Services purchase from the informal economy using digital platforms

ABSTRACT

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 tackle this, a logistic regression analysis reveals that informal purchases decrease significantly when both the level of horizontal trust as well as the level of sanctions and risk of detection increase. These results support the use of the holistic approach for tackling informal economy, advocated by the European Platform Tackling Undeclared Work of the European Commission, to achieve progress on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Indicator 8.3.1 (Proportion of informal employment in non-agriculture employment, by sex).

摘要

本文评估了数字平台在非正规经济中购买服务程度，以及解决措施。根据2021年罗马尼亚1209名消费者调查报告数据显示，33%的消费者从非正规经济中购买了服务业务，其中36%是通过数字平台完成购买。基于此，逻辑回归分析显示，当信任以及制裁水平和被发现风险增加时，非正式购买会显著减少。这印证了可采用欧洲委员会倡导的“处理未申报工作欧洲平台”整体方法解决非正规经济问题，以实现联合国可持续发展目标指标8.3.1(非正规就业在非农就业中的比例，按性别分列)。

KEYWORDS:

• Purchases of undeclared services
• informal economy
• collaborative economy
• digital platforms

关键词:

• 购买未申报服务;非正规经济;合作经济;数字平台

Acknowledgements

Horodnic I.A. and Mațcu M. acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0229, within PNCDI III. Horodnic A.V. acknowledges financial support from the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0163, within PNCDI III.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0229, within PNCDI III and by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2019-0163, within PNCDI III.