the.com/shadow economy
GDP's evil twin: untaxed, unregulated, and roughly a third of some countries' real output.
means The part of a country's economic activity that happens off the books — unreported income, unregistered businesses, and cash-in-hand work that dodges taxes and regulation.
from Built plainly from 'shadow,' the thing cast by a body blocking light — figuratively meaning hidden or lurking since Old English, and 'economy,' from Greek 'oikonomia,' household management. Economists stitched the phrase together in the latter half of the 20th century to name the vast transactions that trail alongside the official economy without ever stepping into its light — present everywhere, visible nowhere in the official statistics.
- global scale
- estimated at over 20 percent of world GDP
- biggest players
- cash tips, unlicensed labor, smuggled goods
- paradox
- often keeps poor economies from collapsing entirely
- measurement trick
- economists estimate it via electricity usage patterns