This paper reviews the cross-country record of economic growth, using as organizing framework how economic theory has guided that empirical analysis. The paper argues that recent studies of economic growth - both empirical and theoretical - distinguish from previous work in three distinct ways:...

The convergence hypothesis has generated a huge empirical literature: this paper critically reviews some of the earlier key findings, clarifies their implications, and relates them to more recent results. Particular attention is devoted to interpreting convergence empirics. The main findings...

Cross-country evidence is presented on resource dependence and the link between volatility and growth. First, growth depends negatively on volatility of unanticipated output growth independent of initial income per capita, the average investment share, initial human capital, trade openness, the...

In this paper, we investigate the use of interactive effect or linear factor models in regional policy evaluation. We contrast treatment effect estimates obtained by Bai (2009)'s least squares method with the popular difference in differences estimates as well as with estimates obtained using...

In this paper, we assess the impact of firms introducing part-time work schemes for gradual labour market exit of elderly workers on their employees’ labour market outcomes. The analysis is based on unique linked employer-employee data that combine high-quality survey and administrative data....

Using data from the German Socio-Economic Panel, this paper analyses the effects of spending part of adolescents’ leisure time on playing music or doing sports, or both. We find that while playing music fosters educational outcomes compared to doing sports, particularly so for girls and...

The paper investigates whether the financial crisis did affect risk perceptions, and, hence, change structural parameters. By decomposing credit spreads of US corporate bonds into the contributions by credit, equity, and liquidity risk factors as well as structural change, the relative...

Transfers to individuals, firms, and regions are often regulated by threshold rules, giving rise to a regression discontinuity design. An example are transfers provided by the European Commission to regions of EU member states below a certain income level. Researchers have focused on estimation...

This microeconometric study analyzes the effects of individual leisure sports participation on long-term labour market variables, on socio-demographic as well as on health and subjective well-being indicators for West Germany based on individual data from the German Socio-Economic Panel study...

This paper is concerned with the influence of agglomeration economies on economic outcomes across British regions. The concentration of economic activity in one place can foster economic performance due to the reduction in transportation costs, the ready availability of customers and suppliers,...