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Against the Shadow: the Role of e-Government

Published: 07 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

The shadow economy is defined as economic activities which escape from detection in the official estimates of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). They erode the tax bases and reduce tax revenue, forcing the government to find other sources to finance their spending. The size of shadow economies is associated with a higher inflation rate, public debt, and unemployment, hence becoming a crucial problem to mitigate, especially in the developing countries. This paper aims to see a possible contribution of e-Government (eGov) implementation to reduce the shadow economy. If institutional and regulatory problems are addressed by introducing eGov, we can avoid predatory and obstructive regulations. This will lower compliance costs and the administrative burdens which have been addressed as among major factors affecting the shadow economy. We investigate this phenomenon on a panel of 128 countries during the period 2003-2013, where the data on shadow economy [1] and the eGov index [2] are both available. The analysis shows that the increasing eGov index significantly reduces the size of the shadow economy. We also found that shadow economy is a latent phenomenon and that the impact of eGov will be greatly conditioned by the severity of the historical phenomenon of the shadow economy.

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  • (2025)How e-Government Affects the Shadow Economy: A Further AnalysisInternational Economic Journal10.1080/10168737.2025.2456156(1-41)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2025
  • (2024)Natural hazards and the influence on the shadow economy: non-linear evidence from panel analysisEnvironment, Development and Sustainability10.1007/s10668-024-05541-1Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
  • (2023)Improving the UN Methodology of the E-Government Development IndexDigital Transformation on Manufacturing, Infrastructure & Service10.1007/978-3-031-32719-3_9(111-129)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2023
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  1. Against the Shadow: the Role of e-Government

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    cover image ACM Other conferences
    dg.o '17: Proceedings of the 18th Annual International Conference on Digital Government Research
    June 2017
    639 pages
    ISBN:9781450353175
    DOI:10.1145/3085228
    Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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    • Digital Government Society of North America

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    New York, NY, United States

    Publication History

    Published: 07 June 2017

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    Author Tags

    1. developing countries
    2. e-Government
    3. growth
    4. public administration
    5. shadow economy

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    dg.o '17 Paper Acceptance Rate 66 of 114 submissions, 58%;
    Overall Acceptance Rate 150 of 271 submissions, 55%

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    Cited By

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    • (2025)How e-Government Affects the Shadow Economy: A Further AnalysisInternational Economic Journal10.1080/10168737.2025.2456156(1-41)Online publication date: 11-Feb-2025
    • (2024)Natural hazards and the influence on the shadow economy: non-linear evidence from panel analysisEnvironment, Development and Sustainability10.1007/s10668-024-05541-1Online publication date: 14-Oct-2024
    • (2023)Improving the UN Methodology of the E-Government Development IndexDigital Transformation on Manufacturing, Infrastructure & Service10.1007/978-3-031-32719-3_9(111-129)Online publication date: 16-Jun-2023
    • (2022)The impact of ICT on shadow economy in West AfricaInternational Social Science Journal10.1111/issj.1233772:245(749-767)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2022
    • (2021)Who is behind the scenes of the ICT backstage? A study of the ICT resources in local governmentsProceedings of the 14th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance10.1145/3494193.3494302(165-171)Online publication date: 6-Oct-2021
    • (2021)The Importance of ICT in Local Governments: Results from a Survey on the Characterization of the ICT Function in PortugalElectronic Government10.1007/978-3-030-84789-0_6(73-85)Online publication date: 7-Sep-2021
    • (2020)ASSESSMENT OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN E-GOVERNANCE AND SHADOW ECONOMYScientific Notes of Taurida National V.I. Vernadsky University. Series: Economy and Management10.32838/2523-4803/70-6-970:6Online publication date: 2020
    • (2017)Digital Governance for Sustainable DevelopmentDigital Nations – Smart Cities, Innovation, and Sustainability10.1007/978-3-319-68557-1_9(85-93)Online publication date: 4-Oct-2017
    • (undefined)Comparative Study of the Use of Social Identity Cards in the Construction Sector in Various European CountriesSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.4002311
    • (undefined)E-formalisation in EuropeSSRN Electronic Journal10.2139/ssrn.3944814

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