The average for 2015 based on 158 countries was 27.78 percent. The highest value was in Zimbabwe: 67 percent and the lowest value was in Switzerland: 6.94 percent. The indicator is available from 1991 to 2015. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

In 2023, the untaxed shadow economy accounted for 19.3 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). Russia's shadow economy is estimated to be worth about 13.1 percent of its GDP, while Nigeria's shadow economy represented 30 percent of its GDP.

In 2023, the untaxed shadow economy accounted for 19.3 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). In Africa, Sierra Leone's shadow economy was the largest of the region and was estimated to be worth about 64.5 percent of its GDP, while Egypt's shadow economy represented 21 percent of its GDP.

The World Bank's Prospects Group has constructed a global database of informal economic activity. The database includes up to 196 economies over the period 1990-2018 and includes the twelve most commonly used measures of informal economy.

Output: - Dynamic General Equilibrium (DGE) model-based estimates of informal output - Multiple Indicators Multiple Causes (MIMIC) model-based estimates of informal output

Employment: - Self-employment - Informal employment - Employment outside the formal sector - Labor force without pension insurance

Perceptions: - One indicator based on World Economic Forum (WEF)'s Executive Opinion surveys
- Four indicators based on World Bank Enterprise Surveys of firms - One indicator based on World Value Surveys (WVS) of households

The database includes both indirect, model-based estimates (DGE- and MIMIC-based indicators) and direct measures gathered from labor force or expert, firm, or household opinion surveys.

The CERP discussion paper, by Ceyhun Elgin, M. Ayhan Kose, Franziska Ohnsorge, and Shu Yu, provides detailed information on the construction and sources for the variables included in the database and shows two applications of the database: the stylized facts of informal economic activity around the world and the cyclical features of the informal economy.

For further details, please refer to https://cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=16497

In 2023, the untaxed shadow economy accounted for 19.3 percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). In Latin American. Bolivia's shadow economy was the largest of the region and was estimated to be worth about 32.1 percent of its GDP, while Mexico's shadow economy represented 18 percent of its GDP.

In 2023, Morocco had the largest share of the shadow economy relative to its gross domestic product in North Africa, accounting for ** percent, followed by neighboring Algeria with **** percent. Egypt and Tunisia each reported a shadow economy share of **** percent. However, Egypt recorded the highest value of the shadow economy in the region that year. (Link: 1620644)

Yearly citation counts for the publication titled "The shadow economy in three Mediterranean countries: France, Spain and Greece. A MIMIC approach".

In 2023, the untaxed shadow economy accounted for **** percent of the global gross domestic product (GDP). In the Middle East, Iraq's shadow economy was the largest of the region and was estimated to be worth about **** percent of its GDP, while Qatar's shadow economy represented *** percent of its GDP.

Yearly citation counts for the publication titled "Fiscal policy and shadow economy in Asian developing countries: does corruption matter?".

In 2023, the shadow economy's value as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) was lower in high-income countries than in low-income countries. The shadow economy accounted for *** percent of GDP in high-income countries.

The average for 2020 based on 39 countries was 22.56 percent. The highest value was in Ukraine: 46 percent and the lowest value was in Switzerland: 7.9 percent. The indicator is available from 1990 to 2020. Below is a chart for all countries where data are available.

The considerations about productive activities regularly not captured by official statistics, the "non-observed economy" (NOE), is a relevant issue for the Brazilian economy, linked directly to the System of National Accounts (SNA). This article seeks to bring up conceptual and methodological questions, as well as results for the Brazilian economy to complement the SCN commonly reported in the country. The ENO in Brazil as a proportion of GDP declined from 15.8% to 11.6% between 2000 and 2009, a result influenced by reducing the still significant weight of household production and the informal economy Factors such as economic growth, especially in the period 2004-2008, and effects of specific policies such as reducing and simplifying taxes, credit expansion for micro entrepreneurs and increased labor inspection were identified as relevant to this reduction.

The marginal effects of the CPI, shadow economy, documents to import and cost to import on the mean E(u) of the inefficiency term ui,t.

"Women often work in the informal economy"

"As we can see, a large part of female employment around the world takes place in the informal economy. In fact, in many low and middle income countries, the vast majority of women engaged in paid work are in the informal economy. For women in Uganda, for example, almost 95% of paid work outside agriculture is informal. In Greece, the corresponding figure is close to 4%."

