Size and causes of the underground economy in Spain: a correction of the record and new evidence from the MCDR approach

Michael Pickhardt and Jordi Sardà ()

European Journal of Law and Economics, 2015, vol. 39, issue 2, 403-429

Abstract: We review existing estimates of the size of the Spanish underground economy, apply the Ahumada et al. (Rev Income Wealth 53(2):363–371, 2007 ) correction procedure to some of them and calculate the size of the underground economy in Spain for the period 1960–2009 by using the modified-cash-deposits-ratio (MCDR) approach recently developed by Pickhardt and Sardà (Eur J Law Econ 32(1):143–163, 2011) . We then extend the MCDR approach with respect to an analysis of the causes of the Spanish underground economy. Contrary to most other studies, we show that the latter is not predominantly caused by tax pressure, but by labor market aspects, macroeconomic influences and criminal activities. Based on these findings we derive some unprecedented policy recommendations. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media New York 2015

Keywords: Underground economy; Shadow economy; Hidden economy; Cash-deposit-ratio; Currency demand approach; MIMIC approach; O17; H26; C22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s10657-013-9431-y (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
Working Paper: Size and causes of the underground economy in Spain: A correction of the record and new evidence from the MCDR approach (2011)
Working Paper: Size and causes of the underground economy in Spain: A correction of the record and new evidence from the MCDR approach
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:ejlwec:v:39:y:2015:i:2:p:403-429

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/journal/10657

DOI: 10.1007/s10657-013-9431-y

Access Statistics for this article

European Journal of Law and Economics is currently edited by Jürgen Georg Backhaus, Giovanni B. Ramello and Alain Marciano

More articles in European Journal of Law and Economics from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().