Economic vulnerability is approached from micro- and macroeconomic perspectives. While the microeconomic perspective is concerned with the impact of shocks on the well-being of individual households, the macroeconomic perspective focuses on the impact of these shocks on economic growth. This...

We examine empirically the effect of natural resource abundance on economic growth. We find that natural resources have a negative impact on growth when considered in isolation, but a positive impact on growth when including in the analysis other variables such as corruption, investments,...

Although developing countries face a drastic increase in their greenhouse gas emissions, mitigation actions against climate change do not rank high among their priorities. The obvious reason lies in the necessity for them to continue the development process, which is characterised by pressing...

The relationship between economic growth and pollution is very complex, depending upon a host of different factors. Thus the study of this phenomenon represents a challenging endeavor. While most economics papers begin with theory and support that theory with econometric evidence, the literature...

Specializing in tourism is an option available to a number of less developed countries and regions. But is it a good option? To answer this question, we have compared the relative growth performance of 14 "tourism countries" within a sample of 143 countries, observed during the period 1980-95....

Environmental policy affects the distribution of market shares if intermediate goods are differentiated in pollution intensity. When innovations are environmental friendly, a tax on emissions skews demand towards new goods, which are the most productive. In this case along a balanced growth path...

We conduct an extensive robustness analysis of the relationship between trust and growth for a later time period (the 1990s) and with a bigger sample (63 countries) than previous studies. In addition to robustness tests that focus on model uncertainty, we use Least Trimmed Squares, a robust...

The temporal interdependence between saving and output has been in focus in a number of recent empirical studies. Results from these studies have compelled some authors to question the traditional notion of a causal chain where saving leads growth through capital accumulation. This paper...

A highly skilled immigration can be growth enhancing if the positive contribution of the imported brains to the host economy's human capital stock outweighs the immigration-induced adverse effect on educational incentives for natives, or growth depleting if the latter effect dominates.

It is generally acknowledged that employment in our economies is increasingly dependent on services. European countries are continuing their gradual move towards a service-based economy with today nearly 70% of the total labour force being employed in service activities. It is also generally...