black economy That portion of employment within the market economy that is not fully covered by official statistics, due to some degree of under-reporting which is assumed to be connected with tax evasion. Unfortunately, economic statistics are imperfect, so that gaps and inconsistencies are due more often to data-quality problems than to unreported black economy activity. Guesstimates of the size of the black economy are inflated by the substantial amounts of non-market work and marginal work in the informal economy.

economy, black See BLACK ECONOMY.