Recently, there has been growing recognition that some formal employees receive from their formal employers two wages, namely an official declared wage plus an additional undeclared (envelope) wage, which reduces the tax and social contributions paid to the authorities. The aim of this paper is...

This paper provides an evidence-based evaluation of the competing ways of explaining and tackling the informal economy. Conventionally, participants have been viewed as rational economic actors who engage in the informal economy when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus participation is...

In transition economies, a significant number of companies reduce their tax and social contributions by paying their staff an official salary, described in a registered formal employment agreement, and an extra, undeclared "envelope wage," via a verbal unwritten agreement. The consequences...