Politická ekonomie 2006, 54(2):190-203 | DOI: 10.18267/j.polek.552

Předem odsouzeno k neúspěchu: měření šedé ekonomiky tranzitivních zemí pomocí makroekonomických metod

Jan Hanousek, Filip Palda
1 Národohospodářský ústav AV ČR, Praha.
2 Ecole Nationale d'Administration Publique, Montreal.

Mission impossible: measuring the informal sector in a transition economy using macro methods

An easy and popular method for measuring the size of the underground economy is to use macro-data such as money demand or electricity demand to infer what the legitimate economy needs, and then to attribute the remaining consumption to the underground economy. Such inferences rely on the stability of parameters of the demand equations, or at very least on knowledge of how these parameters are changing. We show that the pace of change of these parameters (such as velocity) is too variable in transition economies for the above methods of estimating the size of the underground economy to be applicable.

Keywords: transition, Informal economy, shadow economy, underground economy, macro estimates of shadow economy
JEL classification: H26, H43, K42, O17

Published: April 1, 2006  Show citation

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Hanousek, J., & Palda, F. (2006). Mission impossible: measuring the informal sector in a transition economy using macro methods. Politická ekonomie, 54(2), 190-203. doi: 10.18267/j.polek.552
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