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Shadow Economies and Corruption All Over the World: What Do We Really Know?*

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TLDR
In this article, the authors presented an estimation of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003, showing that shadow economy reduces corruption in high income countries, but increases corruption in low income countries.
Abstract
Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of “official” GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing countries is 38.7%, in 25 transition countries 40.1%, in 21 OECD countries 16.3% and in 3 Communist countries 22.3%. An increased burden of taxation and social security contributions, combined with a labor market regulation are the driving forces of the shadow economy. Furthermore, the results show that the shadow economy reduces corruption in high income countries, but increases corruption in low income countries. Finally, the various estimation methods are discussed and critically evaluated.

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Posted Content

The Impact of Tax Morale and Institutional Quality on the Shadow Economy

TL;DR: In this paper, tax morale and countries' institutional quality affect the shadow economy, controlling in a multivariate analysis for a variety of potential factors, finding strong support for the assertion that a higher tax morale, and a higher institutional quality, lead to a smaller shadow economy.
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The shadow economy

TL;DR: The shadow economy constitutes approximately 10% of GDP in the UK; about 14% in Nordic countries and about 20 - 30% in many southern European countries as mentioned in this paper, and the main drivers of the shadow economy are (in order): tax and social security burdens, tax morale, the quality of state institutions and labour market regulation.
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Shadow Economy, Tax Morale, Governance and Institutional Quality: A Panel Analysis

TL;DR: In this article, the authors analyzed how governance or institutional quality and tax morale affect the shadow economy, using an international country panel and also within country data, using more than 25 proxies that measure governance and institutional quality.
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The Effects of Partisan Alignment on the Allocation of Intergovernmental Transfers: Differences-in-Differences Estimates for Spain

TL;DR: In this article, the authors test the hypothesis that municipalities aligned with upper-tier grantor governments (i.e., controlled by the same party) will receive more grants than those that are unaligned.
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Social Interaction and Urban Sprawl

TL;DR: In this article, the authors test the existence of a positive link between interaction and density using data from the Social Capital Benchmark Survey and find that low density living reduces social capital and thus social interaction.
References
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Journal ArticleDOI

Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences

TL;DR: In this paper, the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries is estimated using various methods, and the average size varies from 12 percent of GDP for OECD countries, to 23 percent for transition countries and 39 percent for developing countries.
Book

Not Just for the Money: An Economic Theory of Personal Motivation

Bruno S. Frey
TL;DR: In this article, a wide-ranging discussion of personal movitation that opens out traditional eonomics to provide a more mature view of individuals as being sensitive to private and moral motives as well as market incentives is provided.
Journal ArticleDOI

The unofficial Economy in Transition

TL;DR: The authors of as mentioned in this paper show that the countries that have had the healthiest public finances, the smallest unofficial economies, and the best records of growth are also the countries with the highest political control of economic life.
Journal ArticleDOI

Dodging the grabbing hand: the determinants of unofficial activity in 69 countries

TL;DR: In this article, the authors found that higher tax rates are associated with less unofficial activity as a percent of GDP but corruption is associated with more unofficial activity, and that corrupt governments become small governments and only relatively uncorrupt governments can sustain high tax rates.
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