Regional variations in the irregular economy: A study of possible trends

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Abstract
Button K. J. (1984) Regional variations in the irregular economy, Reg. Studies 18, 385–392. This short paper presents an empirical investigation of the factors which produce regional variations in the growth of the irregular economy in the United Kingdom. It represents an experiment with a non-parametric methodology aimed at examining spatial differences in an area where physical measurement is difficult. The specific approach is one of ‘soft modelling’ which is employed to circumvent the problems of quantifying the exact level of activity in the irregular sector. A variety of influences are isolated as determining the scale of the hidden economy and are then subjected to a series of ranking and weighting procedures which permit an ordering of regions to be made reflecting the pressures for growth in their irregular markets.