If there are couple of terms that have been overused in the past political campaigns and are almost without exception a part of each heads’ of state speech are job creation, private sector development (SMEs), budgets, taxes and revenues. That is why the hidden economy remains a topic of interest for policy makers, economists and academics alike as it affects each of those issues to a varying degree and carries a potential to solve some of the shortcomings instilled in them through action or inaction.
There is a growing acceptance that at different scales the hidden economies are here to stay due to their resilient nature and adaptive capacities to changing political, legislative and economic environments. The belief in the opposite, that the hidden economy can be eradicated it is not only unlikely but also counterproductive as it can carry substantial benefits to the local population and the economy by using it as a buffer in times of hardship or transition. In fact, globalization and deregulation of the world economy seem to have generated conditions in which the heterogeneous hidden economies can thrive and expand.1 In fact informal businesses, especially start-up enterprises which initially function informally can carry a significant potential value for the economy as their activities can be tied up with innovation and entrepreneurship which can have high value added over the long term. The heterogeneity of the phenomenon of hidden economy is visible by just looking at the different adjectives attached to it: informal, parallel, clandestine, grey, underground, shadow, unregulated, subsistence, coping, non-monetized, alternative, and so on.