Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to advance a new explanation for cross-country variations in the participation of small businesses in the informal economy. Drawing upon institutional theory, ...it proposes that the greater the asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of formal institutions (state morality) and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal institutions (civic morality), the greater is the propensity of small businesses to participate in the informal economy. To analyse this, the extent to which small businesses evade payroll taxes by paying employees an undeclared (envelope) wage in addition to their official declared salary is analysed. Design/methodology/approach – To evaluate this, data are reported from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey involving 5,174 face-to-face interviews with employees in small businesses across the 28 member states of the European Union (EU-28). Findings – The finding is that small businesses display a greater propensity to engage in this informal wage practice in countries where there is a higher degree of asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of formal institutions (state morality) and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal institutions (civic morality). A multi-level logistic regression analysis reveals these to be countries which have lower qualities of governance, lower levels of taxation and intervention in the labour market and less effective social transfer systems. Research limitations/implications – The major limitation of this study is that it has only examined whether employees in small businesses receive informal wages. Future cross-country surveys should analyse a wider range of ways in which small businesses participate in the informal economy such as under-reporting turnover. Originality/value – This is the first known analysis of cross-country variations in the participation of small businesses in the informal economy.
Objectives:
The objective of this paper is to evaluate the use of informal payments and personal connections to gain preferential access to public health services during the COVID-19 pandemic and to ...propose effective policy measures for tackling this phenomenon.
Methods:
Using data from 25,744 patients in the European Union, six different scenarios are analyzed in relation to making informal payments and/or relying on personal connections to access public healthcare services. To evaluate the propensity to engage in informal practices in healthcare, probit regressions with sample selection and predicted probabilities are used. Robustness checks are also performed to test the reliability of the findings.
Results:
For each scenario, a statistically significant association is revealed between the propensity to make informal payments and/or rely on personal connections and the asymmetry between the formal rules and the patients’ personal norms and trust in public authorities.
Conclusion:
To tackle informal practices in healthcare, policy measures are required to reduce the asymmetry between the formal rules and personal norms by raising trust in public authorities.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the effectiveness of two contrasting policy approaches in tackling informal sector entrepreneurship. The dominant deterrence approach theorizes entrepreneurs as ...rational economic actors who operate in the informal sector when the benefits of doing so outweigh the costs. The resultant policy focus is upon deterring participation by increasing the costs of operating in the informal sector through increased penalties and probability of being caught. Recently, a more preventative approach has emerged theorizing entrepreneurs as social actors operating in the informal sector when there is a lack of vertical trust (in government) and horizontal trust (in others). The consequent policy focus is upon improving entrepreneurs’ vertical trust (in the state) and horizontal trust (in each other). To evaluate these approaches, evidence is reported from a 2019 Eurobarometer survey in six East-Central European countries (Czechia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia). The finding is that participation in informal entrepreneurship is not significantly associated with the deterrent measures of raising the penalties and probability of being caught but is significantly associated with the preventative measures of improving vertical and horizontal trust. The implications for theory and policy are discussed.
Purpose
In recent years, there has been a concern that employers are falsely classifying employees as self-employed to evade collective agreements and labour laws (e.g. minimum wages, working time ...legislation and protection in case of redundancy), and the result is that these dependent self-employed suffer poorer working conditions. The purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment compared with the genuine self-employed.
Design/methodology/approach
To do so, data are reported from a 2015 European Working Conditions Survey of 35,765 workers in 28 European Union member states.
Findings
Of the 4.3 per cent of the working population found to be in dependent self-employment, the finding is that they have similar working conditions to the genuine self-employed in terms of their physical and social environment and intensity of work. However, they have poorer job prospects and less ability to use their skills and discretion than the genuine self-employed. In terms of the working time quality, meanwhile, the finding is that they have better conditions than the genuine self-employed. Therefore, this analysis uncovers the need for a more nuanced understanding of the relative working conditions of the dependent self-employed.
Research limitations/implications
If the working conditions of the dependent self-employed are to be tackled, evaluation is now required of whether the current policy approaches, such as developing a hybrid category of employment with legal rights attached, address the specific working conditions that are worse for the dependent self-employed.
Originality/value
This is one of the few papers which provides an extensive evaluation of the working conditions of those in dependent self-employment in the EU28.
Purpose
Recently, a small but burgeoning literature has argued that tax non-compliance cannot be fully explained using the conventional rational economic actor approach which views non-compliance as ...occurring when the pay-off is greater than the expected cost of being caught and punished. Instead, a social actor approach has emerged which views tax non-compliance as higher when “tax morale”, defined as the intrinsic motivation to pay taxes, is low. To advance this social actor model, the purpose of this paper is to evaluate the individual and national heterogeneity in tax morale, which is crucial if tax compliance is to be improved.
Design/methodology/approach
To do this, the authors report data from the 2010 Life in Transition Survey on tax morale in 35 Eurasian countries.
Findings
Logit econometric analysis reveals, on the one hand, that there is higher tax morale among middle-aged, married, homeowners with children, with a university degree and employed, and on the other hand, that there is higher tax morale in more developed countries with stronger legal systems and less corruption, and higher levels of state intervention in the form of both taxation and expenditure.
Research limitations/implications
Rather than continue with the rational actor approach, this paper reveals that how an emergent social actor approach can help to more fully explain tax non-compliance and results in a different policy approach focused upon changing country-level economic and social conditions associated with low tax morale and thus non-compliance.
