This paper analyzes the role of labor market institutions in explaining developments of shadow economies in European countries. We use several alternative measures of the shadow sector, and we examine effects of labor institutions on shadow sector in two specific regions: new and old European...

The European Social Survey data are used to analyze informal employment at the main job in 30 countries. Overall, informality decreases from South to West to East to North. However, dependent work without contract is more prevalent in Eastern Europe than in the West, except for Ireland, the UK...

Since the turn of the millennium, there has been widespread recognition that the informal economy is a sizeable and growing feature in the global economy. To explain this, neo-liberals have contended that the informal economy is a direct result of over-regulation, high taxes and state...

The analysis of employment relations needs to include work in the informal economy. For this purpose, we propose a ‘degrees of informalization' framework that evaluates the proportion of employment relations infused with informality and the nature of this permeation. We apply this framework to...

Despite the emergent recognition that many in the informal economy work on a self-employed basis, few have evaluated the extent and character of such endeavour. To start to fill this gap, a 2007 Eurobarometer survey composed of 26,659 face-to-face interviews in 27 European countries is reported....

The aim of this paper is to unravel the heterogeneous nature of undeclared work across the European Union and to evaluate the consequences for tackling such work. Until now, most studies of undeclared work have sought to measure the variations in its magnitude. Far fewer have evaluated the...

This article reveals that formal labour markets in the European Union are not always quite as pure, wholesome and legitimate as might be supposed. Until now, it has been commonly assumed that the formal economy is separate and discrete from the informal economy. To contribute to the emerging...

To tackle participation in unregistered employment, the conventional policy approach has been to deter such work by increasing the penalties and risk of detection. Recently, an alternative preventative approach has emerged that tackles participation in unregistered employment by improving...

In recent years, participants in the informal economy have started to be viewed less as rational economic actors who engage in the informal economy when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished, and more as social actors who engage when their tax morale (i.e.,...

In recent years, it has been increasingly recognised that governments seeking to tackle undeclared work effectively should adopt a holistic approach. This seeks to coordinate strategy across the fields of labour, tax and social security law, and to use the full range of policy measures...