Research

Research & publications

Labib Shami’s research connects economic theory, computational methods and policy-relevant evidence. A question from his doctoral thesis, how monetary policy interacts with economic activity that official statistics do not record, runs through much of the work, which has since broadened to credit markets, small business and local government, and the economics of crises.

Research themes
Selected work
All publications
Profiles & data

01 Themes

Questions, methods and evidence

Money, credit & households

How do monetary policy, cash and credit markets shape the opportunities and risks facing households?

Approach. Dynamic general-equilibrium models with inside and outside money and heterogeneous agents; models of competition in credit markets; simulations of mortgage payments under different paths of interest rates and inflation.

Why it matters. Interest rates, inflation and access to credit are where macroeconomic policy meets household budgets.

Publications on this theme

Key work

Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanism · Journal of Macroeconomics, 2019
Towards a cashless economy: Economic and socio-political implications · European Journal of Political Economy, 2020
Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competition · Journal of Banking Regulation, 2025
Interest, Inflation, and Mortgages in Israel · Taub Center, 2023
Household Debt in Israel · Taub Center, 2019
The Consumer Price Index, Housing Costs, Consumer Credit, and the Cost of Living · Taub Center, 2026

The non‑observed economy

How large is the part of the economy that official statistics do not record, and what makes it grow or shrink?

Approach. Currency-demand estimation adapted to Israel; machine-learning estimators; spatio-temporal models across regions; agent-based simulations of tax compliance and tax revenue.

Why it matters. Unrecorded activity affects tax revenue, the reliability of official statistics and the case for policies such as limits on the use of cash.

Publications on this theme

Key work

Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy · Computational Economics, 2024
Tell Me Who Your Neighbors Are and I Will Tell You Your Informal Economy Size: The Case of Sweden · Computational Economics, 2026
Informal self-employment within the non-observed economy of Israel · International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business, 2024
Microfounded Tax Revenue Forecast Model with Heterogeneous Population and Genetic Algorithm Approach · Computational Economics, 2024
Investigating Tax Evasion Emergence Using Dual Large Language Model and Deep Reinforcement Learning Powered Agent-based Simulation · arXiv, 2025
The Non-Observed Economy in Israel · Taub Center, 2020

Policy, enterprise & resilience

Which public decisions help local economies, small businesses and whole countries absorb shocks?

Approach. Survey-based structural equation models of SMEs and municipalities; case studies of entrepreneurship programmes; coupled epidemiological and economic models; game-theoretic and dynamic models of public goods and interest groups.

Why it matters. Many consequential economic decisions are taken locally, or under crisis conditions, often with limited evidence.

Publications on this theme

Key work

Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performance · Local Government Studies, 2025
Local context, local solutions: increasing returns from municipal policies supporting SMEs · Small Enterprise Research, 2026
SME resilience in wartime: the constraints of innovation · Innovation: Organization & Management, 2026
Financing and managing epidemiological-economic crises: Are we ready for another outbreak? · Journal of Policy Modeling, 2023
Intervention policy influence on the effect of epidemiological crisis on industry-level production through input–output networks · Socio-Economic Planning Sciences, 2023
Cooperative Game-Theoretic Framework for Sustainable UN Financing: An Application to Global Public Goods Provision · Economies, 2026
Got much, got nothing: analyzing the impact of increased special interest groups’ influence on utility · Eurasian Economic Review, 2025

02 Selected work

Six papers to start with

An editorial selection across the three themes, not a ranking.

2019

Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanism

Labib Shami · Journal of Macroeconomics

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 mechanism DOI: Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanism
2020

Towards a cashless economy: Economic and socio-political implications

Nissim Cohen, Anna Rubinchik and Labib Shami · European Journal of Political Economy

A general-equilibrium model of an economy with official and informal sectors, showing how eliminating cash can misallocate resources and reduce the gains from trade, alongside other unintended consequences of abolishing cash.

