing community-based groups. Reporting data from recent UK government surveys of community involvement, however, this article uncovers how such a third sector approach...

Purpose – The magnitude of the informal economy has been estimated using either indirect measurement methods that employ proxy indicators or small-scale household surveys. This paper seeks to provide an analysis of the findings of the first direct survey in an advanced market economy of...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to contribute to the literature that has sought to deconstruct this ideologically driven depiction by demonstrating how the existent enterprise culture in post-Soviet spaces not only challenges the depiction of the entrepreneur as a heroic icon of the...

PurposeA recurring assumption across the social sciences is that non-commodified work has been increasingly replaced by the commodified sphere in which goods and services are produced and delivered for monetary exchange by capitalist firms for profit-motivated purposes. Here, this thesis is...

PurposeViewing undeclared work as low-paid exploitative organised employment conducted under sweatshop conditions, public policy has widely treated this illegitimate sphere as a hindrance to development and actively pursued its deterrence using stringent regulations and punitive measures to...