IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/268778.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Decomposing the Grey Economy in Bulgaria: A General-Equilibrium Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Vasilev, Aleksandar

Abstract

This paper attempts to assess the size of the grey economy, and provide a decomposition by evasion type. The modelling approach utilizes a standard micro- founded general-equilibrium setup, which is augmented with a revenue-extraction mechanism and a government sector. The model is calibrated to Bulgaria after the introduction of the currency board (1999-2018). A computational experiment performed within this setup estimates that on average, the size of total evasion is a bit more than one-fourth of output, an estimate which is in line with the figures provided in both Philip (2014) and the European Commission (2014). Two-thirds of the model- predicted evasion is a combined result of income- and social security evasion, while the rest is due to VAT evasion.

Suggested Citation

  • Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2022. "Decomposing the Grey Economy in Bulgaria: A General-Equilibrium Analysis," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 8(2), pages 7-23.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:268778
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/268778/1/grey_economy_BG_2022.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. de Melo, Jaime & Roland-Holst, David & Haddad, Mona, 1992. "Tax evasion and tax reform in a low income economy : general equilibrium estimates for Madagascar," Policy Research Working Paper Series 918, The World Bank.
    2. Konstantinos Angelopoulos & George Economides & Vanghelis Vassilatos, 2011. "Do institutions matter for economic fluctuations? Weak property rights in a business cycle model for Mexico," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 14(3), pages 511-531, July.
    3. Di Nola Alessandro & Kocharkov Georgi & Vasilev Aleksandar, 2019. "Envelope wages, hidden production and labor productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-30, June.
    4. Allingham, Michael G. & Sandmo, Agnar, 1972. "Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(3-4), pages 323-338, November.
    5. Schneider,Friedrich & Enste,Dominik H., 2016. "The Shadow Economy," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9781316600894, January.
    6. Leandro Medina & Mr. Friedrich Schneider, 2018. "Shadow Economies Around the World: What Did We Learn Over the Last 20 Years?," IMF Working Papers 2018/017, International Monetary Fund.
    7. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2009. "Business cycles in Bulgaria and the Baltic countries: an RBC approach," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 1(2), pages 148-170.
    8. Colin Williams, 2008. "Envelope wages in Central and Eastern Europe and the EU," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 363-376.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ligita Gasparėnienė & Rita Remeikienė & Colin C. Williams, 2022. "Unemployment and the Informal Economy," SpringerBriefs in Economics, Springer, number 978-3-030-96687-4, October.
    2. Mutascu Mihai & Hegerty Scott W., 2022. "The role of refugees in the underground economy of the European Union," IZA Journal of Development and Migration, Sciendo & Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit GmbH (IZA), vol. 13(1), pages 1-19, January.
    3. Ligita Gasparėnienė & Rita Remeikienė & Colin C. Williams, 2022. "Theorizing the Informal Economy," SpringerBriefs in Economics, in: Unemployment and the Informal Economy, chapter 0, pages 7-60, Springer.
    4. Di Nola Alessandro & Kocharkov Georgi & Vasilev Aleksandar, 2019. "Envelope wages, hidden production and labor productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-30, June.
    5. Dagmara Nikulin & Ewa Lechman, 2021. "Shadow Economy in Poland: Results of the Survey," SpringerBriefs in Economics, in: Shadow Economy in Poland, chapter 0, pages 49-65, Springer.
    6. Paraskevi Koufopoulou & Colin C. Williams & Athanassios Vozikis & Kyriakos Souliotis & Antonios Samprakos, 2021. "Estimating Shadow Economy Size in Greece 2000 - 2018: A Flexible MIMIC Approach," SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, SPOUDAI Journal of Economics and Business, University of Piraeus, vol. 71(3-4), pages 23-47, July-Dece.
    7. C. Williams, Colin, 2019. "Tackling Undeclared Work In The European Union: An Evaluation Of Government Policy Approaches," UTMS Journal of Economics, University of Tourism and Management, Skopje, Macedonia, vol. 10(2), pages 135-147.
    8. Friedrich Schneider & Mangirdas Morkunas & Erika Quendler, 2021. "Measuring the Immeasurable: The Evolution of the Size of Informal Economy in the Agricultural Sector in the EU-15 up to 2019," CESifo Working Paper Series 8937, CESifo.
    9. Luc Jacolin & Joseph Keneck Massil & Alphonse Noah, 2021. "Informal sector and mobile financial services in emerging and developing countries: Does financial innovation matter?," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(9), pages 2703-2737, September.
    10. Aleksandar Vasilev, 2017. "VAT Evasion in Bulgaria: A General-Equilibrium Approach," Review of Economics and Institutions, Università di Perugia, vol. 8(2).
    11. Ohnsorge, Franziska & Capasso, Salvatore & Yu, Shu, 2022. "From Financial Development to Informality: A Causal Link," CEPR Discussion Papers 17565, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Schneider Friedrich, 2015. "Schwarzarbeit, Steuerhinterziehung und Korruption: Was ökonomische und nicht-ökonomische Faktoren zur Erklärung beitragen," Perspektiven der Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 16(4), pages 412-425, December.
    13. Schneider Friedrich & Buehn Andreas, 2017. "Shadow Economy: Estimation Methods, Problems, Results and Open questions," Open Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 1(1), pages 1-29, March.
    14. Vasilev, Aleksandar, 2020. "Does the form of the Aggregate Production Function Matter for Modelling Business Cycle Fluctuations? Lessons for Bulgaria (1999-2018)," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 18, pages 81-86.
    15. Christoforos Andreou & Elena Andreou & Stephanie Michael & George Syrichas, 2021. "The Shadow Economy in Cyprus: Evidence from the Electricity Consumption and Currency Demand Methods," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 15(1), pages 46-74, June.
    16. Ann-Sofie Kolm & Birthe Larsen, 2019. "Underground activities and labour market performance," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 26(1), pages 41-70, February.
    17. Ceyhun Elgin & M. ayhan Köse & Franziska Ohnsorge & Shu Yu, 2021. "Understanding Informality Abstract:," Working Papers 2021/03, Bogazici University, Department of Economics.
    18. Khorana, Sangeeta & Caram, Santiago & Biagetti, Marco, 2021. "Vicious Circle or New Paradigm? Exploring the Impact of Shadow Economy on Labour Market in Latin America and Eurozone," GLO Discussion Paper Series 983, Global Labor Organization (GLO).
    19. Omodero Cordelia Onyinyechi, 2019. "The Financial and Economic Implications of Underground Economy: The Nigerian Perspective," Academic Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Sciendo, vol. 8(2), pages 155-167, July.
    20. Friedrich SCHNEIDER, 2016. "Estimating the Size of the Shadow Economy: Methods, Problems and Open Questions," Turkish Economic Review, KSP Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 256-280, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    tax evasion; general equilibrium;

    JEL classification:

    • D58 - Microeconomics - - General Equilibrium and Disequilibrium - - - Computable and Other Applied General Equilibrium Models

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:268778. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.