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Tackling Undeclared Work In The European Union: Policy Report, Colin C. Williams
Tackling Undeclared Work In The European Union: Policy Report, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
Undeclared work represents a persistent feature of contemporary economies and results in lost public revenue, lack of worker protection and unfair competition for legitimate businesses. Conventionally, undeclared work has been viewed as an individual criminal act, which is solved by governments increasing the penalties and risks of detection in order to discourage participation. This, however, only deals with the outcome (i.e., participation in undeclared work) and does not address the drivers of this behaviour.
This report explores the formal institutional failures which make undeclared work an acceptable behaviour in the eyes of citizens and, consequently, result in high participation in …
Tackling Undeclared Work Across Europe: Effective Solutions For Policy-Makers, Colin C. Williams
Tackling Undeclared Work Across Europe: Effective Solutions For Policy-Makers, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
This document sets out examples of proven approaches
and practices that Platform members and observers
have used to tackle undeclared work in Europe. The
aim is to inspire national policy-makers with tried and
tested approaches and to provide sources of further
information of how to put these concrete examples into
action.
Shadow Economy: Definitions, Terms And Theoretical Considerations, Colin C. Williams
Shadow Economy: Definitions, Terms And Theoretical Considerations, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
The last decades, many scholars highlighted the shadow economic activities, regarding their disadvantages (unemployment, impoverishment etc) and advantages (intensifies competition, flexibility in employment etc). During the financial crisis, informal activities rose in noisy way, which triggered the development of special definitions to describe a wide range of actions which in turn have gradually configured and updated the content of the shadow economy term. In this paper we present the theoretical background of the shadow economy term, by selecting the main worldwide literature published from 1973 to 2018. Many studies have tried to definite the shadow economy term but none has …
Diagnostic Report On Undeclared Work In Kosovo, Colin C. Williams
Diagnostic Report On Undeclared Work In Kosovo, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
This diagnostic report evaluates the extent, nature and drivers of undeclared work in Kosovo* followed by recommendations regarding how this sphere can be tackled.
Tackling Undeclared Work In The Agricultural Sector, Colin C. Williams
Tackling Undeclared Work In The Agricultural Sector, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
This study evaluates the prevalence, distribution and characteristics of undeclared work in the agricultural, forestry and fishing sector (henceforth ‘agricultural sector’) in the EU and how this can be tackled. To do so, the prevalence, distribution and characteristics of undeclared work in the agricultural sector, along with its systemic drivers, are analysed. This analysis then provides the evidence base for an analysis of how undeclared work can be tackled. To identify how to achieve this, an analysis is undertaken of the legislative and institutional frameworks, of the policy approaches for tackling undeclared work in the agricultural sector, and an evidence-based …
Explaining And Tackling Under-Declared Employment In Fyr Macedonia: The Employers Perspective, Colin C. Williams, Slavko Bezeredi
Explaining And Tackling Under-Declared Employment In Fyr Macedonia: The Employers Perspective, Colin C. Williams, Slavko Bezeredi
Colin C Williams
The aim of this paper is to evaluate how employers who illegally under-report their employees’ salaries to
evade paying the full tax and social contributions owed can be explained and tackled. These employers have
been conventionally explained as rational economic actors doing so when the benefits outweigh the costs,
and thus the solution is to increase the sanctions and/or probability of detection. An alternative social actor
approach, however, explains employers as under-reporting salaries because of their lack of both vertical trust
(i.e., their beliefs are not in symmetry with the laws and regulations) and horizontal trust (i.e., they believe
many …
Does Trust Prevent Undeclared Work? An Evaluation Of The Social Actor Approach, Colin C. Williams
Does Trust Prevent Undeclared Work? An Evaluation Of The Social Actor Approach, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
In recent decades, a burgeoning literature has brought out of the shadows the magnitude of the undeclared economy. This reveals that the undeclared economy is a persistent feature of contemporary economies. With the equivalent of 17.9 per cent of GDP not declared to the authorities in the European Union in 2016 [1], undeclared work representing 14.3 per cent of gross value added in the private sector in 2013 [2] and 4 per cent of EU28 citizens conducting undeclared work [3], tackling the undeclared economy is not some minor issue. Addressing this practice is important. This is not only because of …
Explaining Informal Sector Entrepreneurship In Kosovo: An Institutionalist Perspective, Colin C. Williams
Explaining Informal Sector Entrepreneurship In Kosovo: An Institutionalist Perspective, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
Institutional theory has been widely used to explain entrepreneurship in the informal economy.
A first wave of institutionalist theory argued that informal entrepreneurship resulted from formal
institutional failures and a second wave that such entrepreneurship results from an asymmetry
between the laws and regulations of formal institutions and the unwritten socially shared rules of
informal institutions. This paper evaluates the validity of these two waves of institutionalist explanation
and a new third wave of institutional theory explaining informal entrepreneurship in terms
of a lack of both vertical and horizontal trust. Reporting data from a 2013 survey in Kosovo
involving 500 …
Explaining Cross-Country Variations In The Prevalence Of Informal Sector Competitors: Lessons From The World Bank Enterprise Survey, Colin C. Williams
Explaining Cross-Country Variations In The Prevalence Of Informal Sector Competitors: Lessons From The World Bank Enterprise Survey, Colin C. Williams
Colin C Williams
To advance understanding of informal sector entrepreneurship, the aim of this
paper is to evaluate and explain the cross-country variations in the prevalence of informal
sector competitors. To do so, World Bank Enterprise Survey (WBES) data is reported
from 142 countries. This reveals that 27% of formal enterprises view competition from the
informal sector as a major constraint on their operations, although this varies from 72%of
formal enterprises in Chad to no formal enterprises in El Salvador. To explain these crosscountry
variations, four competing theories are evaluated which variously view informal
sector entrepreneurship and enterprise to bemore prevalent when there …