Albania’s shadow economy at an average of 32.7% during the last 25 years: IMF study

A very interesting study, recently published by the International Monetary Fund, entitled  Shadow Economies Around the World: What Did We Learn Over the Last 20 Years? indicates that the shadow economy or informal economy as it is otherwise known in Albania has been on average 32.7% of the Gross Domestic Product during the transition period covering the years 1991-2015.

This rate ranks Albania at the 54th place in the world, among 158 different countries of the globe considered by the International Monetary Fund.

This ranking, meanwhile, is based on another method of measuring the informal economy, and it gives Albania a rate of 28.5%.

The analysis of the Washington-based institution also focuses on each of the years since 1991.

The study concludes that the most problematic year for Albania has been 1991, with a rate of over 43%.

The best year is 2011, at a rate of 25.41%.

The considered period is until 2015, so it does not take into account the period when the anti-informality action was intensified.

In 2015, says the IMF, the informal economy’s rate on gross domestic product was fixed at 26.21% of GDP.

With very small exceptions, during these 25 years, the performance has been almost constant, with informality downward from year to year.

In general terms, the IMF study, which speaks of an informal economy rate in one third of the total, shows how much the economy has lost from this informality, not only in the form of evasion, ie lost taxes, but even in terms of unfair competition, which not only damages honest business but also keeps potential investors at bay.

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