Abstract for: Exploring the Underground Economy to support Public Decision Makers to tackle the Growth of Irregular Workers

The search for new resources to finance the necessary investments for fostering the economic growth led many States to adopt policies to tackle the underground economy and, in particular, to struggle the phenomenon of irregular workers. In most of the cases, such policies failed to strongly reduce the percentage of irregular workers because they were based on a linear and static approach. Based on a research project conducted in Sicily Region (Italy), this article aims at investigating – through the System Dynamics (SD) methodology – main causes-and-effects relationships underlying the phenomenon of irregular workers at both firm and self-employment level. In particular, through the developed SD model, different potential policies will be analysed in order to identify a systemic strategy that could hinder the phenomenon of irregular workers.