Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions

Andreas Buehn and Friedrich Schneider ()

No 2013-20, Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria

Abstract: This paper presents the various methods to estimate the size of the shadow economy, their strengths and weaknesses. The purpose of the paper is twofold. Firstly, it demonstrates that no ideal method to estimate the size and development of the shadow economy exists. Because of its flexibility, the MIMIC method used to get macro-estimates of the size of the shadow economy is discussed in greater detail. Secondly, the paper focuses on the definition and causal factors of the shadow economy as well as on a comparison of the size of the shadow economy using different estimation methods.

Keywords: shadow economy estimates; MIMIC approach; methods to estimate the shadow economy; advantages and disadvantages of the measurement methods (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: D78 E26 H11 H2 H26 K42 O17 O5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 40 pages
Date: 2013-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-iue and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (33)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.econ.jku.at/papers/2013/wp1320.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions (2016)
Working Paper: Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions (2016)
Working Paper: Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:jku:econwp:2013_20

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics working papers from Department of Economics, Johannes Kepler University Linz, Austria Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by René Böheim ().