Purpose – Although it has been recognised that many entrepreneurs operate in the informal economy, little is so far known about their reasons for doing so. The purpose of this paper is to begin to unravel entrepreneurs’ rationales for trading in the informal economy in order to consider what...

Those engaging in tax non-compliance have been conventionally explained as rational economic actors partaking when the benefits outweigh the costs, and thus public administrations have sought to enforce compliance using a deterrence approach which increases the risk of detection and penalties....

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether men and women starting a business use the informal economy and do so to test the viability of their venture. Design/methodology/approach – To do this, the results of a survey of 595 small business owners in the UK conducted in August...

To help countries make progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 8.3.1 ("Proportion of informal employment in non-agriculture employment, by sex"), this paper presents an integrated strategic policy approach. This is where: a national government facilitates the...

This article evaluates critically the competing explanations for informal sector entrepreneurship that read such endeavours to result from either ‘exclusion' from state benefits and the circuits of the modern economy or the voluntary ‘exit' of workers from formal institutions. Reporting...