The course of the informal economy in Turkey: An approach to electricity consumption

Informal economy can be expressed as any kind of economic activity that is hidden from the state and cannot be registered or taken under the control of public authorities. In addition to the economic activities that are prohibited by law, there are also economic activities that are not consciously recorded or documented, although they are not prohibited by law. Although the first studies on the informal economy date back to the 1940s, they began to be noticed in the 1960s, attracted the attention of researchers in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s, it became a topic that began to be discussed in the international arena and took its place in the literature.It has been on the agenda of the Turkish economy since the 1990s and has been the subject of intense research in terms of its size, causes, results and functioning. Nowadays, the informal economy phenomenon has gained a global character and has turned into a global problem that economies of all countries face, deal with and try to find solutions to. In this context, the informal economy has turned into a problem that may arise in different dimensions not only for underdeveloped and developing countries, but also for developed countries. In this study, the course of the informal economy in Turkey has been tried to be shown using the electricity consumption/production approach.In the study, it was concluded that in this case, where the obtained results express the increases and decreases in the informal economy compared to the previous year, the results can be positive as well as negative values. At the same time, it was concluded that the electricity consumption/production approach alone cannot be considered an adequate indicator of economic activities.