This paper investigates the role of structural reforms –privatization, financial reform and trade liberalization– as determinants of FDI inflows based on newly constructed dataset on structural reforms for 19 Latin American and 25 Eastern European countries between 1989 and 2004. Our main...

We develop a theoretical model in which whites mainly use private vehicles to commute whereas non-whites use public transportation. We show that, for whites and non-whites, higher (time) distance-to-jobs leads to lower search effort. Because of different transport modes, we also show that, at...

A new and extensive panel of outward foreign direct investment (FDI) at the sector level is used to estimate the determinants of non-resource and resource FDI. Since FDI is I(1), we estimate panel error-correction models of FDI with spatial lags for FDI and market potential. Our main result is...

This paper estimates the impact of public investment on regional economic growth and convergence at the NUTS III level in Greece. Using a new database of public expenditure per region for the period 1978-2007, it proposes a model which captures not just the impact of public investment in Greek...

This paper is concerned with methods for analysing spatial data. After initial discussion on the nature of spatial data, including the concept of randomness, we focus most of our attention on linear regression models that involve interactions between agents across space. The introduction of...

Based on a modified Spatiotemporal Autoregressive Model (STAR), we analyze whether borders still constitute significant impediments to labor market integration in the European Union, despite the formal law of free movement of labor. Using regional data from the EU-15 countries over 21 years, we...

Geography shapes economic outcomes in a major way. This Paper uses spatial empirical methods to detect and analyse trade patterns in a historical dataset on Chinese rice prices. Our results suggest that spatial features were important for the expansion of interregional trade. Geography dictates,...

The “distance effect” measuring the elasticity of trade flows to distance has been to be rising since the early 1970s in a host of studies based on the gravity model, leading observers to call it the “distance puzzle”. We review the evidence and explanations. Using an extensive data set...

The significance of a common language in foreign trade hinges on translation as well as the ability to communicate directly. In fact, without admitting the facility of translation from one or two selected languages, it is impossible to explain adequately the impact of a common language on...

Abstract: This paper studies the intranational business cycle - that is the set of regional (prefecture) business cycles - in Japan. One reason for choosing to examine the Japanese case is that long time series and relatively detailed data are available. A Hodrick-Prescott filter is applied to...