Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-4hhp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-30T18:38:57.761Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

14 - Me and my shadow: estimating the size of the U.S. hidden economy from time series data

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 May 2010

William A. Barnett
Affiliation:
University of Texas, Austin
Halbert White
Affiliation:
University of California, San Diego
Get access

Summary

Introduction

In the last few years a growing concern over the phenomenon of the shadow (or hidden) economy has arisen, and as a consequence this topic has received increased attention among public officials, politicians, and social scientists. For the United States, like many other industrial countries, there are several important reasons why politicians and the public in general should be concerned about the growth and size of the shadow economy. Among the most important of these are:

If an increase in the size of the shadow economy is mainly caused by a rise in the tax burden, an increased tax rate may lead to a decrease in tax receipts and thus further increase the budget deficit.

If economic policy measures are based on mistaken “officially measured” indicators (such as unemployment), these measures may be at least of a wrong magnitude. In such a situation a prospering shadow economy may cause a severe problem for political decision makers because it leads to quite unreliable officially measured indicators, so that even the direction of intended policy measures may be questionable.

The rise of the shadow economy can be seen as a reaction of individuals to their overburdening by state activities (such as high taxes and an increasing number of state regulations).

Type
Chapter
Information
Dynamic Econometric Modeling
Proceedings of the Third International Symposium in Economic Theory and Econometrics
, pp. 297 - 334
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1988

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×