ABSTRACT

When explaining participation in undeclared work, the dominant theorisation views undeclared workers as rational economic actors participating in undeclared work when the benefits exceed the expected costs of being caught and punished. An alternative theorisation views participants’ in the undeclared economy as social actors driven into undeclared work by their lack of vertical trust (in governments) and horizontal trust (in others). To evaluate these perspectives, this paper reports data from 27,565 interviews conducted for a 2019 Eurobarometer survey on undeclared work in 28 European countries. This reveals that raising the expected costs of being caught and punished has no significant impact on the likelihood of conducting undeclared work. However, greater vertical and horizontal trust have a significant impact on preventing participation in undeclared work, and vertical and horizontal trust also moderate the effectiveness of using penalties and detection to deter engagement in undeclared work. The implication for theory is that a social actor perspective is advocated. The result is a call for a policy shift away from the dominant deterrence approach that increases the penalties and risks of detection, and towards a policy approach focused on improving vertical and horizontal trust.

摘要

在解释参与未申报的工作时，主流理论将未申报的工人视为参与未申报工作的理性经济参与者，当收益超过被抓住和惩罚的预期成本时。另一种理论将未申报经济中的参与者视为由于缺乏纵向信任（对政府）和横向信任（对其他人）而被迫从事未申报工作的社会参与者。为了评估这些观点，本文报告了 27,565 次访谈的数据，这些数据来自 2019 年欧洲晴雨表对 28 个欧洲国家未申报工作的调查。这表明提高被抓获和惩罚的预期成本对进行未申报工作的可能性没有显着影响。然而，更大的纵向和横向信任对防止参与未申报工作有显着影响，纵向和横向信任也缓和了使用惩罚和检测来阻止参与未申报工作的有效性。理论的含义是提倡社会行动者的观点。结果是呼吁政策从增加惩罚和检测风险的主导威慑方法转向侧重于提高纵向和横向信任的政策方法。