IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/indrel/v45y2014i6p524-542.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Explaining cross-national variations in the prevalence of envelope wages: some lessons from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey

Author

Listed:
  • Colin C. Williams

Abstract

The aim of this article is to evaluate competing theories that variously explain the greater prevalence of envelope wages in some countries either as: a legacy of under-development (modernisation thesis); due to high taxes, state corruption and burdensome regulations and controls (neo-liberal thesis), or a result of inadequate state intervention in work and welfare arrangements, which leaves workers less than fully protected (political economy thesis). Reporting a 2013 survey of cross-national variations in the prevalence of envelope wages, the finding is that the results refute the neo-liberal thesis but support both the modernisation and political economy theses, revealing that this illegitimate wage practice is more common in poorer, less equal countries with lower taxation and social protection levels and less effective redistribution via social transfers. The theoretical and policy implications are then discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Colin C. Williams, 2014. "Explaining cross-national variations in the prevalence of envelope wages: some lessons from a 2013 Eurobarometer survey," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 45(6), pages 524-542, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:indrel:v:45:y:2014:i:6:p:524-542
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/irj.12077
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jaanika Meriküll & Karsten Staehr, 2010. "Unreported Employment and Envelope Wages in Mid-Transition: Comparing Developments and Causes in the Baltic Countries," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 52(4), pages 637-670, December.
    2. Colin. C. Williams, 2008. "Illegitimate wage practices in Eastern Europe: - The case of 'envelope wages'," Journal of East European Management Studies, Rainer Hampp Verlag, vol. 13(3), pages 253-270.
    3. Colin Williams, 2008. "Envelope wages in Central and Eastern Europe and the EU," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 363-376.
    4. Rainer Neef, 2002. "Aspects of the Informal Economy in a Transforming Country: The Case of Romania," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 26(2), pages 299-322, June.
    5. Colin C. Williams, 2009. "The Commonality of Envelope Wages in Eastern European Economies," Eastern European Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(2), pages 37-52, March.
    6. Andreas Buehn & Friedrich Schneider, 2012. "Shadow economies around the world: novel insights, accepted knowledge, and new estimates," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(1), pages 139-171, February.
    7. Olumide TAIWO, 2013. "Employment choice and mobility in multi-sector labour markets: Theoretical model and evidence from Ghana," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 152(3-4), pages 469-492, December.
    8. Colin C. Williams, 2013. "Evaluating cross-national variations in the extent and nature of informal employment in the European Union," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5-6), pages 479-494, November.
    9. Ted London & Stuart L Hart, 2004. "Reinventing strategies for emerging markets: beyond the transnational model," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 35(5), pages 350-370, September.
    10. John Round & Colin C. Williams & Peter Rodgers, 2008. "Corruption in the post-Soviet workplace: the experiences of recent graduates in contemporary Ukraine," Work, Employment & Society, British Sociological Association, vol. 22(1), pages 149-166, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Di Nola Alessandro & Kocharkov Georgi & Vasilev Aleksandar, 2019. "Envelope wages, hidden production and labor productivity," The B.E. Journal of Macroeconomics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 1-30, June.
    2. Colin C. Williams & Ioana A. Horodnic, 2015. "Explaining and tackling the shadow economy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: a tax morale approach," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 81-98.
    3. Colin C. Williams & Ioana A. Horodnic, 2017. "Evaluating the Illegal Employer Practice of Under-Reporting Employees’ Salaries," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 83-111, March.
    4. Ian Clark & Trevor Colling, 2018. "Work in Britain's Informal Economy: Learning from Road†Side Hand Car Washes," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 56(2), pages 320-341, June.
    5. Colin C Williams & Ioana A Horodnic, 2016. "Tackling the undeclared economy in the European Union: an evaluation of the tax morale approach," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 322-340, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Williams Colin C. & Bezeredi Slavko, 2018. "Explaining and Tackling Under-Declared Employment in FYR Macedonia: The Employers Perspective," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 13(2), pages 19-31, December.
