Can e-government limit the scope of the informal economy?

Nasr Elbahnasawy

World Development, 2021, vol. 139, issue C

Abstract: The study explores the potential association between e-government and the informal economy. We find that e-government is a powerful instrument to lessen informal economic activities, which is robust to different estimation techniques, subsamples of developing countries, and a wide array of controls and alternative measures. The long-run effect of e-government on lessening informal production is substantially higher than the short-run effect. The strength of e-government appears to be in its entirety, although we find evidence of more influence driven by the development of telecommunications infrastructure. Interaction models show that e-government reinforces the effect of various factors on informal economy reduction. Panel Granger causality tests indicate that causality between e-government and shadow economy is bidirectional.

Keywords: E-government; Informal economy; Shadow economy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O17 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (19)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:wdevel:v:139:y:2021:i:c:s0305750x2030468x

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105341

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