This paper evaluates critically competing explanations for participation in undeclared work that either read engagement through a structuralist lens as driven by ‘exclusion' from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy or through a neo-liberal and/or post-structuralist lens as...

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to move beyond the market/non-market divide and to recognise the plurality of labour practices in societies by adopting a variant of what Glucksmann calls “a total social organisation of labour” approach.Design/methodology/approach – To transcend the...

To evaluate critically the recurring assumption that a job is either formal or informal, but never simultaneously both, this paper uncovers how in South-Eastern Europe many formal employees receive not only a declared wage from their formal employer but also an additional undeclared...

This paper critically evaluates the recent shift away from a "thin" reading of monetary exchange, which views money transactions as universally market-like and profit-motivated, towards "thicker" readings of exchange, which identify the permeation of wider economic relations and not-for-profit...

The Soviet Union's collapse brought economic uncertainty to many Ukrainians. Approximately 20 percent of the population, 10 million people, currently survive on incomes below the state-set subsistence minimum figure. Given the unrealistic nature of this state-produced definition, “poverty”...

Purpose – A dominant belief is that the continuing encroachment of the market economy into everyday life is inevitable, unstoppable and irreversible. Over the past decade, however, a small stream of thought has started to question this commercialization thesis. This paper seeks to contribute...

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...

This paper evaluates critically the conventional hierarchical representation of the formal/informal employment dualism, which depicts formal employment as extensive and positively contributing to economic development and social cohesion, and the separate realm of informal employment as weaker,...

This paper investigates the relationship between entrepreneurship and off-the-books work. Until now, although it has been recognised that a share of off-the-books transactions are conducted by nascent entrepreneurs and the established self-employed, few have evaluated what proportion of...

This paper evaluates the commonality in Eastern European economies of the employment practice whereby formal employers pay their formal employees both a declared wage and an undeclared ‘envelope wage'. Until now, little survey evidence has been available. Here, an extensive Eurobarometer...