Illegal phoenix activity: Quantifying its incidence and cost

Illegal phoenix activity has become a matter of increasing concern in recent
years. Many parties are interested in understanding the size of the problem,
how much it costs the economy, and how well current enforcement mechanisms
work. These are important questions because they influence the
allocation of government resources and the process of law reform. To answer
the quantification questions, we undertook to gather together all the available
data on the incidence and cost of illegal phoenix activity, as well as the
enforcement of the various laws that can be utilised to combat it. However,
despite the large amounts of information we obtained, we cannot provide a
definitive answer to the quantification questions. Moreover, we believe that
accurate quantification is highly problematic. This article, which is based on a
much longer research report, presents a sample of our findings and explores
the difficulties with quantification.