| The article btw is really really shady. Barely at the beginning of it: "The scheme is a radical attempt to cast some light on Greece's huge shadow economy, the world's largest" and let's look at https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/shadow_economy/ wow.. wait, Greece is barely at place #86 out of 158 countries. Hmmm someone did not do his due diligence here. Then we have the following. "Greece also has one of the lowest internet usage rates in the EU at 72 per cent". Per https://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm
it's definitely not great. Trailing by at 45/54. We can remove Vatican City, San Marino, Isle of Man, Svalbard and Jersey (all have lower rates) and say that's true. But it's written way more sensationalist than it is. The mean is at 87.7% so there is definitely room for improvement. At least the suggested result is pointed out like that, i.e. "This suggests that some in the country could struggle to meet the 30 per cent target". Not sure why, but anyway. And then we have a repetition of the argument above "Southern Europe, particularly Greece, have booming shadow economies. A study by the Institute for Applied Economic Research in 2017 found that Greece had the largest in the world, being equivalent to 22 per cent of gross domestic product." Wait, which country's Institude for Applied Economic Research? It's not at all mentioned. Googling it, it turns out it's Germany and the actual research is at http://www.iaw.edu/index.php/aktuelles-detail/734. The actual number of countries studied? 20. Not sure what the criteria for their selection were. Out of a planet with 195 countries that's barely enough to justify the above (and the original research does not make such sensationalist claims) never mind the fact that countries like e.g. Thailand have double that rate. Overall, kind of meh. |