We estimate the effect on economic development of China's industrial policy, in particular, the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). We use data from a panel of 276 Chinese cities and prefectures from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimator exploits the variation in the...

Business support policies designed to raise productivity and employment are common worldwide, but rigorous micro-econometric evaluation of their causal effects is rare. We exploit multiple changes in the area-specific eligibility criteria for a major program to support manufacturing jobs...

This paper presents a dynamic, two-region general equilibrium model in which inter-regional production and trade patterns are endogenously determined. Localized growth stems from geographical concentration of an industrial sector exhibiting permanent productivity increases. Geographical...

The European Union (EU) provides grants to disadvantaged regions of member states from two pools, the Structural Funds and the Cohesion Fund. The main goal of the associated transfers is to facilitate convergence of poor regions (in terms of per-capita income) to the EU average. We use data at...

Since the early 1990s, there has been a renaissance in the study of regional growth, spurred by new models, methods and data. We survey a range of modelling traditions, and some formal approaches to the ’hard problem’ of regional economics, namely the joint consideration of agglomeration and...

This Paper proposes a two-region model of endogenous growth, which is a natural combination of a core-periphery model a la Krugman and of a model of endogenous growth a la Grossman/Helpman/Romer. Specifically, we add to the core-periphery model an R&D sector that uses skilled labour to create...

We investigate the sources of productivity convergence using panel data for the Spanish regions. As a framwork, we develop a simple descriptive growth model which allows for factor accumulation, technological diffusion and rate effects from human capital and which includes fixed regional effects...

Our concern is about a firm-specific industrial policy. When R&D subsidies or taxes are differentiated among firms, the question arises which firms in an industry should receive such support. We analyse a situation where firms differ in their R&D technologies in two distinct ways: they differ...

Government policies designed to give domestic exporters a strategic advantage in world markets are completely effective only if the government can commit to those policies for as long as they affect firms' decisions. Export subsidies or other output policies that affect firms only in the current...

The debate on trade and growth increasingly focuses on the composition of exports. Exports of more "sophisticated" products appear to be positively correlated with growth, and upgrading the quality of exports is high on the policy agenda of many countries. This study presents evidence suggesting...