In this paper we use Monte Carlo simulation to investigate the impact of effect size heterogeneity on the results of a meta-analysis. Specifically, we address the small sample behaviour of the OLS, the fixed effects regression and the mixed effects meta-estimators under three alternative...

Misspecifications and differences in operational definitions of elasticities in primary studies carry over to meta-analysis results. We show that the current practice of accounting for such primary study aber-rations in a meta-analysis by means of dummy variables goes a long way in mitigating...

Economists increasingly pay attention to social capital as an important determinant of macroeconomic growth performance. At the same time, there is discussion regarding the robustness of the results of empirical growth studies. In a seminal paper, Knack and Keefer (1997) assess the effect of...

Existing indices measuring the spatial distribution of economic activity such as the Krugman Specialisation Index, the Hirschmann-Herfindahl index and the Ellison-Glaeser index typically do not take into account the spatial structure of the data. In this paper, we first consider traditional...

Spatial effects are endemic in models based on spatially referenced data. The increased awareness of the relevance of spatial interactions, spatial externalities and networking effects among actors, evoked the area of spatial econometrics. Spatial econometrics focuses on the specification and...

There is an increasing awareness of the potential of nonlinear modeling in regional science, which can partly be explained by the recognition of the limitations of conventional equilibrium models in complex situations and partly by the easy availability and accessibility of sophisticated...