This paper evaluates critically whether the cross-national variations in the size of the informal economy are the result of: under-development (a modernisation perspective); high taxes, corruption and state interference (neo-liberal perspective), or inadequate state intervention to protect...

The conventional portrayal of the formal/informal economy dichotomy endows the formal economy with positive attributes and the informal economy with negative characteristics. Recently, this hierarchy has been inverted by scholars portraying the informal economy positively as a chosen alternative...

This paper extends the global sourcing model with informal labor, which spawns reputation and legal costs for violating the rules and regulations imposed on foreign firms regarding accessing informal labor under integration. Under these circumstances, foreign firms, facing a higher cost than...

A taxonomy of underground economies is elaborated based on the new institutional approach to economic development. Members of formal sectors confront different sets of transformation and transaction costs than do members of informal sectors and these differences are regarded as crucial to the...

We consider an economy with two groups of individuals, rich and poor. A central authority can either directly redistribute income to the poor, or allow for some degree of informality in economic activities by not enforcing property rights. The optimal degree of informality depends upon the...

This paper proposes a new approach for quantifying the economic cost of hidden economies. I specifically apply the method to the case of mafia racketeering in Northern Italy, and in so doing, provide the first explicit estimate of the economic cost of mafia spread in this area. I show both...