Practical implications
These results display the specific populations with low tax morale which need targeting when seeking to tackle tax non-compliance.
Originality/value
This paper provides a new way of explaining and tackling tax non-compliance in Eurasian countries.
In this article, we contribute to debates on how social networks sustain migrants' entrepreneurial activities. By reporting on 31 interviews with Eastern European migrants in the UK, we provide a ...critical lens on the tendency to assume that migrants have ready‐made social networks in the host country embedded in co‐ethnic communities. We extend this limited perspective by demonstrating how Eastern European migrants working in the UK transform blat social networks, formulated in the cultural and political contours of Soviet society, in their everyday lived experiences. Our findings highlight not only the monetarization of such networks but also the continuing embedded nature of trust existing within these networks, which cut across transnational spaces. We show how forms of social capital based on Russian language use and legacies of a shared Soviet past, are just as important as the role of ‘co‐ethnics’ and ‘co‐migrants’ in facilitating business development. In doing so, we present a more nuanced understanding of the role that symbolic capital plays in migrant entrepreneurial journeys and its multifaceted nature.
PurposeThe aim of this paper is to evaluate whether the acceptability of different types of business- and individual-level non-compliance has different impacts on the likelihood of participation in ...undeclared work.Design/methodology/approachTo evaluate this, data is reported on the EU27 and the UK from the special Eurobarometer survey no. 498, using a novel statistical methodology that deals with two potential sources of bias: sample selection error (avoidance to answer to the question about participation to undeclared work) and misclassification in the response variable (false statements about engagement in undeclared work).FindingsThis reveals the association between tax morale and participation in undeclared work. It shows that citizens find far more unacceptable undeclared work conducted by firms than individuals, but both are significantly associated with participation in undeclared work although the greatest effect is clearly exerted by individual-level tax morale.Originality/valueThis paper uses a methodology that accounts for the potential bias related to sample selection error and misclassification in the response variable of participation in undeclared work and sheds light on different components of tax morale.
Loss of NF-E2-related factor 2 (Nrf2) signaling increases susceptibility to acute toxicity, inflammation and carcinogenesis in mice due to the inability to mount adaptive responses. In contrast, ...disruption of Keap1 (a cytoplasmic modifier of Nrf2 turnover) protects against these stresses in mice, although inactivating mutations in Keap1 have been identified recently in some human cancers. Global characterization of Nrf2 activation is important to exploit this pathway for chemoprevention in healthy, yet at-risk individuals and also to elucidate the consequences of hijacking the pathway in Keap1-mutant human cancers. Liver-targeted conditional Keap1-null, Albumin-Cre:Keap1(flox/−) (CKO) mice provide a model of genetic activation of Nrf2 signaling. By coupling global gene expression analysis of CKO mice with analysis of pharmacologic activation using the synthetic oleanane triterpenoid 1-2-cyano-3,12-dioxooleana-1,9(11)-dien-28-oylimidazole (CDDO-Im), we are able to gain insight into pathways affected by Nrf2 activation. CDDO-Im is an extremely potent activator of Nrf2 signaling. CKO mice were used to identify genes modulated by genetic activation of Nrf2 signaling. The CKO response was compared with hepatic global gene expression changes in wild-type mice treated with CDDO-Im at a maximal Nrf2 activating dose. The results show that genetic and pharmacologic activation of Nrf2 signaling modulates pathways beyond detoxication and cytoprotection, with the largest cluster of genes associated with lipid metabolism. Genetic activation of Nrf2 results in much larger numbers of detoxication and lipid metabolism gene changes. Additionally, analysis of pharmacologic activation suggests that Nrf2 is the primary mediator of CDDO-Im activity, though other cell-signaling targets are also modulated following an oral dose of 30 μmol/kg.
The aim of this paper is to evaluate critically four competing theories that variously explain informal sector entrepreneurship as a traditional activity that has not yet been incorporated into the ...modern system (modernization theory), a form of production integral to contemporary capitalism conducted by marginalized population groups as a survival strategy (structuralist theory), a voluntarily chosen endeavor and popular reaction to excessive regulation by the state (neo
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liberal theory) or a voluntarily chosen practice conducted for social, redistributive, political resistance or identity reasons (post-structuralist theory). Reporting the results of face
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to
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face interviews with 215 informal entrepreneurs in Zamfara, a tropical region in Nigeria, the finding is that no one theory is universally valid. Instead, each theory is valid in relation to different groups of entrepreneur and only by combining all of them can a finer-grained and more nuanced explanation of the complex and heterogeneous character of informal sector entrepreneurship be achieved.
Résumé.
Les auteurs révèlent le nombre de salariés qui, dans l'Union européenne, perçoivent de leur employeur non seulement un salaire déclaré, mais aussi une rémunération non déclarée. Exploitant ...les résultats d'une enquête de 2007 fondés sur 26659 entretiens, les auteurs montrent que 1 salarié déclaré sur 18 est rémunéré de la main à la main par son employeur à hauteur de 25 pour cent de son salaire brut, en moyenne. Ces arrangements salariaux hybrides sont très répandus, mais touchent plus certains pays, catégories de salariés et types d'entreprises. Les auteurs concluent par les implications théoriques et politiques de ces résultats.
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