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The Devil Is in the Shadow. Do Institutions Affect Income and Productivity or Only Official Income and Official Productivity?

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  • Axel Dreher
  • Pierre-Guillaume Méon
  • Friedrich Schneider

Abstract

This paper assesses the relationship between institutions, output, and productivity, when official output is corrected for the size of the shadow economy. Our results confirm the usual positive impact of institutional quality on official output and total factor productivity, and its negative impact on the size of the underground economy. However, once output is corrected for the shadow economy, the relationship between institutions and output becomes weaker. The impact of institutions on total ("corrected") factor productivity even becomes insignificant. Differences in corrected output must then be attributed to differences in factor endowments. These results survive several tests for robustness.

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  • Axel Dreher & Pierre-Guillaume Méon & Friedrich Schneider, 2007. "The Devil Is in the Shadow. Do Institutions Affect Income and Productivity or Only Official Income and Official Productivity?," KOF Working papers 07-179, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    • Handle: RePEc:kof:wpskof:07-179
    DOI: 10.3929/ethz-a-005503049
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    9. Feige, Edgar L., 2015. "Reflections on the meaning and measurement of Unobserved Economies: What do we really know about the “Shadow Economy”?," MPRA Paper 68466, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Christian Bjørnskov & Pierre-Guillaume Méon, 2015. "The productivity of trust," Post-Print CEB, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles, June.
    11. Robert Gillanders & Sinikka Parviainen, 2018. "Corruption and the shadow economy at the regional level," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 22(4), pages 1729-1743, November.
    12. Emanuela Carbonara & Giuseppina Gianfreda & Enrico Santarelli & Giovanna Vallanti, 2019. "The Impact of Intellectual Property Rights on Labor Productivity: Do Constitutions Matter?," Working Papers LuissLab 19151, Dipartimento di Economia e Finanza, LUISS Guido Carli.
    13. Libman, A., 2010. "Empirical Research on Determinants of Decentralization: A Literature Survey," Journal of the New Economic Association, New Economic Association, issue 6, pages 10-29.
    14. Israt Jahan & Jamie Bologna Pavlik & Ryan Blake Williams, 2020. "Is the devil in the shadow? The effect of institutional quality on income," Review of Development Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(4), pages 1463-1483, November.
    15. Charles Plaigin, 2009. "Exploratory study on the presence of cultural and institutional growth spillovers," DULBEA Working Papers 09-03.RS, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Shadow economy; Income; Aggregate productivity; Development accounting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • O11 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Macroeconomic Analyses of Economic Development
    • O17 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - Formal and Informal Sectors; Shadow Economy; Institutional Arrangements
    • O47 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - Empirical Studies of Economic Growth; Aggregate Productivity; Cross-Country Output Convergence

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