This paper investigates the governance structure choices of firms when there is competition between legal systems. We study the impact of the allocation of control over choice of governance and reincorporation on firms’ technologies and technological specialization of countries in the context...

This Paper provides a conceptual framework of multilateral bargaining in a bilaterally oligopolistic industry to analyse the motivations for horizontal mergers, technology choice, and their welfare implications. We first analyse the implication of market structure for the distribution of...

This paper examines the linkage between trade and the dismal state of labour markets in Europe. On the face of superficial evidence, the nexus is weak and is overshadowed by more compelling evidence of skill-biased technical change. Yet a complete dismissal of globalization is inconsistent with...

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 paper estimates the effect of the decision to import intermediate goods and capital equipment on Total Factor Productivity (TFP) at the firm level on a panel of Spanish firms covering the period between 1991 and 2002. We use two alternative approaches. In the first, we estimate TFP using...

The standard argument says that in the presence of positive spillovers foreign direct investment should be promoted and subsidized. In contrast, this Paper claims that the very existence of such spillovers may require temporarily restricting and taxing inward FDI. Our argument in favour of...

In this paper we analyse productivity spillovers from foreign direct investment using firm level panel data UK manufacturing industries from 1992 to 1999. We investigate spillovers through horizontal, backward and forward linkages, distinguish spillovers from export oriented vs domestic market...

This Paper examines the effects of two faces of R&D (innovation and development of absorptive or learning capacity) and technology spillovers from FDI (foreign direct investment) on a firm’s productivity growth. Using firm-level panel data on Czech manufacturing firms between 1995 and 1998, I...

The response of an economy to a windfall of foreign exchange (be it aid or natural resource revenues) is often constrained by absorptive capacity. We provide a micro-founded analysis of absorption constraints, based on the idea that expanding the economy’s capital stock (in aggregate or...