Colin C WilliamsThe University of Sheffield | Sheffield · Management School
Colin C Williams
BSC (Hons), MPhil
Lead expert, European Labour Authority's European Platform Tackling Undeclared Work.
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Introduction
Colin Williams is Professor of Public Policy in the Management School at the University of Sheffield.
Additional affiliations
September 2006 - present
January 1997 - September 2006
September 1991 - September 1997
Leeds Metropolitan University
Position
- Senior Lecturer in Urban Development & Planning
Education
September 1984 - July 1987
September 1979 - July 1983
Publications
Publications (1,001)
To advance understanding of the entrepreneurship process in developing economies, this paper evaluates whether registered enterprises that initially avoid the cost of registration, and focus their resources on overcoming other liabilities of newness, lay a stronger foundation for subsequent growth. Analyzing World Bank Enterprise Survey data across...
Recognizing that enterprises operate at varying levels of informality, this paper evaluates the determinants of their degree of informality. Reporting a 2012 survey of 300 informal microenterprises in the city of Lahore in Pakistan, the finding is that the key predictors of their level of informality are the characteristics of the entrepreneur and...
This article examines the undeclared economy in general, and envelope wages more particularly, in 10 Central and East European countries, drawing on a 2013 Eurobarometer survey. The explanatory approach focuses on the asymmetry between the codified laws and regulations of the formal institutions and the unwritten socially shared rules of informal i...
Given that 60 per cent of the global workforce is in the informal sector, this article develops a typology that classifies economies according to, firstly, where different countries sit on a continuum of informalization and, secondly, the character of their informal sectors. This is then applied to the economies of the 27 member states of European...
To evaluate critically the dominant discourse that consumers acquiring goods and services in the informal economy are rational economic actors seeking a lower price, the results of a 2007 Eurobarometer survey involving 26,659 face-to-face interviews in 27 European Union member states form the basis for analysis. The finding is that achieving a lowe...
The overarching aim was to evaluate safe reporting and complaint mechanisms for workers to denounce abuse and seek support. The objectives were to learn from the experiences of countries that have implemented such mechanisms about the challenges involved, what works and what does not, and to identify good practices regarding their use for tackling...
One of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is Decent Work and Economic Growth (SDG 8). While the actions suggested to reach this goal target numerous actors in the labor market, such as entrepreneurs running small and medium-sized enterprises, unemployed people, students and young people,...
The report compiles existing policy tools and and good practices adopted by Governments in Asia and the Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean on formalizing informal employment in the formal sector. To provide a framework for understanding the full range of good practices on formalizing the employment of informal workers in the formal sector,...
Measuring participation in undeclared work using surveys has been criticized for under-estimating the level of
engagement due to social desirability bias that leads to an under-reporting of “bad” behavior. Until now, few
studies have sought to quantify the amplitude of this bias in surveys of undeclared work. The aim of this paper is
to fill this g...
This chapter examines the range of e-government tools available to authorities to facilitate the transition to formality. On the one hand, it sets out the digital technologies that tax, social security, and labour authorities can use to enforce compliance with the laws and regulations among businesses, employers, workers, and citizens. These includ...
This chapter explains the reasons for participation in the informal economy and then shows how an e-government approach addresses these reasons. To do so, the starting point is recognition that over the past decade there has emerged a consensus on how to explain the informal economy. Previous theorisations of the informal economy have been synthesi...
What is the informal economy? Why is formalising the informal economy necessary? What is an e-government approach? In answering these questions, this introductory chapter sets the scene for the rest of this book on how digital technologies can facilitate the transition to formality. It commences by reviewing the various adjectives and nouns used to...
This concluding chapter provides a future roadmap for countries seeking to pursue a transition to formality using digital services, along with fruitful future directions for research. Synthesising the arguments of the book, the first section summarises what is meant by the informal economy and the range of consequences of its existence for differen...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
The 'informal' economy - economic activity and income outside government regulation, taxation and observation - is difficult to quantify. Recent estimates suggest it accounts, in OECD countries, for around 13% of national income (in the UK, the equivalent of £150 billion) and in developing nations it can make up as much as three-quarters of all non...
This Platform subgroup, held in Bratislava on 26 April 2023, brought together 50 participants from 21 countries, representing labour, social security and tax authorities, various ministries, and European and national social partners. European Labour Authority (ELA) representatives were also present. The overarching aim has been to evaluate the use...