"How do the figures for women compare to those for men? In the majority of countries women tend to work more often in the informal economy than men. And it is likely that this gender difference would be larger if we accounted for the informal agricultural economy, for which data is not available."

https://ourworldindata.org/female-labor-supply

For a long time, governments of all countries have attached great importance to the development of underground economic activities. The reason is that the characteristics of the underground economy are hidden and the information disclosure is not sufficient, which not only distorts the economic data indicators, but more importantly, the existence of the underground economy has led to the loss of a large amount of tax base, affecting the long-term economic development of the country. Whether raising the tax burden rate boosts the tax revenue or expand the scale of the underground economy. In this paper, we use Kuznet Tax Curve (KTC) method to analyze the relationship between GDP and TTR/DTR/ITR. We find that the tax base erosion rate of indirect tax is lower than that of direct tax. In addition, we explore the relationship among economic growth, tax rate and tax revenue and adopt SUR-OLS method and Threshold approach to estimate the response of economic growth on total tax revenue(TTR), direct tax revenue(DTR) and indirect tax revenue (ITR) in Taiwan from 1991-2020. Our empirical research shows that when DTR tax rates are between 12.59% and 13%, an increase in income leads to a decrease, not an increase, in DTR, leading to severe tax base erosion. That is, the relationship between GDP and DTR presents a N-shaped relationship. However, ITR does not exist any tax rate threshold effect. Obviously, with the increase of GDP, ITR also increases. This reflects that the difference of tax structure between direct tax and indirect tax plays a key role in the relationship between tax rate and tax base erosion.

For a long time, governments of all countries have attached great importance to the development of underground economic activities. The reason is that the characteristics of the underground economy are hidden and the information disclosure is not sufficient, which not only distorts the economic data indicators, but more importantly, the existence of the underground economy has led to the loss of a large amount of tax base, affecting the long-term economic development of the country. Whether raising the tax burden rate boosts the tax revenue or expand the scale of the underground economy. In this paper, we use Kuznet Tax Curve (KTC) method to analyze the relationship between GDP and TTR/DTR/ITR. We find that the tax base erosion rate of indirect tax is lower than that of direct tax. In addition, we explore the relationship among economic growth, tax rate and tax revenue and adopt SUR-OLS method and Threshold approach to estimate the response of economic growth on total tax revenue(TTR), direct tax revenue(DTR) and indirect tax revenue (ITR) in Taiwan from 1991-2020. Our empirical research shows that when DTR tax rates are between 12.59% and 13%, an increase in income leads to a decrease, not an increase, in DTR, leading to severe tax base erosion. That is, the relationship between GDP and DTR presents a N-shaped relationship. However, ITR does not exist any tax rate threshold effect. Obviously, with the increase of GDP, ITR also increases. This reflects that the difference of tax structure between direct tax and indirect tax plays a key role in the relationship between tax rate and tax base erosion.

Worldwide, nearly ** percent of workers are working in the informal economy. The share is higher the lower the level of development, with nearly ** percent of employees in low-income countries working in the informal sector.

Normalized values of regresants Financial Freedom and Currency in Circulation (% GDP).

Abstract

This research is a survey of unregistered businesses conducted in Botswana between February and November, 2010, at the same time with Botswana 2010 Enterprise Survey. Data from 99 enterprises were analyzed.

Questionnaire topics include general information about a business, infrastructure and services, sales and supplies, crime, sources and access to finance, business-government relationship, assets, AIDS and sickness (for African region), bribery, workforce composition, obstacles to get registration, reasons for not registering, and benefits that an establishment could get from registration. The mode of data collection is face-to-face interviews.

The Informal Surveys aim to accomplish the following objectives: 1) To provide information about the state of the private sector for informal businesses in client countries; 2) To generate information about the reasons of said informality; 3) To collect useful data for the research agenda on informality; 4) To provide information on the level of activity in the informal sector of selected urban centers in each country.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

The primary sampling unit of the Informal Surveys is an unregistered establishment. For Botswana, informal firms were defined as those not registered with the Central Statistics Office of Botswana (CSO).

