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The aim of the studies is to understand the notion of underground economy and to make recommendations for improving the fraud management and control systems. We study the underground economy in terms of its components. The basic component without which we cannot talk about fraud is the economical agents with heterogeneous skills, seeking opportunities from the point of view of the disparities between the laws of the Member States of the European Union and the uncertainties of the national law regarding the risky commercial activities of enterprises. Asymmetrical provision between the laws of the Member States of the European Union imply an environment that offers the economical agents the possibility to take advantage of these disparities in order to operate an underground economy. Confronted with these underground economies the States choose financial policies that would determine the economical operators from the black market to respect their financial obligations. Member States are responsible for preventing and resolving irregularities and fraud in the areas managed in a distributed manner. In order to protect the Community's financial interests, Member States are primarily responsible for establishing management and control systems that comply with the requirements of Community law as well as for verifying the efficient operation of systems through audits by designated bodies for the prevention, correcting irregularities or fraud. The analysis has shown that the gradual approach is easier to understand, if the statistical data being analyzed, after the theoretical elements are presented. It is recommended that any classification of types of fraud be made according to the specific circumstances and the environment in which the organizations operate. The responsibilities of the Member States for setting up management and control systems that comply with Community requirements to verify the operational efficiency of these systems through audits by the bodies designated for the prevention, detection and correction of irregularities and fraud will be analyzed. Correlation with statistical data will clarify OLAF's financial recommendations to EU institutions or national authorities that also manage EU customs revenue collection. It will be highlighted that the customs activities of the Member States' are the first line of defense against any attempt to defraud the EU budget. Since its inception, OLAF has been monitoring the actions taken by national judicial authorities following its judicial recommendations to see the outcome of these cases on the ground and to find out whether they have led to allegations or other judicial measures. The key inference of the analysis is the study of the components of the underground economy according to legal provision, politic environment from the different states of the European Union with the purpose of improving the policies for controlling this phenomenon.

The role of CCs as tools for rebuilding local economies through communities appears to emerge from the Italian experience. The projects launched in our country range from community of businesses – closed circuits in which members voluntarily exchange goods and services, offsetting debts against credits – to projects characterized by solidarity and participatory systems aimed at strengthening community relations as well as at promoting sustainable development models. These systems lie on the border between formal/informal economic activities. The proximity to existing projects, a certain ability to intercept emerging requests as well as the need to face the effects of the crisis caused by the pandemic has pressured some Regions to include CCs in their legislations as an attempt to move these systems to formal economy. However, the promotion of the complementary currencies is basically an investment in relationships, therefore stimulating trust and a proactive role in community decision-making is an issue that cannot be resolved just through legislation. Consequently, local institutions must rethink and improve their role in order to be able to become themselves pro-active subjects for the development of community initiatives.

This essay explores the semantics of the term “informal economy” and, in particular, the relation between the two words. It shows how this subject is anything but something with no form and no structure. Moreover, it reflects on the historical relations between this type of economy and the cyclical transformations of capital. Informal economy is seen as a buffer that makes such changes both socially bearable and symbolically necessary – in order to produce alliances between classes and mobilize different sentiments in given circumstances. The example of (neo-)populism(s), especially in a Southern Italian city (Messina), is provided and shortly discussed. Finally, it advocates descriptions of the phenomenon that unfold the substantial overlapping of what is official and “secret”, and is in fact part of the experience of millions of people in an endlessly changing world.