    2. Colin C Williams & Junhong Yang, 2017. "Tackling falsely-declared salaries in Bulgaria: evidence from a 2015 survey," Economic Alternatives, University of National and World Economy, Sofia, Bulgaria, issue 3, pages 333-351, September.
    3. Colin C. Williams & Ioana A. Horodnic, 2017. "Evaluating the Illegal Employer Practice of Under-Reporting Employees’ Salaries," British Journal of Industrial Relations, London School of Economics, vol. 55(1), pages 83-111, March.
    4. Colin C. Williams, 2014. "Confronting the Shadow Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15370.
    5. Colin C. Williams & Friedrich Schneider, 2016. "Measuring the Global Shadow Economy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 16551.
    6. Colin C. WILLIAMS, 2015. "Out of the shadows: Classifying economies by the extent and nature of employment in the informal economy," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 154(3), pages 331-351, September.
    7. Williams Colin C., 2014. "Explaining Cross-National Variations in the Prevalence and Character of Undeclared Employment in the European Union," European Spatial Research and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 21(2), pages 115-131, December.
    8. Colin C. Williams & Youssef Youssef, 2014. "Classifying Latin American Economies: A Degree of Informalisation Approach," International Journal of Business Administration, International Journal of Business Administration, Sciedu Press, vol. 5(3), pages 73-85, May.
    9. Colin C. Williams & Youssef Youssef, 2014. "Combating Informal Employment in Latin America: A Critical Evaluation of the Neo-Liberal Policy Approach," Research in World Economy, Research in World Economy, Sciedu Press, vol. 5(2), pages 1-13, September.
    10. C. Williams, Colin & Bezeredi, Slavko, 2017. "Tackling The Illegal Practice Of Under-Reporting Employees’ Wages: Lessons From The Republic Of Macedonia," UTMS Journal of Economics, University of Tourism and Management, Skopje, Macedonia, vol. 8(3), pages 243-258.
    11. Ioana Alexandra Horodnic & Colin C. Williams, 2016. "An evaluation of the shadow economy in Baltic states: a tax morale perspective," International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 28(2/3), pages 339-358.
    12. Williams Colin C. & Horodnic Ioana A., 2015. "Explaining The Prevalence Of The Informal Economy In The Baltics: An Institutional Asymmetry Perspective," European Spatial Research and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 22(2), pages 127-145, December.
    13. Colin C. Williams & Ioana A. Horodnic, 2015. "Explaining and tackling the shadow economy in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania: a tax morale approach," Baltic Journal of Economics, Baltic International Centre for Economic Policy Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 81-98.
    14. Colin C. WILLIAMS & Josip FRANIC, 2017. "Tackling the illegitimate under-reporting of salaries in Southeast Europe: some lessons from a 2015 survey in Bulgaria, Croatia and FYR Macedonia," Eastern Journal of European Studies, Centre for European Studies, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University, vol. 8, pages 5-28, June.
    15. Krasniqi Besnik A. & Williams Colin C., 2017. "Explaining individual- and country-level variations in unregistered employment using a multi-level model: evidence from 35 Eurasian countries," South East European Journal of Economics and Business, Sciendo, vol. 12(2), pages 61-72, December.
    16. Merike Kukk & Karsten Staehr, 2014. "Income underreporting by households with business income: evidence from Estonia," Post-Communist Economies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2), pages 257-276, June.
    17. Abbi M Kedir & Meryem Duygun Fethi & Colin C Williams, 2011. "Evaluating tax evasion in the European Union: a case study of the prevalence and character of ‘envelope wage’ payments," Discussion Papers in Economics 11/33, Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester, revised Jun 2011.
    18. Colin C. Williams, 2013. "Evaluating cross-national variations in the extent and nature of informal employment in the European Union," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 44(5-6), pages 479-494, November.
    19. Dotti Nicola Francesco & Van Heur Bas & Williams Colin C., 2015. "Mapping the Shadow Economy: Spatial Variations in the use of High Denomination Bank Notes in Brussels," European Spatial Research and Policy, Sciendo, vol. 22(1), pages 5-21, June.
    20. Colin C Williams & Ioana A Horodnic, 2016. "Tackling the undeclared economy in the European Union: an evaluation of the tax morale approach," Industrial Relations Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 47(4), pages 322-340, July.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:indrel:v:45:y:2014:i:6:p:524-542. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0019-8692 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.