Universe

The whole population, or the universe, covered in the survey is the non-agricultural informal economy.

At the beginning of each survey, a screening procedure is conducted in order to identify eligible interviewees. At this point, a full description of all the activities of the business owner or manager is taken; based on its principal activity, a business is then classified in the manufacturing or services stratum using a list of activities developed from previous iterations of the survey. Certain activities are excluded such as strictly illegal activities (e.g., prostitution or drug trafficking) as well as individual activities that are forms of selling labor like domestic servants or windshield washers.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The Informal Surveys are conducted in selected urban centers, which are intended to coincide with the locations for the implementation of the main Enterprise Surveys. The overall number of interviews is pre-determined.

In Botswana, Gaborone was identified as the urban center of interest. The sample was confined to the major cities covered and the survey was run in parallel with the enterprise surveys of the formal economy. The target number of interviews will reflect, as far as practical, the individuals' population distribution but with no more than 60% sample from a single city and no city with fewer than 20 interviews in total.

Sampling in the Informal Surveys is conducted within clearly delineated sampling zones, which are geographically determined divisions within each urban center. Sampling zones are defined at the beginning of fieldwork, and are delineated according to the concentration and geographical dispersion of informal business activity. After the sampling sizes are defined for each location every city is divided into several zones that may or may not correspond to the administrative districts.

In Botswana, using Google maps or local city maps, the target areas within each city were identified. With input from the local agency applying local knowledge, the starting points were defined. The number of zones was determined by the target sample size for each city divided by the cluster size (4 interviews). In Gaborone, for a total of 99 interviews were completed in 16 sampling zones.

In order to provide information on diverse aspects of the informal economy, the sample is designed to have equal proportions of services and manufacturing (50:50). These sectors are defined by responses provided by each informal business to a question on the business's main activity included in the screener portion of the questionnaire.

As a general rule, services must constitute an ongoing business enterprise and so exclude the sale of manual labor. Manufacturing activity in the informal sector includes business activity requiring inputs and/or intermediate goods. Thus, for example, the processing of coffee, sugar, oil, dried fruit, or other processed foods is considered manufacturing, while the simple selling of these goods falls under services. If an informal business conducts a mixture of these activities, the business is considered under the manufacturing stratum.

Each sampling zone was designed with the goal of obtaining two interviews in services and two interviews in manufacturing. In order to ensure a degree of geographical dispersion within each sampling zone, two starting points were identified.

Each sampling zone, including its two starting points, were marked using Google maps, with the GPS coordinates of the starting points being systematically recorded.

Additionally, when obtaining a complete interview, the exact address of the informal business (or where the interview took place) was registered by the interviewer. Once in the office, this address was searched in Google maps, and its GPS coordinates were registered in a fieldwork report.

If no address was immediately available, using local knowledge, the GPS coordinates were determined using imaging via Google maps. In order to preserve confidentiality, the exact coordinates of businesses are not published.

Due to issues of non-response (see below), in the process of fieldwork, the implementing contractor was unable to obtain the targeted four interviews in each of the originally delineated sectors.

As a result, replacement sectors were delineated, ex post. Additionally, the implementing contractor noted that in various interviews there were notable shortfalls in response rates to certain questions. For these reasons, additional interviews were authorized. These were distributed according to the discretion of the implementing contractor in Botswana, with authorization from the World Bank.

In sum, there were 16 zones in Gaborone, Botswana.

Complete information regarding the sampling methodology can be found in "Description of Botswana Informal Survey Implementation" in "Technical Documents" folder.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The current survey instrument is available: - Informal Questionnaire.

The survey topics include general information about a business, infrastructure and services, sales and supplies, crime, sources and access to finance, business-government relationship, assets, AIDS and sickness (for African region), bribery, workforce composition, obstacles to get registration, reasons for not registering, and benefits that an establishment could get from registration.

Cleaning operations

Data entry and quality controls are implemented by the contractor and data is delivered to the World Bank in batches (typically 10%, 50% and 100%). These data deliveries are checked for logical consistency, out of range values, skip patterns, and duplicate entries. Problems are flagged by the World Bank and corrected by the implementing contractor through data checks, callbacks, and revisiting establishments.

Main predictors of POS adoption and share of P2B electronic payments (combined results from the country-level and merchant-level samples).