In the EU in 2020, a digital strategy was adopted and, in 2021, a ten-year 2030 Digital Compass roadmap to implement it. This calls for the development of accessible and human-centric digital public services and administration and by 2030, 100 % online provision of key public services for European citizens and businesses.
This report includes the...
This paper evaluates the extent to which digital platforms are used to purchase services from the informal economy and how this can be tackled. Reporting data from a 2021 survey involving 1209 consumers in Romania, 33% had purchased services from the informal economy and 36% of these purchases had been bought via digital platforms. To explain and t...
Purpose - The aim of this paper is to evaluate whether the acceptability of different types of business- and individual-level non-compliance has different impacts on the likelihood of participation in undeclared work.
Design/methodology/approach - To evaluate this, data is reported on the EU27 and the UK from the special Eurobarometer survey no. 4...
This report is an update of the 2017 European Platform tackling undeclared work report that provided estimates of undeclared work in the private sector for 2013. Employing the same methodology, this study provides estimates on the prevalence of undeclared work in the European Union (EU) in 2019.The finding is that in 2019, 11.1 % of total labour in...
This report estimates the prevalence and characteristics of dependent self-employment across EU Member States and Norway. To do so, data from 2021 EU Labour Force Survey (EU-LFS), the largest European household sample survey of 2 580 815, of which 160 245 were self-employed, is used.
The estimates of the extent of dependent self-employment need to...
The aim of this paper is to deepen understanding of the relationship between sustainable development, localisation and the purchase of goods and services from the informal economy. This has not before been investigated. To do so, it reports a survey of 1,209 respondents conducted during October-December 2021 in Romania, a country with one of the la...
The aim of this paper is to deepen understanding of the relationship between sustainable development, localisation and the purchase of goods and services from the informal economy. This has not before been investigated. To do so, it reports a survey of 1,209 respondents conducted during October-December 2021 in Romania, a country with one of the la...
This report is an update of the 2017 European Platform tackling undeclared work report that provided estimates of undeclared work in the private sector for 2013. Employing the same methodology, this study provides estimates on the prevalence of undeclared work in the European Union (EU) in 2019.The finding is that in 2019, 11.1 % of total labour in...
The aim of this study has been to provide learning on how KPIs can be developed measuring the effectiveness of labour inspectorates in transforming undeclared work into declared work. To do so, this study has:
1. Outlined a common assessment framework based on a holistic approach for developing labour inspectorates’ strategic goals, objectives and...
The twelfth meeting in plenary of the European Platform tackling undeclared work (henceforth “the Platform”) was held in Bratislava on 23-24 March 2022 as a hybrid meeting both onsite as well as online. The first day of this meeting was a thematic day dedicated to the topic of operationalising holistic approaches to tackling undeclared work.
This...
Institutional theory has explained informal employment to result from formal institutional failings. The aim of this paper is to identify the formal institutional failings associated with informal employment so that action can be taken by governments. Using the Tobit model for econometric analysis and reporting conditional and unconditional margina...
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the extent of the practice of using informal payments for accessing the services of public clinics or hospitals across Europe and to explain the prevalence of this corrupt practice using the framework of institutional theory. To achieve this, a multi-level mixed-effect logistic regression on 25,744 interviews un...
Objectives: The objective of this paper is to evaluate the use of informal payments and personal connections to gain preferential access to public health services during the COVID-19 pandemic and to propose effective policy measures for tackling this phenomenon.
Methods: Using data from 25,744 patients in the European Union, six different scenarios...
This paper evaluates whether different labor market policy interventions taken in response to the COVID-19 pandemic have been effective in reducing its adverse impacts. We construct a database covering 165 countries and 39 labor market interventions grouped into four pillars: stimulating the economy and jobs (pillar 1); supporting enterprises, empl...
Purpose: Informal entrepreneurship is seen as a direct outcome of either the failure of formal institutions or the asymmetry between formal and informal institutions. These two viewpoints are so far debated as alternative theoretical explanations for the prevalence of informal entrepreneurship. In this paper, we offer a theoretically integrative ap...
The aim of this paper is to evaluate the practice of under-reporting wages (and its multifarious forms) in the construction industry, which is a dominant type of undeclared work found in the industry, and how it can be explained and tackled. To do so, a mixed-methods approach is used, including in-depth interviews , focus groups and a representativ...
In recent decades scholars have acknowledged that transactions in the informal economy have not vanished with modernization and industrialization as expected but rather remain an important contemporary aspect of overall production and consumption across the world, in both developing and developed countries. Yet little is known about the profile of...
