Detecting shadow economy activities through financial transaction monitoring is a critical challenge for regulators and financial institutions. This article investigates the application of machine l[REDACTED]Earnin[REDACTED]g algorithms to classify suspicious transaction patterns, using synthetic transaction data that mimics real‑world features such as amount, frequency, and entropy. We pose th...
Category: Shadow Economy Dynamics
Tax burden, informatization, and shadow economy dynamics in Ukraine. Scenario analysis and game-theoretic approaches.
Real-Time Shadow Economy Indicators — Building a Dashboard from Open Data
Monitoring shadow economy activity in near real-time remains a critical gap for policymakers, tax authorities, and international organizations. Traditional estimation methods—MIMIC models, household surveys, and currency demand approaches—produce estimates with lags of months to years, leaving decision-makers without timely signals. This article investigates whether open data sources can serve ...
Neural Network Estimation of Shadow Economy Size — Improving on MIMIC Models
The MIMIC (Multiple Indicator Multiple Cause) model has been the dominant framework for shadow economy estimation since the 1970s. However, its linear, latent-variable architecture imposes constraints that modern machine learning methods can overcome. This article evaluates neural network approaches to shadow economy estimation, comparing their predictive accuracy, non-linear pattern recognitio...
Agent-Based Modeling of Tax Compliance — Simulating Government-Citizen Interactions
Tax compliance is a central determinant of shadow economy size, yet the behavioral mechanisms linking government enforcement to citizen reporting decisions remain poorly understood. Agent-based modeling (ABM) offers a bottom-up computational approach to simulating how individual taxpayers respond to audit probability, penalty severity, and peer behavior. This article applies ABM to tax complian...
EU Accession Conditionality and Shadow Economy Reform — A Systematic Review
This systematic review examines the relationship between EU accession conditionality and shadow economy reform in candidate and potential candidate countries. We address three research questions: (1) How does EU accession conditionality affect the size and dynamics of shadow economies? (2) Which policy instruments within the conditionality framework are most effective at reducing shadow economi...
Post-Conflict Shadow Economies — Evidence from Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo
This article examines how shadow economies evolve in post-conflict Balkan states, using econometric evidence from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo. Building on 25 years of MIMIC-methodology estimates, we analyze three research questions: the trajectory of informal economic activity following armed conflict, the relationship between economic development and shadow economy persistence,...
Poland’s Digitalization Strategy in Tax Administration: Impact Assessment of JPK and Split Payment Mechanisms
Poland has emerged as a European benchmark for combating tax evasion through comprehensive digital transformation of its tax administration. This article examines Poland's implementation of the Jednolity Plik Kontrolny (JPK, Standard Audit File) and the Split Payment Mechanism to quantify their effectiveness in reducing the VAT compliance gap and improving tax compliance. Drawing on European Co...
Georgia’s Tax Reform Miracle: Flat Tax Impact on Shadow Economy
Georgia's radical tax reform of 2005—replacing a complex progressive tax system with a flat 12% rate—provides a unique natural experiment for studying the relationship between tax simplification and informal economic activity. This article examines two decades of data to quantify the reform's impact on Georgia's shadow economy, which fell from 68.8% of GDP (one of the world's highest) to 41.5% ...
Estonia’s Digital Transformation — Lessons for Ukraine’s Shadow Economy Reduction
This article examines Estonia's digital transformation as a proven model for reducing shadow economy activity through comprehensive e-governance. Estonia reduced its shadow economy from 28% to 12% of GDP between 2010 and 2024, while Ukraine's shadow economy remains volatile around 37% despite similar starting points. We analyze three core mechanisms: (1) the X-Road data interoperability platfor...
Labor Market Informality — Wage Underreporting and Social Insurance Evasion
Labor market informality represents one of the most pervasive channels of shadow economic activity, manifesting primarily through wage underreporting and systematic evasion of social insurance contributions. This article examines the behavioral, structural, and policy drivers of informal employment relationships, with particular attention to how tax burden, minimum wage enforcement, and contrib...