Supervisor: Ioannis Velentzas
Title: Shadow economy in Greece of the period 1980-2019
Three – Member Advisory Comitee: Ioannis Velentzas, Nikolaos Kartalis, Evangelos Siskos
Abstract: In the context of empirical investigation, the aim was to determine the underlying economy in the Greek economy for the period 1980 – 2019 using the currency demand and natural input methodologies. In addition, the possible effects of Greece’s entry to the Eurozone, the global financial crisis of 2007-2009 and the debt crisis of the Greek economy were sought. The originality and contribution of the present study therefore focuses on the following: (1) it has investigated for a continuous period of 40 years the level of the underlying economy in Greece, which covers almost all of the years after the dictatorship of 1967, (2) uses at least two methods for estimating the shadow economy and not just one, (3) investigates the impact of three historical events simultaneously on the level of the underlying economy (Eurozone, global financial crisis, Greek crisis).
The results of the statistical analysis presented three phases: a phase of growth of the shadow economy, a phase of reduction and a phase of stabilization at higher levels. The first period extends from 1980 to about 2000 with the respective rates ranging between 15% and 35%, while the second period begins after 2000 when the shadow economy declines to 25% by 2012. However, during the third period 2012-2019, the shadow economy is growing slightly and stabilizing at levels slightly above 30%. The analysis also showed evidence of a significantly important impact of the Greece’s entry into the eurozone and of the debt crisis that hit the Greek economy.