Estimating Shadow Economy and the Impact on Air Pollution in Iran

Shadow economy is an important part of economy in almost all countries especially the developing ones. Most of active firms in this part of economy have negative externality on the environment. Considering the importance of sustainable development and growing international pressures to maintain and support the environment more and more attentions have been drawn to the factors affecting and threatening environmental health. The present paper for the first time considers the role of variables like polity index and active population to total population ratio and how they affect the shadow economy. In addition to the main direct effects of these variables on shadow economy the indirect effects of causal variables through interaction with shadow economy are also examined. Since the relationship between shadow economy and air pollution has been somehow disregarded in economic literature to a large extent in Iran and to some extent at international level the present paper for the first time focuses on the relationship between shadow economy and air pollution. The results indicate that on average the ratio of shadow economy to GDP is 12.25% and a 1% increase in the size of the shadow economy raises the water pollution by 0.17%.