Estimates of the Underground Economy in Australia

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Abstract
In an age of tighter government regulation, many individuals and businesses are distorting our notion of the size of the Australian economy by actively participating in the underground economy. The consequences are clear: policy makers have imperfect knowledge on the state of economic affairs. Although there exists considerable international literature on the size of the underground economy, academics and public officials alike appear to have paid little attention to the extent of illicit economic behaviour in Australia. The aim of this paper is to provide the first known time‐series estimate of the size of the Australian underground economy and to illustrate that its existence has implications for the nature of the business cycle in Australia.