Overcoming Shadow Economy Problems: Adaptation of the EU Experience in Russia (SHEXP)

Shadow economy is an inevitable part of any economic system in the world. It exists everywhere and governments have always been trying to understand the mechanisms of its functionality, to avoid its spreading deeper into the economic structures of countries, but it seems that different results have been achieved in different regions.

Russia is well-known as one of the young market countries with a largest share of shadow economy at the same time. Especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union the level of shadow economy in the newly emerged capitalistic Russia rocketed immediately. Russian government has been trying to cope with the situation with legislative measures, so far achieving quite formal results, not influencing the general situation on the large scale, bringing a serious menace to lose the credibility of our external economic partners. Business communities encounter lots of obstacles during their set up and development processes due to the large stake of shadow economy principles.

Most discussions on the subject offer little alternative to the current situation. It is logic and useful to adopt the experience of the European Union in the area of overcoming shadow economy problems.

The strategic aims of the project are to contribute to development of mutual understanding between the EU and Russian academic and business societies, to overcome difficulties and contradictions in perception of each other’s experience, to develop intercultural communications and comparative evaluation of similarities and differences of views from European and Russian experts in the field of shadow economy, and to foster the constructive dialogue between the academic world, business community and policy-makers.

Main project objective: development and introduction into the educational process of a Russian HEI (University) of a special teaching module that would allow the future professionals to form the knowledge about forms, mechanisms, character and levels of internal/external threats from the shadow economy sector in Russia, as well as about the possibilities of application in Russia of basic principles and fundamentals of European policy of effective countermeasures against shadow economy, based on the studies of practical EU experience.

Project objectives are:

to develop a unified learning and methodological basis for teaching the “Shadow economy” module course in Russian HEIs on the basis of European scientific concepts and theoretical approaches to understanding the core nature of shadow economy;
to provide a rationale of the unified European approach to the HEI’s studies of the problems of diversification and imperfections of national models for market transitions in the transforming economic systems;
to adapt the EU experience in terms of effective influence and regulation of shadow economy on micro- and macro levels in Russia.
to prepare the vision paper “The EU experience of fighting against shadow economy and its application in Russia”;
to create a dialogue between EU and Russian experts in the field of shadow economy;
to organize International Conference “Implementation of the EU experience in counteracting shadow economy for Russian economic models”;
to prepare the expert recommendations, based on thorough EU experience analysis.

The project is targeted on wider academic and business community, EU and Russian authorities, lecturers, researchers, students.

Project outcomes:

increased interest in understanding and cooperation between European and Russian partners;
increased opportunities for academic staff in terms of professional development;
creation of preconditions for gradual introduction and harmonization of European civilization achievements into the practical areas of socio-economic life of Russian society.
boosted level of knowledge on intercultural communications issues among staff of the public administration, students and business representatives;
enhanced dialogue between the academic world, policy-makers and business.

Short-term outcomes:

methodology and tools for teaching the “Shadow economy” module in Russian HEIs;
online publication of course information and deliverables;
vision paper “The EU experience of fighting against shadow economy and its application in Russia”;
conference materials of International Conference “Implementation of the EU experience in counteracting shadow economy for Russian economic models”;
Sourcebook of articles “Overcoming shadow economy problems: adaptation of the EU experience in Russia”;
expert recommendations on introducing and adaptation of the EU shadow economy countermeasures in Russia.

The European Commission support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.