This paper is the first attempt to directly explore the long-run nonlinear relationship between theshadow economy and level of development. Using a dataset of 158 countries over the period from1996 to 2015, our results reveal a robust U-shaped relationship between the shadow economy sizeand GDP...

This paper compiles alternative estimates of underground economies in twenty five transition countries during the transition decade and finds a disturbing lack of convergence between them, calling into question the reliability of GDP figures (which in varying degrees now include non-transparent...

In this paper, first, six micro (4) and macro (2) estimation approaches are briefly described; they are the National Accounts Statistics discrepancy method and two new micro survey methods, a third one using a combination of company manager surveys and their knowledge to calibrate the size of the...

In this paper, first, the MIMIC estimation method is described and criticized and due to a double counting problem a correction is suggested. Second, the measurement methods used for National Accounts Statistics - the discrepancy method and two new micro survey methods - are described and a...

In this paper, first, the MIMIC estimation method is described and criticized and due to a double counting problem a correction is suggested. Second, the measurement methods used for National Accounts Statistics - the discrepancy method and two new micro survey methods - are described and a...

The multiple indicator-multiple cause (MIMIC) method is a well-established tool for measuring informal economic activity. However, it has been criticized because GDP is used both as a cause and indicator variable. To address this issue, this paper applies for the first time the light intensity...

This paper compiles alternative estimates of underground economies in twenty five transition countries during the transition decade and finds a disturbing lack of convergence between them, calling into question the reliability of GDP figures (which in varying degrees now include non-transparent...

This paper provides a new data set of regional income inequalities within countries based on satellite nighttime light data. We first empirically study the relationship between luminosity data and regional incomes for those countries where regional income data are available. We subsequently use...

Nighttime lights data are a measure of economic activity whose measurement error is plausibly independent of the errors of most conventional indicators. Therefore, we can use nighttime lights as an independent benchmark to assess existing measures of economic activity (Pinkovskiy and...

Nighttime lights data are a measure of economic activity whose measurement error is plausibly independent of the errors of most conventional indicators. Therefore, we can use nighttime lights as an independent benchmark to assess existing measures of economic activity (Pinkovskiy and...