We estimate the role of news shocks to total factor productivity, foreign interest rates and commodity terms of trade in explaining the variance of output and other macro aggregates in a large sample of countries. To correct for the small-sample bias of the variance decomposition estimates we...

This paper investigates whether the size of the shadow economy increases income inequality in Uganda. This paper applies the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) bounds testing approach to cointegration, to test the long- and short-run relationship between the shadow economy and income...

This paper examines how stringent de facto firing regulations affect firm size throughout the developing world. We exploit a large firm level dataset across 63 countries and within country variation in the enforcement of the labor codes in countries with very different de jure firing...

A number of theoretical studies have tended to trace the nature of globalization process' impacts (mostly characterised by trade opening) on informality, while relevant empirical literature has been not well developed. The paper aims to fill this knowledge gap by shedding further light on the...

This paper assesses the determinants of foreign exchange (FX) reserves in emerging market economies (EMEs). First, it reviews the drivers behind reserve accumulation and the metrics used to evaluate reserve adequacy. We argue that precautionary motives, at least until early 2000s, were the main...

This comment provides a reply to Prof. Feige's paper with the title “Reflections on the Meaning and Measurement of Unobserved Economies: What do we really know about the ‘Shadow Economy'?”, in which Prof. Feige heavily criticizes me. I show that the same critique which Prof. Feige raises...

This paper reviews the meaning and measurement of unobserved economies germane to tax evasion and macroeconomic information systems. These include the unreported, non-observed, underground, illegal, informal and unrecorded economies. It reviews the progress and shortcomings of national and...