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Policy makers, politicians, foreign advisors, and international institutions analyze and make decisions based on statistics measuring official activity. The inherent difficulties in measuring unofficial activities, compounded by the reluctance of many government agencies to acknowledge their importance, has led to a neglect of the unofficial segment of the economy. In the states of the former Soviet Union (FSU) and Eastern Europe, however, its importance is increasingly evident.1 Yet it is barely mentioned in the many official reports about these economies.2 Often only footnotes about it are inserted, or, at best, a few separate paragraphs as an afterthought.