The devil is in the shadow. Do institutions affect income and productivity or only official income and official productivity?

Axel Dreher, Pierre-Guillaume Méon and Friedrich Schneider ()

No 12-019, Working Papers CEB from ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles

Abstract: This paper assesses the relationship between institutions, output, and productivity when official output is corrected for the size of the shadow economy. Our results confirm the usual positive impact of institutional quality on official output and total factor productivity, and its negative impact on the size of the underground economy. However, once output is corrected for the shadow economy, the relationship between institutions and output becomes weaker. The impact of institutions on total (“corrected”) factor productivity becomes insignificant. Differences in corrected output must then be attributed to differences in factor endowments. These results survive several tests for robustness.

Keywords: shadow economy; income; aggregate productivity; development accounting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O11 O17 O47 O50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 52 p.
Date: 2012-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-eff and nep-iue
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Working Paper: The Devil Is in the Shadow. Do Institutions Affect Income and Productivity or Only Official Income and Official Productivity? (2007)
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