- Open Access
- Creative Commons
Abstract
To
evaluate a new approach towards tackling the undeclared economy, which
views participants as social actors rather than rational economic
actors, this article reports evidence from 27,563 face-to-face
interviews conducted across the European Union during 2013. Multilevel
logistic regression analysis reveals a strong association between
participation in undeclared work and the level of tax morale. Finding
that higher tax morale (and thus a lower propensity to engage in
undeclared work) is strongly correlated with greater levels of state
intervention but also with individual-level characteristics such as
gender, age, education and employment status, the article concludes not
only by confirming a political economy approach and refuting
modernization and neo-liberal explanations and remedies, but also by
revealing for the first time the importance of solutions not so far
considered, including improving educational attainment, older citizens
mentoring for younger people and improving women's participation in the
labour force.