Little attention has been paid to why consumers choose to purchase goods and services from the informal economy. Similarly, few studies have been conducted on consumer behaviour in relation to informal markets during the COVID-19 pandemic. The aim of the article is to evaluate, for the first time, whether the COVID-19 pandemic influenced consumer b...
To help countries make progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 8.3.1 ("Proportion of informal employment in non-agriculture employment, by sex"), this paper presents an integrated strategic policy approach. This is where: a national government facilitates the transition to formality using a whole government appro...
To help countries make progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 8.3.1 ("Proportion of informal employment in non-agriculture employment, by sex"), this paper presents an integrated strategic policy approach. This is where: a national government facilitates the transition to formality using a whole government appro...
Tackling undeclared work is often less effective because there is a fragmented and uncoordinated approach across the multifarious government bodies responsible for tackling undeclared work and a limited involvement of social partners, as well as an incomplete range of policy measures used. To resolve this, a holistic integrated strategic approach h...
Historical and economic studies indicate that people in all societies have long adapted their activities to the regulations of their contemporary economic system either not to violate these regulations or to avoid them. Thus, if we treat informal economic activities as the activities that are conducted by evading the regulatory norms established in...
To report the study on the relationship between unemployment and the informal economy in Lithuania, the first section reviews the materials and methods used, while the second section reports the findings regarding both the characteristics of the unemployed and their motivations for participating in the informal economy.
Tackling undeclared work is often less effective because there is a fragmented and uncoordinated approach across the multifarious government bodies responsible for tackling undeclared work and a limited involvement of social partners, as well as an incomplete range of policy measures used. To resolve this, a holistic integrated strategic approach h...
In this paper, we use a novel cross‐country dataset to investigate the relationship between the prevalence of the shadow economy and fiscal policy responses to the economic crisis induced by the pandemic. The finding is that countries with a relatively larger shadow economy before the pandemic have adopted a smaller fiscal policy package. The resul...
The aim of this report is to compare social identity (ID) card schemes in the construction sector in different European countries to make recommendations for the design of a social ID card scheme in the construction sector in Romania. Social ID cards provide information on the employer and employee to confirm if workers on a construction site shoul...
The aim of this report is to compare social identity (ID) card schemes in the construction sector in different European countries to make recommendations for the design of a social ID card scheme in the construction sector in Romania. Social ID cards provide information on the employer and employee to confirm if workers on a construction site shoul...
This final chapter provides a summary of firstly, the in-depth literature review of the informal economy and the relationship between unemployment and the informal economy. Secondly, it reports the findings of the survey conducted in Lithuania regarding the participation of the unemployed in the informal economy, and third and finally, it attempts...
Greek economy suffers from economic crisis for over a decade. A continuing problem has been the persistence of a large shadow economy which results in a gap between the tax and social security contribution owed and collected. In this paper, the size of shadow economy (SE) in Greece is estimated using a flexible MIMIC approach with time series data...
To tackle participation in unregistered employment, the conventional policy approach has been to deter such work by increasing the penalties and risk of detection. Recently, an alternative preventative approach has emerged that tackles participation in unregistered employment by improving citizens vertical trust (in the state) and horizontal trust...
This report documents the outcomes of the first Peer Learning Dialogue (PLD) on the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic for the organisation of inspections and inspectorates. The aim of this Peer Learning Dialogue has been to produce recommendations and suggested actions (1) which European Platform tackling undeclared work members can implem...
Healthcare accessibility and equity remain important issues, as corruption in the form of informal payments is still prevalent in many countries across the world. This study employs a panel data analysis over the 2006-2013 period to explore the role of different institutional factors in explaining the prevalence of informal payments. Covering 117 c...
Although major advances have been made in relation to explaining the supply side of the informal economy, this is not the case for the demand-side of the informal economy. This study analyses for the first time the purchasers of undeclared goods and services in the healthcare sector. To evaluate the purchase of undeclared healthcare goods and servi...
The eleventh meeting in plenary of the European Platform tackling undeclared work (the Platform) was held in Bratislava on 21-22 October 2021 as a hybrid meeting both onsite as well as online. The first day of this meeting was a thematic day dedicated to examining COVID-19’s impact on enforcement authorities’ work and priorities.
This thematic da...
The aim of this report is to evaluate “e-formalization” in European countries. To tackle informality, the lockdown and physical distancing measures resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in a decrease in onsite workplace inspections in Europe and the greater use of e-initiatives as a complement to the traditional onsite workplace inspect...
