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This paper examines the drivers, and reestimates the size of shadow economies in Europe, with a focus on the emerging economies, and recommends policies to increase formality. The size of shadow economies declined across Europe in recent years but remains significant, especially in Eastern Europe. In the emerging European economies, the key determinants of shadow economy size are regulatory quality, government effectiveness, and human capital. The paper argues that a comprehensive package of reforms, focused on country-specific drivers, is needed to successfully combat the shadow economy. The menu of policies most relevant for Europe’s emerging economies include: reducing regulatory and administrative burdens, promoting transparency and improving government effectiveness, as well as improving tax compliance, automating procedures, and promoting electronic payments.

Labor --- Economics: General --- Informal Economy --- Underground Econom --- Employment --- Unemployment --- Wages --- Intergenerational Income Distribution --- Aggregate Human Capital --- Aggregate Labor Productivity --- Human Capital --- Skills --- Occupational Choice --- Labor Productivity --- Labor Standards: Labor Force Composition --- Economics of specific sectors --- Labour --- income economics --- Informal economy --- Informal employment --- Human capital --- Public employment --- Labor force participation --- Informal sector --- Economics --- Economic theory --- Labor market

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This paper seeks to illuminate the uncertainty in official GDP per capita measures using auxiliary data. Using satellite-recorded nighttime lights as an additional measurement of true GDP per capita, we provide a statistical framework, in which the error in official GDP per capita may depend on the country’s statistical capacity and the relationship between nighttime lights and true GDP per capita can be nonlinear and vary with geographic location. This paper uses recently developed results for measurement error models to identify and estimate the nonlinear relationship between nighttime lights and true GDP per capita and the nonparametric distribution of errors in official GDP per capita data. We then construct more precise and robust measures of GDP per capita using nighttime lights, official national accounts data, statistical capacity, and geographic locations. We find that GDP per capita measures are less precise for middle and low income countries and nighttime lights can play a bigger role in improving such measures.

Economic development --- Development, Economic --- Economic growth --- Growth, Economic --- Economic policy --- Economics --- Statics and dynamics (Social sciences) --- Development economics --- Resource curse --- Evaluation. --- Macroeconomics --- Measurement and Data on National Income and Product Accounts and Wealth --- Environmental Accounts --- Macroeconomics: Production --- Methodological Issues: General --- Personal Income, Wealth, and Their Distributions --- Informal Economy --- Underground Econom --- General Aggregative Models: General --- Aggregate Factor Income Distribution --- Economics of specific sectors --- GDP measurement --- Personal income --- Informal economy --- National accounts --- Income --- Economic sectors --- National income --- Informal sector --- United States