The Shadow Economy: A Bibliometric Analysis

Abstract

The article deals with the analysis of the areas of research related to the shadow economy. The results of analyses show that financial market and financial intermediates become an essential part of the issues and that the topic of the problem of poverty among the urban population, low income, drugs abuse and problems of female employment, gender inequity in income in the papers which analyzed the shadow economy issues are very popular. The aim of the paper is to analyze the tendency in the scientific literature on the shadow economy to identify future research directions. For the analysis, the tools of VOSviewer, Scopus and Web of Science (WoS) analyses were used. This study is based on 5361 papers from Scopus and 3773 papers from Web of Science. The time sample of research was not limited for analysis. Time analysis showed that in 2014-2015 the number of papers dealing the shadow economy began to increase. At the same time, the focal point of research moved from general issues (estimation of shadow sector, impact on labour market etc.) to problem of transition from the informal to the formal Economy. In 2019 the number of papers which analyzed the the shadow economy was increased by 95 % compared with the 2014 year, according to Scopus database – by 29%. Mostly the papers with keyword “shadow” (informal, hidden etc.) economy were published under the following subject area, according to Scopus: Social science; Economics, Econometrics and Finance; Business, Management and Accounting; Environmental Science; Arts and Humanities, and according to WoS: Business Economics; Sociology; Public Administration; Government Law; Development Studies; Social Sciences Other Topics; Environmental Sciences Ecology; Area Studies. Most articles focused on shadow economy were published by the scientists from the USA, United Kingdom, India, Germany and South Africa. In 2019 considering the findings from Scopus the high ranked Studies in Systems Decision and Control, Journal of Business Ethics, Journal of Contemporary Asia, Cities stated to publish papers devoted to shadow economy. Such results prove that informal economy theme and its transition to formal is in the ongoing trends of the modern regulation. The findings from VOSviewer identified six clusters of the papers which investigate the shadow economy from the different points of views. The first most significant cluster merged the paper which contained the keywords as follows: informal sector, informal economy, unemployment, gender, urban economy, labor market, corruption etc. The papers in the second largest cluster deal with poverty among urban population, low income, drugs abuse and problems of female employment, gender inequity in income. The third biggest cluster focuses on criminal and ecological aspects of shadow economy.