Summary: Towards a cashless economy: Economic and socio-political implications DOI: Towards a cashless economy: Economic and socio-political implications
2024

Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik · Computational Economics

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 Economy DOI: Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy
2026

Tell Me Who Your Neighbors Are and I Will Tell You Your Informal Economy Size: The Case of Sweden

Teddy Lazebnik, Labib Shami and Einav Peretz-Andersson · Computational Economics Online firstOpen access

Brings geography into informal-economy estimation. Using data for Sweden's 21 regions from 2006 to 2023, the study compares models ranging from linear regression to graph neural networks for predicting the size of each region's informal economy under different spatio-temporal settings.

Summary: Tell Me Who Your Neighbors Are and I Will Tell You Your Informal Economy Size: The Case of Sweden DOI: Tell Me Who Your Neighbors Are and I Will Tell You Your Informal Economy Size: The Case of Sweden
2025

Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competition

Labib Shami · Journal of Banking Regulation

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 competition DOI: Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competition
2025

Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performance

Israel Rachevski and Labib Shami · Local Government Studies

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 performance DOI: Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performance

03 Bibliography

All publications

25 peer-reviewed journal articles, one handbook chapter and two working papers. When a preprint was later published as a journal article, it is linked from that article instead of being listed twice. Articles published online before their journal issue are listed under the issue year where one exists.

2026

Open access

Cooperative Game-Theoretic Framework for Sustainable UN Financing: An Application to Global Public Goods Provision

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik

Economies 14(7), 263

Summary & citation DOI Publisher page Preprint version
Local context, local solutions: increasing returns from municipal policies supporting SMEs

Israel Rachevski and Labib Shami

Small Enterprise Research 33(2), 159–177

Summary & citation DOI
Online first

SME resilience in wartime: the constraints of innovation

Labib Shami and Israel Rachevski

Innovation: Organization & Management, 1–18

Summary & citation DOI
Online firstOpen access

Tell Me Who Your Neighbors Are and I Will Tell You Your Informal Economy Size: The Case of Sweden

Teddy Lazebnik, Labib Shami and Einav Peretz-Andersson

Computational Economics

Summary & citation DOI Publisher page
Preprint

Beyond the First Impression: A Two-Period Screening Model under Probationary Employment

Dan Lederman, Teddy Lazebnik and Labib Shami

SSRN working paper

Summary & citation DOI

2025

Got much, got nothing: analyzing the impact of increased special interest groups’ influence on utility

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik

Eurasian Economic Review 15(4), 1021–1044

Summary & citation DOI
Preprint

Investigating Tax Evasion Emergence Using Dual Large Language Model and Deep Reinforcement Learning Powered Agent-based Simulation

Teddy Lazebnik and Labib Shami

arXiv

Summary & citation DOI Read on arXiv
Elusive competition: impact of non-bank credit providers’ financing on credit market competition

Labib Shami

Journal of Banking Regulation 26(2), 288–303

Summary & citation DOI
Twice as effective: business environment, SME owners’ satisfaction, and local government revenue performance

Israel Rachevski and Labib Shami

Local Government Studies 51(3), 524–546

Summary & citation DOI

2024

Open access

Economical–epidemiological analysis of the coffee trees rust pandemic

Teddy Lazebnik, Ariel Rosenfeld and Labib Shami

Chaos: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Nonlinear Science 34(11), 113112

Summary & citation DOI Preprint version
Microfounded Tax Revenue Forecast Model with Heterogeneous Population and Genetic Algorithm Approach

Ariel Alexi, Teddy Lazebnik and Labib Shami

Computational Economics 63(5), 1705–1734

Summary & citation DOI
Implementing Machine Learning Methods in Estimating the Size of the Non-observed Economy

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik

Computational Economics 63(4), 1459–1476

Summary & citation DOI
The technological incubators program as a growth generator of peripheral areas in Israel

