Documents hidden economy 80 results

"The main aim of this research was to analyse the phenomenon of undeclared labour in the construction industry and to assess best practices to prevent and combat undeclared labour.
The share of undeclared labour in construction output and employment appears to be much higher in all countries than the average share of undeclared labour in GDP or overall employment. The authors found enough evidence to conclude that:
the highest occurrence of undeclared labour relates to work carried out by workers next to their regular job.
the status of self-employment is abused, with bogus practices by national citizens as well as foreign ‘independent' workers entering the market through labour-only subcontracting.
dubious agencies and labour traffickers supplying cheap illegal labour mainly from abroad have returned. But “illegal never complain and work hard” and only little “persuasion” is needed because of their illegal status. "

"Negli ultimi dieci anni la soglia di attenzione ai risvolti economici e sociali di quello che può essere definito il circuito delle illegalità è cresciuta notevolmente. La tesi che comincia a trovare forte consen- so è quella secondo cui marginalità, diffusione del lavoro sommerso, criminalità e altre forme di irregolarità del tessuto imprenditoriale rappresentano oggi uno dei principali ostacoli alla crescita econo- mico-sociale di un territorio. Difatti, se si guarda alle dinamiche di sviluppo, la persistenza di tali fenomeni disegna un arco di criticità che impedisce ogni possibilità sia di implementazione che di inve- stimento di capitali ottenendo, come risultato, un forte ritardo pro- prio in quelle aree dove questo fenomeno è più pervasivo. … "

"Homeworkers are a globally significant part of the informal workforce, commonly regarded as invisible because their work is not recognized (Burchielli et al., 2008; Prugl, 1999). In this qualitative study, we examine homeworker invisibility in the case of Argentinian garment homework using the concepts of work invisibilization and work denial.The work invisibilization concept (Krinsky and Simonet, 2012), referring to devalorized work resulting from the neoliberal agenda, is used to understand recent global trends away from standard work arrangements/protections. Arising from the social relations of domination, invisibilized work is precarious, with irregular/ non-existent employment contracts and relationships. Invisibilization thus provides a valuable lens for analysing homework, which shares key characteristics with emerging forms of invisibilized employment. Homework however, has not transformed but has always been informal, characterized by inferior standards. To account for this, we articulate a concept of denial of work.Cohen's (2001) concept of denial describes broad dimensions, including different forms, strategies and levels of denial. Adapting these, we construct a framework to analyze the denial of Argentinian garment homework, enabling a detailed examination of the specific social actors and processes involved in casting homework as non-work.In considering the denial of homework in relation to invisibilization, we argue that these are related but distinct concepts. Used together, they help explain the low-power condition of two types of garment homeworkers in Argentina while also accounting for their differences: the mostly male, migrant workers employed in clandestine workshops (such as the Bolivians interviewed in our study), and the traditional, mostly female, Argentinian garment homeworkers.Our findings suggest that Bolivian immigrant homeworkers are partially visibilized due to NGO advocacy. However, as there are no improvements to their working conditions, they remained largely invisibilized through the effects of capitalism. By contrast, traditional women homeworkers have no representation and internalize their condition: their invisibilization is explained by the cumulative effects of capitalism and patriarchy."

"Areas of industrial decline, with poor quality local government and poor infrastructure, frequently find a kind of economic success through the shadow economy. But illegality imposes constraints on the kind of success that can be achieved. The study of such areas in central Poland and southern Italy reveals considerable similarities, despite the fact that the former was part of the former state socialist bloc, the latter not. In both regions, small and medium-sized textile and clothing firms were flourishing within the limits of the shadow economy following the collapse of large corporations in the area. There were, however, important differences. Italian public policy has provided some possible routes out of the shadow economy, and its distinctive governance, which has been taken advantage of to a limited extent by firms, while Polish policy continues to deny that the problem exists. Also, because of the presence of leading clothing brands elsewhere in Italy, southern Italian firms have access to routes for upgrading their activities that are largely unavailable to their Polish counterparts."

"« Le 16 novembre 2009, un homme était abattu sur une route de campagne déserte dans la Plaine orientale de la Corse. Je l'avais rencontré une semaine auparavant à l'occasion d'un documentaire sur les filières d'immigration clandestine. Il s'appelait El Hassan M'Sarhati. Il m'avait raconté comment un passeur l'avait acheminé dans l'île, comment il avait travaillé pour des patrons inhumains, comment il se retrouvait à cette époque sans ressource, sans travail, les mains fracturées. Ce jour-là, j'ai fait mon métier, je l'ai convaincu de parler. Il a accepté en m'avertissant : Si je parle, ils vont me mettre en balle dans la tête. C'est ce qui est arrivé. »
La justice n'a jamais su qui étaient ces ils. Les assassins n'ont jamais été retrouvés.
Antoine Albertini a voulu reconstituer le parcours de cet homme exécuté dans le dos, d'une balle de fusil de chasse. Il a enquêté. Visité les mobils homes où vivent des milliers de déracinés, serfs des temps modernes, qui récoltent le raisin, les kiwis, les clémentines dans les champs corses. Il a rencontré des immigrés clandestins, des avocats, des gendarmes, des vignerons. A travers le destin tragique d'El Hassan, Antoine Albertini révèle le sort de milliers d'hommes dont on ne parle jamais, il décrit une économie, une société, un monde caché. Lorsque le rosé bu par les touristes sur une plage de Porto-Vecchio a un arrière-goût de sueur d'esclaves. "

"The shadow economy has long been an area of research for policymakers. The determinants of underground activity of late have been identified as high tax burdens and increased regulation, but has this relationship always existed? This seminal work examines the shadow economy in Norway, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States over the past 145 (from 1870 to 2015) years using the Currency Demand Approach and finds that the underground economy is stabilising. To our knowledge this is the first attempt to estimate the size and development of the shadow economy over such a long period and due to this we get some new insights. Our results clearly show that the shadow economy in earlier times was considerably higher than in the last 50 years. This paper also analyses whether a plateau has been reached and questions what efforts could be made to further reduce this informal economy."

"This paper is a first attempt to study the size and development of the shadow economies of 157 countries over 1999 to 2013. Using a MIMIC model, we find that higher tax and regulatory burden, unemployment and self-employment rates are drivers of the shadow economy, meaning that an increase of these causal variables increases the shadow economy. Our result also confirms previous findings of Friedrich Schneider, Andreas Buehn and Claudia Montenegro (2010). The estimated average of informality of 157 countries around the world, including developing, eastern European, central Asian and high income OECD countries averaged over 1999 to 2013 is 33.77% of official GDP. A critical discussion about the size of these macro-estimates comes to the conclusion that most likely the "true" shadow economy of these countries is only 69% of their estimated macro-MIMIC-values."