Confronted with a global pandemic, public healthcare systems are under pressure, making access to healthcare services difficult for patients. This provides fertile ground for using illegal practices such as informal payments to gain access. This paper aims to evaluate the use of informal payments by patients during the COVID-19 pandemic and the ins...
This toolkit provides a step-by-step guide for enforcement authorities who are seeking to develop and improve their risk assessment systems to detect, prevent and predict undeclared work. To prevent each enforcement authority from having to “reinvent the wheel” when developing their risk assessment systems, this toolkit presents the challenges and...
Usually, studies on the informal economy focus mainly upon those working in the informal economy (supply side). However, many exchanges in the informal economy are initiated by purchasers asking how much a good or service costs if paid cash in hand. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to advance understanding of who make purchases in the informal e...
In transition economies, a significant number of companies reduce their tax and social contributions by paying their staff an official salary, described in a registered formal employment agreement, and an extra, undeclared “envelope wage,” via a verbal unwritten agreement. The consequences include a loss of government income and a lack of fair play...
In transition economies, a significant number of companies reduce their tax and social contributions by paying their staff an official salary, described in a registered formal employment agreement, and an extra, undeclared “envelope wage,” via a verbal unwritten agreement. The consequences include a loss of government income and a lack of fair play...
On 16 September 2021, the European Platform tackling undeclared work organised an online seminar on Tackling undeclared work in the HORECA sector. The seminar brought together 43 participants from 20 countries, representing labour inspectorates and other enforcement authorities, European and national level social partners in the HORECA sector, as w...
The objectives of this report are: to review the elements of an effective education and awareness raising campaign on undeclared work; to set out a proposal for an education and awareness raising campaign on undeclared work in the Western Balkans, and to provide good practice examples of specific education and awareness raising activities that are...
Purpose
The aim of this paper is to evaluate contrasting ways of tackling self-employment in the informal sector. Conventionally, the participation of the self-employed in the informal sector has been viewed as a rational economic decision taken when the expected benefits outweigh the costs, and thus enforcement authorities have sought to change th...
In many economies, there is a fragmented and uncoordinated approach across the multifarious government bodies responsible for tackling undeclared work and a limited involvement of social partners, as well as an incomplete range of policy measures used. To resolve this, a holistic integrated strategic approach has been proposed. This is where govern...
On 11th June 2021, the Western Balkan Network Tackling undeclared work held a workshop for enforcement authorities in the Western Balkans on data collection, sharing and analysis to tackle undeclared work. This learning resource reports the outcomes of the workshop. This workshop was organised to provide an opportunity for enforcement authorities i...
On 13th May 2020, as part of the “Relaunch” decree in Italy, it was agreed that from 1 June to 15 July 2020, requests for regularisation may be submitted for undocumented migrant agricultural workers, and domestic workers and carers. The aim was to regularize undocumented migrant workers enabling them to move into the declared economy As of April 1...
In Albania, the State Labour and Social Services Inspectorate has introduced an online inspection platform to prevent abusive behaviour by labour inspectors and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the planning and conduct of inspections. It now includes data from 34,500 inspections. The outcomes have been that: 45% more undeclared work has...
In 2009, the Republika Srpska Labour Inspectorate established a call centre established to receive complaints on some labour law irregularities on businesses practices, including undeclared work. These complaints can be reported either by telephone or electronically by email or online. In the first quarter of 2021, 77 complaints were reported relat...
In the Labour Inspectorate in Serbia, the strategic objective of transforming undeclared work into declared work has been fully adopted and operationalized in the measurement of the performance of the inspectorate. The outcome is that in 2020, of the total of 5,951 persons found working undeclared during inspections, 4,072 (68%) were subsequently e...
A ChatBot application Inspector Virtual Assistant has been introduced to provide support for citizens and entrepreneurs completing the online complaint reporting form on the web portal of the Coordination Commission for Inspection Oversight (inspektor.gov.rs). In the first year, 16,884 complaints have been reported by citizens and businesses, of wh...
Collecting, sharing and analysing data can improve enforcement authority performance not only in detecting undeclared work but also preventing non-compliance. The aim of this toolkit is to support enforcement authorities in the Western Balkans to improve their knowledge and awareness of how to develop efficient databases to detect, prevent and pred...
Collecting, sharing and analysing data can improve enforcement authority performance not only in detecting undeclared work but also preventing non-compliance. The aim of this toolkit is to support enforcement authorities in the Western Balkans to improve their knowledge and awareness of how to develop efficient databases to detect, prevent and pred...
