THE MONETARY METHOD AND THE SIZE OF THE SHADOW ECONOMY: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT
论文批判了用货币需求估计影子经济规模的“货币方法”，指出该方法仅在货币需求的收入弹性为1时有效，并提出了当弹性不为1时的修正方法，应用于多国数据。
A widely applied approach to measure the size of the shadow economy, known as the “monetary method” or the “currency approach,” is based on econometric estimates of the demand for money. These estimates are used to get the currency held by economic agents in excess of the amount they need to finance registered transactions. This excess of currency multiplied by the income‐velocity of circulation (assumed to be equal in the registered and shadow economies) gives a measure of the hidden GDP. This paper shows that the monetary method only produces coherent estimates if the income‐elasticity of the demand for currency is one and suggests a way to correct the estimated size of the shadow economy when such elasticity is not one. The correction is applied to existent measures for different countries.