MEASURING THE SIZE OF THE INFORMAL ECONOMY IN ECUADOR

This book analyzes the evolution of Ecuador's economic growth and development and the weight of the informal economy. A bibliographic review of the main scientific contributions made to the monetary methods, electric energy consumption and structural equations is carried out. Based on these theoretical foundations, the econometric model was elaborated. For the selection of the best adjusted and calibrated method, the statistical analysis of means and variance and the analysis of the criteria of strengths and weaknesses collected for each method in the scientific articles reviewed were carried out. In this way, it was concluded that the monetary method was the one with the highest number of desired characteristics and strengths and the lowest proportion of weaknesses. With this estimate of the informal economy, three studies were carried out related to inequality and informality, the fiscal loss generated by the presence of the informal economy; misery and economic malaise as causes for the increase of informality; and, the estimate of the natural rate of unemployment and informality.