European business services has witnessed about two decades of virtual productivity stagnation. The paper investigates whether this is caused by weak dynamic market selection. The time pattern of scale-related inefficiencies is used as an indicator for the effectiveness of market selection. We...

The paper proposes a new way of analysing the efficiency of dynamic market selection, based on the persistence of scale economies. The persistence of scale-related inefficiencies is used as an indicator for the effectiveness of market selection. We use a DEA method to construct the productivity...

The paper proposes a new way of analysing the efficiency of dynamic market selection, based on the persistence of scale economies. The new methodology is used to investigate the causes of stagnating productivity growth in EU business services. An efficient market ensures that more productive...

The paper investigates whether scale effects, market structure, and regulation determine the poor productivity performance of the European business services industry. We apply parametric and nonparametric methods to estimate the productivity frontier and subsequently explain the distance of...

This study undertakes an examination of asymmetric adjustment effects between electricity consumption and economic growth in South Africa using quarterly data collected from 1983Q1 to 2013:Q4. In our study, we employ a momentum-threshold co-integration method to examine the long-run equilibrium...

Purpose: This purpose of our paper is to examine asymmetric co-integration effects between nutrition and economic growth for annual South African data from the period 1961-2013. Design/methodology/approach: We deviate from the conventional assumption of linear co-integration and pragmatically...

This paper investigates asymmetric co-integration and causality effects between financial development and economic growth for South African data spanning over the period of 1992 to 2013. To this end, we make use of the momentum threshold autoregressive (MTAR) approach which allows for threshold...

Using data from 11 EU countries, the paper investigates the impact of scale economies on labour productivity in European business services. Moreover, it analyses whether the incidence of scale sub-optimality is related to characteristics of the market or to national regulation characteristics....