The Shadow Economy in Contemporary Russia

Abstract

In Russian scholarly literature the term "shadow economy" is used to apply to the totality of economic activity not covered in official statistics and not included in the gross national product (GNP). The shadow economy is recognized to include the following subgroups: —the unofficial economy: legal forms of economic activity within which there is production of goods and services unrecorded in official statistics and thus concealed from taxation; —the fictitious economy: an economy of inflated write-ups, speculative deals, bribes, and every other kind of swindle involving the acquisition or transfer of money; and —the underground economy: all legally prohibited types of economic activity.