On 29th April 2021, the European Platform tackling undeclared work (hereafter the ‘Platform’) held a webinar on ‘COVID 19: combating fraud in short-term financial support schemes’. This report documents the discussion at the webinar which brought together 31 participants from 20 countries, representing labour inspectorates and other enforcement aut...
This paper reviews the policy options and measures available for tackling informal sector entrepreneurship. Four possible policy options are critically reviewed: doing nothing, eradicating informal entrepreneurship; eradicating formal entrepreneurship and formalizing informal entrepreneurship. Concluding that the latter is the most feasible option,...
Purpose
To transcend the view of employment as either formal or informal, this paper evaluates the prevalence of quasi-formal employment where formal employers pay formal employees an unreported (“envelope”) wage in addition to their formal reported salary. To explain the individual-level variations in quasi-formal employment, the “marginalisation”...
Greece in 2018 introduced an online company registration portal. An entrepreneur can access the portal using an electronic ID or personal access code from the tax authority and register a business without leaving the office or exchanging any paperwork. To incentivise the use of the portal, registration fees are 30% lower than if the paperwork proce...
To improve tax compliance by making available to taxpayers the software for them to conduct a tax compliance risk assessment using the same algorithms as the Italian Revenue Agency. The view is that this will encourage voluntary compliance by encouraging taxpayers to be more honest in the tax returns they submit, thus reducing audit costs for the t...
Questions
Questions (15)
I am currently doing a project for a government who are considering the introduction of the use of body cameras among their labour inspectors and health & safety inspectors when conducting visits to business premises. They are thinking of combining this with the use of GPS so that the camera automatically switches on when the inspector reaches the business and automatically switches off when he/she leaves the business. Does anybody know of any research on the impacts of the usage of such body cameras, in this or related areas (e.g., policing)?
I am currently doing a project for a government who wish to introduce the use of body cameras among their labour inspectors and health & safety inspectors when conducting visits to business premises. They are thinking of combining this with the use of GPS so that the camera automatically switches on when the inspector reaches the business and automatically switches off when he/she leaves the business. Does anybody know of any research on the impacts of the usage of such body cameras, such as in related areas (e.g., policing)?
Does anybody know of any specific policy initiatives that a country has adopted that has been successful in moving work in the informal economy into the formal economy?
I am looking for 'good practice' policy initiatives that might be transferable from one country and could be implemented more broadly. These might be deterrence initiatives that increase the penalties or improve the risks of detection (e.g., initiatives to improve workplace inspections, improve data mining to identify the informal economy).
They might also be incentive measures that encourage the shift from the informal to the formal economy. These might be supply-side initiatives that make it beneficial and easier to operate in the formal economy (e.g., simpler registration, tax incentives). They might also be demand-side initiatives that encourage consumers/purchasers to buy from the formal economy (e.g., service vouchers, tax incentives).
Finally, they might involve awareness raising and education campaigns to persuade people of the benefits or working in the formal economy or costs of working in the informal economy. Or they might be initiatives that seek to improve the structural systemic drivers that lead to the prevalence of the informal economy (e.g., reducing corruption, modernizing governance).
Ideally, I am looking for specific concrete policy initiatives that have been evaluated to assess their impact.
Letterbox companies might be defined as chiefly legal entities established in a country where they have no (or very little) economic activity, in order to benefit from more advantageous tax and social security systems.
A letterbox company is therefore a company with no significant activity, created solely for the purposes of circumventing the applicable laws and regulations in the country in which it operates by registering itself in another.
Does anybody know of any research conducted on this issue?
In recent years, there has been growing concern about the growth of what is called either 'bogus' or 'false' self-employment across many governments in Europe and beyond. I am interested to find out whether any research has been conducted on this issue.
In Business Schools in particular, and Universities more generally, the recruitment and support of Early Career Researchers is an important issue. What good practice exists so far their recruitment and support is concerned? How can business schools in particular, and universities more generally, attract and retain their research talent? Examples of good practice from individual institutions, as well as country-wide initiatives, would be very useful.
The Stern Review makes some new recommendations for modifications to the Research Excellence Framework (REF) in the United Kingdom. Examples include: the inclusion of all staff; the non-portability of outputs from one institution to another; the proposal that staff can submit 0 to 6 outputs; the use of University-wide environment statements; and University-wide and cross-Unit-of-Assessment impact case studies. What impacts do you think that will this have on UK University research, and research management?