Summary

This volume explores the connections between the informal economy and organized crime. It poses the question of whether countries' national social and economic policies affect the form and extent of their informal economies and the extent and nature of connections with organized crime. Each of the papers has drawn upon empirical work in the countries involved (Germany, Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, transition countries in central and eastern Europe, Georgia, the Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan and Serbia). Together, they provide important new pointers to the ways in which states, often inadvertently, mould and shape their informal economies through their legislative, regulatory and enforcement policies. Contents include: the potential effects of national policies on the informal economy . informal economy, illegal work, and public policy . migrants' offside trap: a strategy for dealing with misleading rules and a hostile playing field . the eligibility of work: some notes on immigrants, reputation and crime . the anti-money laundering complex: power pantomime or potential payoff? . corporate security and private settlement: an informal economy of justice . intertwining between state and economy: state capture . the political-criminal-business nexus and state capture in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan: a comparative analysis . Serbia on the routes of human trafficking.