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Wedding ceremony

Jérôme Adda | Paolo Pinotti | Giulia Tura

This column uses data on 3.6 million marriages and over 200,000 separations in Italy to examine how EU enlargements altered marriage incentives and dynamics. Following EU enlargements, mixed marriages between Italian citizens and migrants from new EU member states declined by 40%, supporting the idea that acquiring legal status reduces the benefits of marriage between migrants and natives.

More than “I do”: Legal status and cultural distance shape marriages and separations

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The Grievance Doctrine

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Trump’s tariffs: Help for the heartland?

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Richard Baldwin

Professor of International Economics IMD Business School, Lausanne; VoxEU Founder & Editor-in-Chief VoxEU

Fellow, International Trade and Regional Economics / VoxEU Editor in Chief

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Featured column  

Economists have long struggled to measure the informal economy, despite its significant role in global economic activity. Previous methods have relied on indirect proxies such as cash circulation or electricity usage, or on inferences based on highly structured macroeconomic models. This column by Francesco Pappadà and Kenneth Rogoff introduces a new, algorithmic and easily updateable approach to estimating informal activity in Europe, utilising VAT data and consumption surveys. While the approach works particularly well for Europe, it can in principle can be extended to other countries where value added taxes are a major source of revenue.