Distance related variables typically vary in a cross-section dimension but less so in a time dimension across cities, regions, or countries. The enlargement of the EU or the introduction of the euro, however, can be looked upon as integration shocks that are informative of the consequences of...

This paper shows that Tabellini’s recent claim to have provided evidence that culture has a causal effect on economic development is unjustified. Tabellini’s claim is based on an instrumental variables analysis in which two instruments are used to identify the supposed causal effect. One of...

This paper looks at whether immigration can mitigate the Dutch disease effects associated with booms in natural resource sectors. We first derive predicted changes in the size of the non-tradable sector from a small general-equilibrium model à la Obstfeld-Rogoff, supplemented by a resource...

In this paper, we investigate innovation factors and their role in regional economic performance for a sample of 261 EU NUTS 2 regions over the period 2009-2012. In our study, we identify regions with spillover as well as drain effects of innovation factors on economic performance. The spatial...

This article analyses the convergence across Polish regions between 2005-2011. Its theoretical and empirical character determined the choice of research methods. The theoretical part includes an analysis of the literature devoted to the convergence theory, and the empirical part is based on...