ACCA (the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants), the global body for professional accountants, published a research “Emerging from the shadows: The shadow economy to 2025“. It has identified a comprehensive range of current and potential factors that are shaping or likely to shape the evolution of the shadow economy in the years to come. Key SE factors – economic, sociodemographic, societal and environmental, governance, business and science and technology, where studied. Survey respondents saw the major forces of globalisation – shorter and faster business cycles, complex regulatory environments, automation and growing pressure for transparency – as driving behaviour in the formal sector and the pursuit of increasing enterprise scale. This intensity was also perceived to be increasing the incentive for economic actors to opt out and pursue the SE route
| Country | 2016 | 2017 | Period average (2011–25) | Estimated worth of shadow economy in 2016 (local currency in billions) |
| Azerbaijan | 67.04 | 66.12 | 58 | 40.22 |
| Estonia | 28.48 | 28.4 | 27.8 | 5.96 |
| Latvia | 24.57 | 24.17 | 23.6 | 6.15 |
| Lithuania | 26.27 | 26.01 | 26.2 | 10.15 |
| Ukraine | 45.96 | 46.12 | 45.8 | 1095.31 |
