Studying the economy that official statistics record, and the part they miss.
01 Research
The same questions run through the theoretical papers, the computational models and the policy reports.
How do monetary policy and credit markets reach household budgets?
General-equilibrium models of money and inflation, the economics of cash, competition among lenders, and applied work on mortgages, household debt and the cost of living.
How large is the economy that official statistics miss, and what drives it?
Measuring and modelling informal activity and tax evasion, from currency-demand estimates to machine learning, spatial models and agent-based simulation.
Which public decisions help economies, and the businesses in them, absorb shocks?
Small and medium-sized enterprises and local government, entrepreneurship, public goods and interest groups, and the economics of crises, from pandemics to wartime disruption.
02 Selected research
2019
A general-equilibrium model with inside and outside money, tax-evading households, a government and a central bank. It shows how inflation, as a monetary-policy instrument, interacts dynamically with the size of the non-observed economy, and uses Shapley and Shubik's price mechanism to establish a monetary equilibrium in which formal and informal markets coexist.
Summary: Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanismDOI: Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanism
2024
Shows that machine-learning methods, notably a random forest, estimate currency demand more accurately than the standard currency-demand regressions, improving estimates of the size of unregistered economic activity.
Summary: Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed EconomyDOI: Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy
2025
Models what happens when newly established non-bank lenders that depend on bank financing enter a credit market. Because borrowers' insolvency risk plays a central role, more credit providers can raise rather than lower average credit prices, which argues for equal conditions for new entrants.
Summary: Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competitionDOI: Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competition
2025
Links the local business environment created by municipalities to SME owners' satisfaction and to local economic outcomes. Factor analysis and structural equation modelling on a survey of 513 SME owners show that higher satisfaction is associated with more local employment and higher municipal tax revenue from SMEs.
Summary: Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performanceDOI: Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performance
03 Policy analysis
At the Taub Center he studies prices, housing and household finance, and since 2021 he has co-authored, with Prof. Benjamin Bental, the macroeconomic chapter of the Center’s annual State of the Nation Report.
Argues that Israel's consumer price index understates the cost pressure on households because it leaves out mortgage and consumer-credit interest, constructs an alternative finance-based housing measure, and recommends publishing supplementary indices alongside the official one.
Simulates how Bank of Israel rate increases, compared with inflation left unchecked, would change households' monthly mortgage payments, and concludes that unchecked inflation would hurt borrowers more than the rate increases.
Estimates the size of Israel's non-observed economy with a currency-demand model, tracing its recent decline, separating its tax-evasion and crime components, and considering the possible effects of limits on cash and of COVID-19.
04 In public
Interview
إذاعة الشمس · Radio Ashams
مؤشر أسعار المستهلك لا يعكس غلاء المعيشة الفعلي
The consumer price index does not reflect the real cost of living
Interview
Dr. Michael Mero · YouTube
ד"ר לביב שאמי: חייבים לבדוק גם התנהלות עתידית של השוק לפני שלוקחים משכנתה
Before taking a mortgage, look at how the market may behave in future
Watch: ד"ר לביב שאמי: חייבים לבדוק גם התנהלות עתידית של השוק לפני שלוקחים משכנתה
Op-ed (author)
Globes · גלובס — Opinion
דעה: מוכנות כלכלית - לקחים ממגפת הקורונה
Opinion: Economic preparedness, lessons from the coronavirus pandemic
05 Contact
For research collaboration, interviews or invitations to speak, write to his Taub Center address. A short and a longer biography for event organisers are on the About page.