How does entry regulation influence entry into self-employment and occupational mobility?

We analyse how an entry regulation that imposes a mandatory educational standard affects entry into self-employment and occupational mobility. We exploit German reunification as a natural experiment and identify regulatory effects by comparing differences between regulated and unregulated occupations in East Germany with the corresponding differences in West Germany after reunification. Consistent with our expectations, we find that entry regulation reduces entry into self-employment and occupational mobility after reunification more in regulated occupations in East Germany than in West Germany. Our findings are relevant for transition or emerging economies as well as for mature market economies requiring large structural changes after unforeseen economic shocks. Copyright (c) 2009 The Authors. Journal compilation (c) 2009 The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

Survey on the Shadow Economy and Undeclared Earnings in OECD Countries

In most OECD countries the policy instrument of choice to prevent people from working in the shadows has been deterrence. While deterrence is well founded from a theoretical point of view, the empirical evidence on its success is weak: tax policies and state deregulation appear to work much better. The discussion of the recent literature underlines that in addition to economic opportunities, the overall situation in the labor market and unemployment are crucial for an understanding of the dynamics of the shadow economy. Copyright 2010 The Authors. Journal Compilation Verein für Socialpolitik and Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2010.