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In the US, working from home has already increased full-time disability employment levels by over a quarter of a million people. Given population ageing, the longer-run impact could be far larger as more working Americans acquire disabilities as they age.
Working from home boosted growth by expanding disability employment
Manuel Trajtenberg
Diego A. Cerdeiro | Rui Mano | Dirk Muir | Rafael Portillo | Diego Rodriguez-Guzman | Lorenzo Rotunno | Michele Ruta | Elizabeth Van Heuvelen | Philippe Wingender
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.
