This paper investigates whether government support can act to increase exporting activity. We use a uniquely rich data set on Irish manufacturing plants and employ an empirical strategy that combines a non-parametric matching procedure with a difference-in-differences estimator in order to deal...

It has recently been shown that the firm size distribution is initially skewed to the right and then evolves over time to become more lognormal, and argued that this is likely due to firms initially facing financial constraints, see Cabral and Mata(2003). We conjecture that, if this is true,...

It has recently been shown that the firm size distribution is initially skewed to the right and then evolves over time to become more log-normal, and argued that this is likely due to firms initially facing financial constraints, see Cabral and Mata (2003). We conjecture that, it this is true,...

We examine the importance of a firm's own R&D activity and intra-sectoral spillovers on the decision to export and the export intensity using firm level panel data for Spain for the period 1990 to 1998. Our results are in line with preceding findings on the role played by firm-specific variables...

According to the 'convergence hypothesis' multinational companies will tend to displace national firms and trade as total market size increases and as countries converge in relative size, factor endowments, and production costs. Using a recent model developed by Markusen and Venables (1998) as a...

This paper presents some analysis of the effects that outward FDI can have on productivity and in the home country. We focus on sectors that are seen as being low, or medium/ low technology sectors, and using firm level data for the UK, compare a number a of different measures of FDI, and a...

While there have been some references in the literature to the potential role of the general decline in rainfall in sub-Saharan African nations on their poor growth performance relative to other developing countries, this avenue remains empirically unexplored. In this paper we use a new...

This paper examines the impact of climatic change on the level of total agricultural production of Sub-Sahara Africa (SSA) and non-Sub-Sahara Africa (NSSA) developing countries. In doing so it uses a new cross-country panel climatic dataset in an agricultural production framework. The results...

We investigate the role that climatic change has played in the pattern of urbanization in sub-Saharan countries compared to the rest of the developing world. To this end we assemble a cross-country panel data set that allows us to estimate the determinants of urbanization. The results of our...

We extend the Bahk and Gort (1993) approach of testing for the impact of learning by doing (LBD) on firm productivity using data on a panel of Spanish manufacturing firms over the 1990-1998 period. While our results indicate evidence in support of the role of LBD, we show that this hinges on...