Evaluating the Multifarious Motives for Acquiring Goods and Services from the Informal Sector in Central and Eastern Europe

The aim of this paper is to evaluate which consumers in Central and Eastern Europe are more likely to acquire goods and services from the informal economy and to unravel their multifarious motives for doing so. Analysing 11,131 face-to-face interviews conducted in 11 Central and Eastern European countries in 2013, a logit regression analysis reveals that some groups purchase from the informal economy to obtain a lower price, others for social or redistributive rationales, and yet others due to the failures of the formal economy in terms of the availability, speed and quality of provision. The implications for theorising and tackling the informal economy are then explored.