ABSTRACT

In Chapter 1, the introductory chapter, the authors identify several concepts that have been used to delineate the characteristics of the informal economy. Such terms as the shadow economy, underground economy, second economy, gray economy, black market, and others have been used to identify and describe the informal economy. None of the concepts fully describes the essence of the informal economy. Several are too general in scope and others, such as the “black market,” are too specic. It appears that the denition of

the concept informal economy tends to encompass all of the other denitions used to refer to the unrecorded portion of the overall economy of a nation, and thus it was chosen for this book.