Inequality and Underground Economy: A Not so Easy Relationship
Abstract
Economic theory is paying increasing attention to non-observed economy (NOE) and its causes. Recently, a couple of works (Rosser et al. 2000, Rosser et al. 2003) have claimed that there is a positive relationship between income inequality and the size of NOE. This supposed relationship is not so clear and deserves in-depth analysis. There is a crucial aspect that has been completely avoided in these studies: income inequality is mainly measured using "regular" incomes and this fact could lead to some bias. The existence of a certain size of NOE implies some income evasion which can affect the inequality indexes used in the study of the relationship between NOE and inequality. Including the regional share of NOE in a wage equation I find that, in the specific case of the Italian private sector employees, the income evasion attached to NOE tends to reduce inequality measured by regular wages statistics.Download Info
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Paper provided by Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali in its series Working Papers with number 283.Length: 14
Date of creation: Apr 2007
Date of revision:
Handle: RePEc:anc:wpaper:283
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Related research
Keywords: inequality; tax evasion; underground economy;Find related papers by JEL classification:
- H26 - Public Economics - - Taxation, Subsidies, and Revenue - - - Tax Evasion
- I3 - Health, Education, and Welfare - - Welfare and Poverty
This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:
- NEP-ALL-2007-04-21 (All new papers)
- NEP-PBE-2007-04-21 (Public Economics)
References
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Citations
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.Cited by:
- Ugo FRATESI, 2010. "The National and International Effects;of Regional Policy Choices: Agglomeration Economies, Peripherality and Territorial Characteristics," Working Papers 344, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
- Fabio FIORILLO & Agnese SACCHI, 2010. "I Want to Free-ride. An Opportunistic View on Decentralization Versus Centralization Problem," Working Papers 346, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
- Luca RICCETTI, 2011. "A Copula-GARCH Model for Macro Asset Allocation of a Portfolio with Commodities: an Out-of-Sample Analysis," Working Papers 355, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
- Elena AMBROSETTI & Eralba CELA & Tineke FOKKEMA, 2011. "The Remittances Behaviour of the Second Generation in Europe: Altruism or Self-Interest?," Working Papers 368, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
- Luca RICCETTI, 2010. "Minimum Tracking Error Volatility," Working Papers 340, Universita' Politecnica delle Marche (I), Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche e Sociali.
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