The paper aims at comparing the formal and informal labour markets in the Central and Eastern European new EU Member States and candidate countries of the European Union. First, the current situation of the labour market is described, focusing on the recent developments since the breaking up of...

This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions in explaining developments of shadow economies in European countries. We use several alternative measures of the shadow sector, and we examine effects of labor institutions on shadow sector in two specific regions: new and old European...

This paper examines the drivers, and reestimates the size of shadow economies in Europe, with a focus on the emerging economies, and recommends policies to increase formality. The size of shadow economies declined across Europe in recent years but remains significant, especially in Eastern...

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...

Inspired by a stream of cultural economic geographical thought that has sought to de-construct the view that monetary transactions are everywhere market-like and profit-motivated, this paper seeks to re-read the nature of undeclared work. Conventionally, such work has been seen as epitomising...

In recent years, participants in the informal economy have started to be viewed less as rational economic actors who engage in the informal economy when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished, and more as social actors who engage when their tax morale (i.e.,...

In recent years, it has been increasingly recognised that governments seeking to tackle undeclared work effectively should adopt a holistic approach. This seeks to coordinate strategy across the fields of labour, tax and social security law, and to use the full range of policy measures...

The aim of this report is to provide a systematic overview of the extent and nature of undeclared work, and how it is being tackled, in the EU acceding country of Croatia . Croatia has been classified by the World Bank as a ‘high income’ country, having a GNI per capita of USD 13,760 in...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate contrasting policy approaches towards undeclared work. To do so, evidence is reported from 1,000 face-to-face interviews conducted in Croatia during 2013. Logistic regression analysis reveals no association between participation in undeclared work and the...

This paper offers a new approach to measuring the size of the informal economy based on VAT data for the European Union. Although data intensive, our EVADE measure is simpler and more transparent than existing measures. EVADE also shows more variation across countries of Europe than earlier...