Public Policy Approaches towards the Undeclared Economy in European Countries: A Critical Overview

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically the extent to which the conventional eradication approach towards undeclared work has been transcended and replaced by an approach which seeks to shift undeclared work into the declared economy. Reporting the results of a 2010 survey of 104 senior stakeholders from government departments, trade unions and employer organisations in 31 European countries, and 24 follow-up in-depth interviews, the finding is that although there is a move towards adopting policy measures that shift undeclared work into the declared economy, a deterrence approach that simply seeks to eliminate undeclared work remains the principal approach in most nations and the approach viewed as the most effective way of tackling undeclared work. Given this intransigence on the part of European national governments, the paper concludes by setting out a future research agenda to bridge this gap.