Explaining Cross-National Variations in the Prevalence and Character of Undeclared Employment in the European Union

The aim of this article is to evaluate the competing theories that variously explain the greater prevalence of undeclared employment in some countries either as: a legacy of under-development; a result of the voluntary exit from declared employment due to the high taxes, state corruption and burdensome regulations and controls, or a product of a lack of state intervention in work and welfare which leads to the exclusion of workers from the declared economy and state welfare provision. Analyzing the cross-national variations in the prevalence of, and reasons for, undeclared employment across the European Union using evidence from a 2007 Eurobarometer survey, the finding is that undeclared employment is less prevalent and more of the voluntary variety in wealthier, less corrupt and more equal societies possessing higher levels of social protection and redistribution via social transfers. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed

Europe’s hidden economy: how governments can bring undeclared work out of the shadows

The so called ‘shadow economy’ refers to work and financial transactions that take place outside of the view of public authorities. Colin C Williams writes on the scale of this problem in Europe, noting that while the estimated size of the undeclared economy in the EU is around 18.4 per cent of GDP, it is far larger in some eastern European and southern European countries. He argues that a mix of deterrence measures, incentives, and indirect controls offers the best route for governments to bring undeclared work into the declared economy

Tackling Undeclared Work in Europe: Lessons from a Study of Ukraine

This article reports a 2005—6 survey that displays the variety of undeclared work in Ukraine, involving not only an array of `off-the-books' employees but also various types of informal self-employment as well as forms of undeclared work more akin to mutual aid. Governments pursuing a conventional deterrent approach towards undeclared work may thus eradicate precisely the entrepreneurship and active citizenship that they otherwise seek to nurture. A more nuanced approach to tackling this sphere is proposed

Mapping the Shadow Economy: Spatial Variations in the use of High Denomination Bank Notes in Brussels

The aim of this paper is to map the spatial variations in the size of the shadow economy within Brussels. Reporting data provided by the National Bank of Belgium on the deposit of high denomination banknotes across bank branches in the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, the finding is that the shadow economy is concentrated in wealthier populations and not in deprived or immigrant communities. The outcome is a call to transcend the association of the shadow economy with marginalized groups and the wider adoption of this indirect method when measuring spatial variations in the shadow economy

Optimal Quantum Circuits for General Two-Qubit Gates

In order to demonstrate non-trivial quantum computations experimentally, such as the synthesis of arbitrary entangled states, it will be useful to understand how to decompose a desired quantum computation into the shortest possible sequence of one-qubit and two-qubit gates. We contribute to this effort by providing a method to construct an optimal quantum circuit for a general two-qubit gate that requires at most 3 CNOT gates and 15 elementary one-qubit gates. Moreover, if the desired two-qubit gate corresponds to a purely real unitary transformation, we provide a construction that requires at most 2 CNOTs and 12 one-qubit gates. We then prove that these constructions are optimal with respect to the family of CNOT, y-rotation, z-rotation, and phase gates.Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures, new title, final journal versio

Beyond capitalocentricism: are non-capitalist work practices "alternatives"?

It is widely believed that there is no alternative to capitalism. Over the last two decades however, the critical geography literature on diverse economies has demonstrated the existence of alternatives to capitalism by revealing the persistence of non-capitalist forms of work and organisation. The aim in this paper is to question the validity and usefulness of continuing to frame these non-capitalist practices as "alternatives". Positioning non-capitalist economic practices as “alternatives” fails to capture not only the ubiquity of such practices in everyday life, but also how those engaging do not see them as “alternatives” in the sense of a second choice, or less desirable option, to capitalist practices. The intention in doing so is to reveal that it is not non-capitalist practices that are “alternative” but rather, capitalist practices themselves, thus opening up the future to the possibility of a non-capitalist world more fully than has so far been the case. Key words: Economic geography qualitative UK capitalism diverse economies community self-hel

Mapping the Social Organization of Labour in Moscow: Beyond the Formal/informal Labour Dualism

The starting point of this paper is recognition that the depiction of a formal/informal labour dualism, which views formal and informal labour as separate and hostile realms, is inappropriate for capturing the range of labour practices in societies. This is because labour practices cannot be neatly separated into discrete formal and informal realms, the differences within the formal and informal spheres are as great as the differences between the two realms, and formal and informal labour are not always embedded in different economic relations, values and motives. Here, an alternative more nuanced conceptual lens is proposed that resolves these problems and in so doing captures the multifarious labour practices in societies, namely the total social organization of labour (TSOL) perspective. This depicts labour practices as existing along a spectrum from more formal-oriented to more informal-oriented practices and cross-cuts this with a further spectrum from non-monetized, through in-kind and reciprocal labour, to monetized labour. Applying this conceptual lens, the results of a survey of the anatomy of labour practices in an affluent, mixed and deprived district of Moscow, comprising 313 face-to-face interviews, are then analysed. This reveals that socio-spatial variations in the organisation of labour are not solely about the degree of formalization of working life. Instead, this study unravels that populations range from relatively affluent \'work busy\' populations undertaking, and voluntarily selecting from, a multiplicity of labour practices, to relatively disadvantaged \'work deprived\' populations engaged in a narrower range of practices and more commonly out of necessity and in the absence of alternatives. The outcome is call for both the wider application and refinement of this TSOL approach when mapping the social organisation of labour and evaluations of whether the findings from Moscow are more widely valid in other societal contexts.Informal Sector; Labour Practices; Livelihoods; Household Work Practices; Economic Sociology; Uneven Development; Eastern Europe; Russia; Moscow

Evaluating the relationship between sustainable development, localisation and the informal economy: evidence from Romania

The aim of this paper is to deepen understanding of the relationship between sustainable development, localisation and the purchase of goods and services from the informal economy. This has not before been investigated. To do so, it reports a survey of 1,209 respondents conducted during October-December 2021 in Romania, a country with one of the largest informal economies in the European Union. The findings reveal a link between consumers’ motives to purchase informal goods and services and the pursuit of sustainable development through localisation. The analysis shows that there is no purely sustainability-driven consumer in the informal economy, but this rationale is prevalent as one of several motives for a large proportion of consumers purchasing goods and services from the informal economy, who do so explicitly for the purposes of environmental protection and localisation. The implications for theorising and tackling the informal economy are then discussed

Explaining and tackling the shadow economy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: a tax morale approach

To explain the shadow economy in the Baltic states of Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia, this paper evaluates the relationship between the shadow economy and tax morale. Viewing tax morale as a measure of the symmetry between the codified laws and regulations of formal institutions (state morality) and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal institutions (civic morality), the proposition is that the lower the tax morale (i.e. the greater the asymmetry between state morality and civic morality), the greater is the likelihood to participate in the shadow economy. To evaluate this, a 2013 survey is reported involving 3036 face-to-face interviews in these 3 Baltic nations. Using logistic regression analysis, the finding is that the likelihood of participating in the shadow economy is greater, the lower is the tax morality of individuals, population groups and countries. In addition, the likelihood to participate is shadow economy is found to significantly vary by, for example, gender, employment status and country, people living in Latvia and Lithuania displaying significantly lower likelihood to engage in the shadow economy. The paper then explores the implications for theorizing and tackling the shadow economy