This essay explores the semantics of the term "informal economy" and, in particular, the relation between the two words. It shows how this subject is anything but something with no form and no structure. Moreover, it reflects on the historical relations between this type of economy and the cyclical transformations of capital. Informal economy is seen as a buffer that makes such changes both socially bearable and symbolically necessary - in order to produce alliances between classes and mobilize different sentiments in given circumstances. The example of (neo-)populism(s), especially in a Southern Italian city (Messina), is provided and shortly discussed. Finally, it advocates descriptions of the phenomenon that unfold the substantial overlapping of what is official and "secret", and is in fact part of the experience of millions of people in an endlessly changing world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The role of CCs as tools for rebuilding local economies through communities appears to emerge from the Italian experience. The projects launched in our country range from community of businesses - closed circuits in which members voluntarily exchange goods and services, offsetting debts against credits - to projects characterized by solidarity and participatory systems aimed at strengthening community relations as well as at promoting sustainable development models. These systems lie on the border between formal/informal economic activities. The proximity to existing projects, a certain ability to intercept emerging requests as well as the need to face the effects of the crisis caused by the pandemic has pressured some Regions to include CCs in their legislations as an attempt to move these systems to formal economy. However, the promotion of the complementary currencies is basically an investment in relationships, therefore stimulating trust and a proactive role in community decision-making is an issue that cannot be resolved just through legislation. Consequently, local institutions must rethink and improve their role in order to be able to become themselves pro-active subjects for the development of community initiatives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims analyzing the emergence of the so-called platform capitalism through informal economy studies. Starting from research developed in the '80s and '90s in the United Kingdom about poor people's survival strategies, the author shows how contemporary platform capitalism reproduces economic forms that used to be considered informal. The article taking into consideration this temporal sequence enables to consider platform economy as a response to the typical paradoxes of the domain of informality, differently from analyses that consider platform capitalism as a mere transference of private activities into the digital sphere in order to reduce transaction costs. The article concludes on the concept of "conversion" through which Peruvian economist de Soto aims at transforming informal economies of the poor into the motor of the capitalist development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This introduction reflects upon the relationship between three distinct fields of analysis: sociological research related to digital work and platform capitalism; sociological research related to digital money; and literature related to unpaid labour and the informal economy. Its hypothesis is that the joint study of these three research areas allows us to identify, within the wider field of digital labour and the digital economy, the tendency to reconvert informal economic practices into formal ones. This theoretical choice reflects the need to understand the transformations of labor in the current era, taking into account the widespread tendency towards cashlessness, i.e. a society based mainly on digital transactions rather than on cash. In this perspective, the process of digitisation represents a complex transition that exposes individuals to digital surveillance, thus allowing data and value to be constantly extracted from economic flows and social behaviour to be constantly controlled and regulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores women's economic agency in the «border economies» of Mediterranean ports and islands, focusing on the case of Stromboli, in the Sicilian Aeolian Archipelago, in the first half of the nineteenth century. The position of women in the public and the private sphere and the lack of relevant contemporary socio-professional categories makes it difficult to identify their activities, although they are crucial to the understanding of coastal societies. The paper stresses the importance of women's full involvement in the typical pluriactivity of such communities, combining trade with agriculture and seafaring. In Stromboli, travelers' reports, notarial and judicial sources show a number of intertwined activities: women toiled in the fields and went fishing, lent money and spun silk, processed agricultural produce and managed family businesses. They played a significant role also in the «shadow economy» of informal and/or illicit trades. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In contemporary times, the informal economy is a complex and heterogeneous phenomenon. There is a range of activities performed outside the regulation and control of the States. In this paper we start from the idea that there is a kind of informality associated with the discontinuity provoked by the border, commonly addressed in terms of “smuggling”. The aim is to propose a conceptualization of such informality from theoretical contributions on the informal economy and border. The border region between Mexico and Guatemala and will bring specific illustrations to our conceptual framework.

The present paper points out some relevant aspects concerning a specific example of informal economy, i.e. the sorted waste collection service carried out by the informal garbage collectors at Porto Alegre, Brazil. In recent years, the recycling of solid waste run by poor and socially excluded people has become one of the most «evident» forms of the informal economy in the streets of the South of the world's cities. At the same time, this phenomenon has become more popular in several international newspapers. Particular attention has been paid to the potential causes creating this practice of informality, characterised by extremely poor working conditions; whereas not sufficient attention has been paid to the knowledge about the processes by which the garbage collectors phenomenon is socially reproduced in the different urban contexts. Using the methods of qualitative social research (ethnography in particular), I observed the schemes of action that contribute to create the garbage collectors phenomenon in Porto Alegre, trying to understand features and processes that help to maintain a certain social order. In particular, the focus was on the constitution of «grass-roots» organisations, their features and their relations with both subjects operating in the formal part of economy and the local public authorities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]