Understanding Demonetization in India

CHAPTER 11

Demonetization and Black Economy

There is a widespread misconception that the phenomenon of black economy is unique to the Indian setting and that the rest of the world, particularly the advanced capitalist countries of Europe and North America, are free from it. A large body of work of scholars like Friedrich Schneider, who noted with the help of global data that the phenomenon is by no means absent in those regions, may provide some comfort to Indian readers (Nayak 2017a). Parallel economy or black economy exists in both developed and developing countries. The term black economy is variously referred to as hidden economy, illegal economy, phantom trades, shadow economy, subterranean economy, unaccounted economy, unregulated economy, ...