Adriana AnaMaria Davidescu is a Senior Researcher at INCSMPS and Professor at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), with over 18 years of experience in socio-economic research. Her expertise includes labor market dynamics, public policy evaluation, and the informal economy, with a strong focus on quantitative and machine learning methods.

She coordinates the Business Economics Data Science Lab (BEDSL) and leads the Informality Data Research Lab, advancing interdisciplinary research on informal markets in the digital age. As a Ph.D. supervisor and project leader, she has contributed to over 50 national and international projects, offering strategic insights for EU and government institutions. Her work bridges economics, data science, and digital transformation to inform inclusive formalization policies. Her work provides actionable insights to key institutions such as the European Commission, the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection, and the Ministry of Investments and European Projects.

Informal economies continue to thrive in many regions, even amidst rapid digital transformation. While digital platforms, mobile payments, and AI-driven services have revolutionized formal markets, they have also reshaped the dynamics of informal transactions, creating new challenges and opportunities for understanding and intervention.

This keynote explores how interdisciplinary research—combining economics, marketing, and machine learning—can uncover hidden patterns in consumer behavior within informal markets. Drawing on large-scale survey data and advanced analytical techniques, including statistical matching and Random Forest models, we demonstrate how digital technologies not only alter how informal transactions occur, but also how we can study them with unprecedented precision.
Drawing on insights from a collaborative study on informal purchasing behaviour across Europe, we illustrate how advanced data science methods and machine learning algorithms can generate actionable intelligence for policymakers—supporting more targeted, evidence-based, and context-sensitive interventions. The keynote will underscore the dual nature of digitalization: its capacity to fuel and mitigate informality, contingent upon the surrounding infrastructure, governance frameworks, and behavioral norms. We conclude by proposing practical pathways for policy and research that leverage digital transformation as a force for inclusive, data-informed formalization strategies, particularly in regions where informality remains a socio-economic necessity.