The investigation of the scale of Lithuania’s and Ukraine’s shadow economy

Abstract

Contemporary problem of the shadow economy is very topical for many countries in the world, it is also relevant for Lithuania and Ukraine. Many authors offer their methods to estimate the shadow economy. Different methods produce different results, so several methods at once are applied to better understand the situation. The study of the shadow economy, conducted Schneider (2007) showed that Lithuania and Ukraine were in the same group - the developing countries. In terms of 1999 - 2006 years shadow economy in Ukraine is the largest, and in Lithuania, almost the average of the group. Ukraine is an important indicator - inflation, and for Lithuania - openness, freedom of enterprise, both countries are important indicators of unemployment, fiscal freedom and GDP (gross domestic product) / per 1 citizen of the country. Adopted an attempt to predict the shadow economy of both countries has shown that there is a downward trend in the unrecorded economy in 2014 28.3% in Lithuania and 48.8% in Ukraine.