Shadow Economy

Friedrich Schneider ()

Chapter 28 in Readings in Public Choice and Constitutional Political Economy, 2008, pp 511-532 from Springer

Abstract: Crime and shadow economic activities are a fact of life around the world, and almost all societies engage in trying to control these activities through education, punishment, or prosecution. Gathering statistics about who is active in the shadow economy activities, the frequency with which underground activities occur and the magnitude of these activities is crucial for making effective and efficient decisions regarding allocating resources in this area. Obviously it is difficult to get accurate information about underground or shadow economy activities because individuals engaged in these activities wish to remain unidentified. Hence, estimation of shadow economy activities can be considered a scientific passion for knowing the unknowable. The attempts at measurement are obviously problematic,2 since shadow economy activities are performed in such a way as to avoid any official detection. Moreover, if you ask an academic, a public sector specialist, a policy or economic analyst, or a politician, what is going on in the shadow economy, and even just how big it is, you will get a wide range of answers.3 In spite of this, there is growing concern over the phenomenon of shadow economy, and there are several important reasons why politicians and public sector workers should be especially worried about its rise and growth.

Keywords: Informal Sector; Shadow Economy; Underground Economy; Hide Economy; Shadow Economy Activity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2008
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
Book: The Shadow Economy (2016)
Book: The Shadow Economy (2013)
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:spr:sprchp:978-0-387-75870-1_28

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9780387758701

DOI: 10.1007/978-0-387-75870-1_28

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Springer Books from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().