type="main" <p>We contribute to the debate on how to assess the size of the underground (or shadow) economy by proposing a reinterpretation of the traditional Currency Demand Approach (CDA) à la Tanzi. In particular, we introduce three main innovations. First, we take a direct measure of the value...</p>

In this paper, a parametric cost frontier for the credit card market is specified ("stochastic frontier approach" - SFA) and robustness checks of the main results are performed. The aim is to provide some clues to: the x-inefficiency problem; the main technical characteristics of the industry;...