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Response to suggestion that EU-wide cash payment limits would assist in the control of terrorism finance and money laundering.

Desk review and interviews

The inception impact assessment (IIA) is ill-conceived, not grounded on firm empirical evidence and harmful to both crime control and the legitimate interests and rights of the EU citizens. The action under discussion is presented as a measure against terrorism finance, serious crime and tax evasion. The problem is that these criminal acts correspond to very different methods, volumes, perpetrators, causes and control challenges. Cash payment limitations (CPLs) are nowhere near a panacea that can address all of them and cannot make any of them go away magically. Even when each of these crime challenges are considered on their own, the empirical linkage of CPLs to effective controls is not there. The evidence from EU countries with CPLs in place shows higher levels of informal economy, corruption, tax evasion and terrorism risks than those without. There is substantial evidence of non-cash, very serious and organized crime, while the amounts needed and used by terrorists in Europe are usually very small in cash transactions, way below the thresholds under consideration. In fact, determined offenders will shift to other methods and become more sophisticated, posing new problems to controllers. Displacement and incentives for better-organized crime may well be the main products of such measures.

It counters the argument that the cash payment limits can help reduce serious crime, while pointing to several adverse consequences on legitimate interests and human rights.

This paper critiques the recent anti‐money laundering (AML) legislation in Turkey and the European Union (EU) in order to determine whether there is convergence between them. Given the fact that Turkey is a candidate country for the EU membership, harmonisation of Turkish and the EU AML frameworks has become increasingly important. These AML laws pose important responsibilities for the financial and legal sectors.

In order to facilitate the evaluation process, the AML regimes examined are compared in regards to various aspects, such as criminalisation of money laundering, recording and reporting obligations, enforcement and sanctions mechanisms. Findings from activity reports from the regulatory bodies as well as semi‐structured interviews conducted with relevant professionals are incorporated into the discussion.

It can be argued that the Turkish AML regime is in line with the EU AML framework. However, there is a need for government authorities to coordinate their efforts with the relevant independent regulatory professional bodies that represent the liable professionals in Turkey. While it is evident that each national regime in the EU has adopted a unique AML framework, minimum standards provided by international (e.g. the Financial Action Task Force) and regional (e.g. EU) instruments have been the main driving force behind all national laws.

The involvement of professional regulatory bodies will enhance competence to monitor compliance and provide training mechanisms and guidance for liable professionals pertaining to AML regulations.

Effectiveness of AML initiatives will enhance with improved cooperation and communication between the executive, law enforcement agencies and businesses. This will improve the reporting of suspicious financial activities and subsequent enforcement.

The paper provides an up‐to‐date account of the Turkish legal regime pertaining to AML and demonstrates its shortcomings whilst assessing it against the EU AML framework. The findings of the study contribute to the existing literature and shed light on areas for reform.

Street economy (SE) is defined as the exchange of all kinds of goods and services in public areas, streets, street corners and squares. As in all sectors, SE is composed of two main parts as registered and unregistered. Again, it is divided into two parts as legitimate and illegitimate social and economic activities, in the extent of the limitlessness of human needs and the relatively limited resources. SE consists of all kinds of economic, social, cultural and artistic activities that are carried out on the streets. Virtual streets are added to real streets with globalisation and digitalisation. It is observed that the very small-scale street trade, which is expected and predicted to disappear in the last century, has become more widespread and effective in contrast to all these predictions and expectations. In this chapter, it is foreseen that the SE, with all its sub-sectors, has not yet been measured with its sub-sectors, and with its global buyers and sellers having reached the enormous dimensions that affect the daily life of 5 billion people out of the 8 billion world population. Quantitative indicators compiled from databases show that this set of street traders has reached a global trade volume of $30 trillion under the common denominators. With a volume of $30 trillion, SE has attracted the attention of the producers and investors of street robots as well as other entrepreneurs and researchers. SE, which has been expected to be eliminated and not seen as worthy by economists and politicians, has been the sole supplier of the needs of the poor, with hundreds of sub-sectors. It is seen as the easiest, most common job opportunity of the unemployed. In this chapter, the functions, its place in the city life, its added value at the local and national levels and its problems and global solution proposals of the SE, which is expected to become more important in the world agenda, will be discussed.

To measure the size of underground economy and the amount of tax evasion in Cyprus by employing monetary and non‐monetary approaches over the period 1960‐2003 and to compare the Cyprus figures with some European experience existing in the literature.

Annual data covering the 1960‐2003 period were applied to several approaches for measuring the size of underground economy and the amount of tax evasion in Cyprus. These approaches are: employment discrepancy; simple currency ratio; transaction and currency demand.

On the basis of the results obtained from this study: firstly, in Cyprus the average ratio of the underground economy and tax evasion to official GDP is estimated at 9.41 and 0.31 percent of GDP respectively for the study period, and secondly, in the two time intervals where Cypriots figures are internationally comparable with the often quoted EU underground economy figures, the figures for Cyprus are estimated as 5.96 percent of GDP in 1994‐95 and 5.67 percent of GDP in 1996‐97 whereas the figures for some European Union (EU) members are 18.05 percent of GDP in 1994‐95 and 18.76 percent of GDP in 1996‐97.

Findings of this study suggest that the issue of the underground economy is still in need of further investigation, firstly, to reach reliable results since each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses and yield different results, secondly, to find out the best method selection on a well‐established theory, and finally, to employ reliable data estimating measurement.