Gil Cohen, Limor Yehuda, Sagit Barel-Shaked, Labib Shami, Arie Herscovici and Osnat Akirav

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 51(1), 120–136

Summary & citation DOI
Multi-layered entrepreneurship: perspectives of women candidates for mayor

Osnat Akirav, Arie Hershkovici, Limor Yehuda, Sagit Barel-Shaked, Labib Shami and Gil Cohen

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 51(2), 218–237

Summary & citation DOI
The circular, step by step - three core domains, social entrepreneurship model

Limor Yehuda, Sagit Barel-Shaked, Labib Shami, Gil Cohen, Osnat Akirav and Arie Herscovici

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 51(4), 433–452

Summary & citation DOI
Farmers' typology in an environment of policy reform

Sagit Barel-Shaked, Labib Shami, Arie Herscovici, Osnat Akirav, Gil Cohen and Limor Yehuda

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 52(1), 116–130

Summary & citation DOI
Informal self-employment within the non-observed economy of Israel

Labib Shami, Gil Cohen, Osnat Akirav, Arie Herscovici, Limor Yehuda and Sagit Barel-Shaked

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 52(2), 159–180

Summary & citation DOI
Lean startup as a model for smart city projects: the case of Tel Aviv-Yafo

Arie Herscovici, Osnat Akirav, Gil Cohen, Limor Yehuda, Sagit Barel-Shaked and Labib Shami

International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 53(2), 245–257

Summary & citation DOI

2023

Open access

Academic co-authorship is a risky game

Teddy Lazebnik, Stephan Beck and Labib Shami

Scientometrics 128(12), 6495–6507

Summary & citation DOI Publisher page Preprint version
Intervention policy influence on the effect of epidemiological crisis on industry-level production through input–output networks

Teddy Lazebnik, Labib Shami and Svetlana Bunimovich-Mendrazitsky

Socio-Economic Planning Sciences 87, 101553

Summary & citation DOI
Financing and managing epidemiological-economic crises: Are we ready for another outbreak?

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik

Journal of Policy Modeling 45(1), 74–89

Summary & citation DOI
Pandemic management by a spatio–temporal mathematical model

Teddy Lazebnik, Svetlana Bunimovich-Mendrazitsky and Labib Shami

International Journal of Nonlinear Sciences and Numerical Simulation 24(6), 2307–2324

Summary & citation DOI
Open access

A hybrid mathematical model for an optimal border closure policy during a pandemic

Teddy Lazebnik, Labib Shami and Svetlana Bunimovich-Mendrazitsky

International Journal of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science 33(4)

Summary & citation DOI

2022

Economic aspects of the detection of new strains in a multi-strain epidemiological–mathematical model

Labib Shami and Teddy Lazebnik

Chaos, Solitons & Fractals 165, 112823

Summary & citation DOI
Open access

Spatio-Temporal influence of Non-Pharmaceutical interventions policies on pandemic dynamics and the economy: the case of COVID-19

Teddy Lazebnik, Labib Shami and Svetlana Bunimovich-Mendrazitsky

Economic Research-Ekonomska Istraživanja 35(1), 1833–1861

Summary & citation DOI

2021

Book chapter

The Political Economy of Religion and Labor

Labib Shami and Osnat Akirav

Handbook of Labor, Human Resources and Population Economics (ed. Klaus F. Zimmermann), Springer, 1–24

Summary & citation DOI

2020

Towards a cashless economy: Economic and socio-political implications

Nissim Cohen, Anna Rubinchik and Labib Shami

European Journal of Political Economy 61, 101820

Summary & citation DOI

2019

Dynamic monetary equilibrium with a Non-Observed Economy and Shapley and Shubik’s price mechanism

Labib Shami

Journal of Macroeconomics 62, 103018

Summary & citation DOI

04 Profiles & data

Elsewhere and machine-readable

Scholarly profiles maintained by institutions and indexing services. Their counts can differ from this list because they include duplicate records, preprints or reports.

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