The Strange Case of Dr. “Unemployed†and Mr “Hidden†in Italy

While the literature is unanimous in considering unemployment and underground employment as strongly connected and interdependent phenomena, the link between existing causality is controversial. This empirical paper aims at clarifying this intricate relationship. Precisely, two key results emerge from the analysis. The first shows that unemployment (positively) influences the underground employment and vice versa. The second demonstrates that the impact of unemployment on underground employment is stronger than the reverse.