Illegitimate wage practices in Eastern Europe: - The case of 'envelope wages'

Colin Williams

Journal of East European Management Studies, 2008, vol. 13, issue 3, 253 - 270

Abstract: To evaluate the prevalence in Eastern Europe of a little discussed illegitimate wage practice in which employers pay their formal employees both a declared wage and an undeclared ‘envelope wage’, an extensive survey involving 10,671 face-to-face interviews in eleven post-socialist societies is here reported. The finding is that 10 per cent of all employees received envelope wages during the last 12 months amounting on average to two-fifths of their gross annual wage. Revealing how although unevenly distributed, this wage practice is nonetheless ubiquitous throughout Eastern Europe, the paper concludes by briefly reviewing policy options for tackling this labour arrangement.

Keywords: Envelope wages; informal economy; shadow sector; tax compliance; undeclared work; Eastern Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J24 J31 M10 M20 P31 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.hampp-verlag.de/hampp_e-journals_JEMS.htm#308 (text/html)

Related works:
Journal Article: Illegitimate wage practices in Eastern Europe: - The case of 'envelope wages' (2008)
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:rai:joeems:doi_10.1688/1862-0019_jeems_2008_03_williams

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
Rainer Hampp Verlag, Journals, Vorderer Lech 35, 86150 Augsburg, Germany. A subscripton is required to access pdf files. Pay per article is available at
http://www.hampp-verlag.de/Hampp_Recherche_e.htm

Access Statistics for this article

Journal of East European Management Studies is currently edited by Thomas Steger, editor-in chief

More articles in Journal of East European Management Studies from Rainer Hampp Verlag
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Rainer Hampp ( this e-mail address is bad, please contact ).