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Full-Text Articles in Business

Starting-Up Unregistered And Firm Performance In Turkey, Colin C. Williams Mar 2018

Starting-Up Unregistered And Firm Performance In Turkey, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Recent years have seen a questioning of the negative representation of
informal sector entrepreneurship and an emergent view that it may offer significant
benefits. This paper advances this rethinking by evaluating the relationship between
business registration and future firm performance. Until now, the assumption has been
that starting-up unregistered is linked to weaker firm performance. Using World Bank
Enterprise Survey data on 2494 formal enterprises in Turkey, and controlling for other
determinants of firm performance as well as the endogeneity of the registration
decision, the finding is that formal enterprises that started-up unregistered and spent
longer unregistered have significantly higher …


Do Deterrents Prevent Undeclared Work? An Evaluation Of The Rational Economic Actor Approach, Ioana Horodnic, Colin C. Williams Jan 2018

Do Deterrents Prevent Undeclared Work? An Evaluation Of The Rational Economic Actor Approach, Ioana Horodnic, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

Across the member states of the European Union and beyond, paid transactions occur that are not declared to the state for tax, social security and/or labour law purposes when they should be declared. This is not a minority practice. The undeclared economy is estimated to be equivalent to 17.9 per cent of the EU28 GDP in 2016. Similarly, it is estimated that 9.3 per cent of total labour input in the private sector in the EU28 is undeclared and that undeclared work constitutes on average 14.3 per cent of gross value added in the private sector. Furthermore, in 2013, 4 …


Undeclared Economic Activities Of Croatian Companies Findings From A Representative Survey Of 521 Companies, Colin C. Williams Sep 2017

Undeclared Economic Activities Of Croatian Companies Findings From A Representative Survey Of 521 Companies, Colin C. Williams

Colin C Williams

This report presents the findings of a survey on undeclared economic practices undertaken by Croatian companies. In order to obtain the rigorous evidence on undeclared work in Croatia, we previously investigated citizens’ experiences with undeclared work and the practice of envelope wages. With this representative survey of 521 companies, we focus on frequency of company engagement in the undeclared economy.


Under-Declaring Work, Falsely Declaring Work: Under-Declared Employment In The European Union, Colin C. Williams, Ioana Horodnic Sep 2017

Under-Declaring Work, Falsely Declaring Work: Under-Declared Employment In The European Union, Colin C. Williams, Ioana Horodnic

Colin C Williams

Under-declared employment occurs when a formal employer pays a formal employee an official declared wage but also an additional undeclared (‘envelope’) wage in order to evade the full social insurance and tax liabilities owed. The aim of this study is to evaluate the prevalence, characteristics and distribution of this fraudulent wage practice in the EU28, to explain its existence, to provide an evidence-based evaluation of the effectiveness of different policy approaches for tackling it, and propose a set of policy recommendations.

Prevalence, characteristics and distribution of under-declared employment
To evaluate the prevalence, characteristics and distribution of under-declared employment in the …


Greypolicybrief2_Macedonia.Pdf, Colin C. Williams, Peter Rodgers, Ruslan Stefanov Aug 2017

Greypolicybrief2_Macedonia.Pdf, Colin C. Williams, Peter Rodgers, Ruslan Stefanov

Colin C Williams

KEY POINTS
Ø  Undeclared work hasdeep roots in FYR of Macedonia. 1 in 16 adults and 1 in 8 of the employed engage in undeclared work. The use of informal connections to circumvent formal institutions is practiced by 35% of Macedonians.
Ø  Formal institutions in the country are underdeveloped. Unemployment also remains unusually high compared with the EU average.
Ø  The traditional repression approach to tackling undeclared work, which has been prioritised so far by the authorities, is ineffective.
Ø  Increasing penalties and surveillance/ control should at the very least be supplemented by public awareness …


Tackling Undeclared Work In Bulgaria: Knowledge-Informed Policy Responses, Ruslan Stefanov, Colin C. Williams, Peter Rodgers Aug 2017

Tackling Undeclared Work In Bulgaria: Knowledge-Informed Policy Responses, Ruslan Stefanov, Colin C. Williams, Peter Rodgers

Colin C Williams

KEY POINTS
Ø  Undeclared work is socially accepted and widely practiced in Bulgaria. The undeclared economy is estimated at roughly a third of GDP. Nearly one in ten people do some undeclared work.
Ø  Undeclared work is motivated primarily by lack of trust between the people and the authorities.It involves mostly people who voluntarily exit the declared economy but also those that are excluded.  
Ø  The conventional repressive approach to tackling undeclared work has exhausted its effects in Bulgaria. It should be complemented with more curative, preventative and commitment policies.
Ø  Policymakers …