Both EU and Cypriot authorities can utilize this study to analyse the extent of Cypriot underground economy with respect to the other EU members. Such attempts can be useful in developing policies and implementing actions and measures to eliminate underground economy activities.

This study is the first of its kind with recent data to measure the size of underground economy and tax evasion for the Cypriot economy by employing various approaches.

The issues of development and democracy have ceased to be the internal problems of the countries and have become a dynamic factor in the international relations as regional and global issues. The problems that are difficult to solve such as the production insufficiency overwhelming the countries just like a national nightmare most of which have the roots that actually go out in one way or the other, the lack of economic capacity, the low technology level, the lack of qualified school curriculum, the private sector which is not sufficiently developed in many areas, the state and private sector relations having remained away from the plural capacity and governance and that the injustice revenue distribution and the opportunities to obtain unfair wealth wear down the working and undertaking desires of the productive population are the primary development problems. This study aims to criticise the street economy, micro entrepreneurship and how can it be a macro step for development and democracy and to determine the importance of street economy and street vendors for global economy.

This paper aims to consider the use of rumour by Bangladeshi migrant entrepreneurs in Naples, Italy to comment on informal economic practices and migrant moral hierarchies present in that city.

It is based on ethnographic fieldwork among migrants conducted by the author in the Naples region in 2004 and 2005. Rumour has been interpreted by some scholars as a way to promote community cohesion and by others to promote the self‐interest of those circulating it.

In this paper, rumour is seen as a communicative device that offers information or news for evaluation and is a central means of distributing information in all economies. Here, migrants use the information circulating in rumours to interpret their migratory chances in Italy in general and, more specifically, entrepreneurial conditions available to those engaged in informal economic activities in the Neapolitan economy. These rumours travel beyond a circumscribed racialised group to have purchase in wider social fields. In this case, as subjective representations of economic behaviour, these rumours offer models for entrepreneurial activities to be admired, mimicked, condemned, or avoided.

This ethnographic material suggests that greater attention should be paid to how subjective understandings spur social action as reflected here through the use of rumours as a kind of knowledge to be assessed and interpreted to form the basis of decisions about economic behaviour among Bangladeshi migrants in Naples.

Entrepreneurship policy is a vital component of any entrepreneurial ecosystem. However, the specific policy initiatives that have a greater impact on women's entrepreneurship remain unclear in many developing economies. Therefore, this study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of entrepreneurship policies targeted at women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).

Employing fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA), this paper utilises and analyses secondary data collected by the World Bank's Women, Business, and the Law (WBL) from 1970 to 2020, encompassing 48 countries within SSA.

Through our analysis, we identified two configurations that sufficiently support women's entrepreneurship. First, a combination of gender-based policies focussing on enabling “access to credit” and “signing of contracts”; and second, a blend of policies supporting “signing of contracts”, “business registration”, and “opening a bank account”, represent significant antecedents to supporting women's entrepreneurship. These distinct pathways are crucial to fostering women’s entrepreneurship in the SSA region.

The study's findings indicate that the impact and effectiveness of entrepreneurship policies targeted at women entrepreneurs in developing economies depend on the effectiveness of other policies that are in place.

This study offers new insights into the intricate interrelationship between entrepreneurship policies and women’s entrepreneurship in developing countries by considering the interdependence and combinative value of gender-based policies that effectively support women’s entrepreneurship in sub-Saharan Africa.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute original evidence about the conditions for formal and informal contracts for commodities and labour in the waste economy of a South Indian town.

Field research was exploratory, based on snowball sampling and urban traversing. The analysis follows capital and labour in the sub-circuits of capital generating waste in production, distribution, consumption, the production of labour and the reproduction of society.

Regardless of legal regulation, which is selectively enforced, formal contracts are limited to active inspection regimes; direct transactions with or within the state; and long-distance transactions. Formal labour contracts are least incomplete for state employment, and for relatively scarce skilled labour in the private sector.

The research design does not permit quantified generalisations.

Waste management technology evaluations neglect the social costs of displacing a large informal labour force.

While slowly dissolving occupational barriers of untouchability, the waste economy is a low-status labour absorber of last resort, exit from which is extremely difficult.

The first systematic exploration of formal and informal contracts in an Indian small-town waste economy.

The purpose of the paper is to determine whether the Government of Jamaica's COVID-19 Allocation of Resources for Employees (CARE) Stimulus Response program provides a sufficient opportunity for formalization of the informal economy.

A careful examination of the program has been conducted, specifically through reading the CARE brochure, reading the budget presentation by the Minister of Finance in which the program was introduced and details highlighted, following program updates at COVID-19 Press briefings and the Minister's Twitter account, and following related articles and programs via original and social media.

This paper suggests that any capitalizing on the opportunity to promote formalization is insufficient. Early data show increased applications for licenses and registration by informal operators, but the CARE program is only short-term, and the benefits of formalization will have to surpass those of informality to be sufficiently attractive. Other attractors must necessarily involve simplifying the process of contributing to the National Insurance Scheme; and offering unemployment insurance; along with access to finance, education and training and policymaking opportunities. COVID-19 provides the possibility of a “new deal” for the informal economy that could yield productivity gains and more inclusive development.

This is one of the earliest examinations of how the short-term financial support schemes implemented by the GoJ as its COVID-19 Stimulus Response has been used as an incentive to formalize the large informal economy.