What is the impact of joining the European Union on a small, less developed economy? This is the general question driving this research paper. In particular, the role of factor movements in explaining real wage behavior in Portugal after its entry in the European Union (EU) is evaluated. Based...

This paper builds a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of endogenous growth that is capable of generating substantial degrees of endogenous persistence in productivity.  When products go out of patent protection, the rush of entry into their production destroys incentives for...

The commercial value of basic knowledge depends on the arrival of follow-up developments mostly from outside the boundaries of the inventing firm. Private returns would depend on the extent the inventing firm internalizes these follow-up developments. Such internalization is less likely to occur...

This paper uses the adoption and invention of the spinning jenny as a test case to understand why the industrial revolution occurred in Britain in the eighteenth century rather than in France or India.  It is shown that wages were much higher relative to capital prices in Britain than in other...

It is shown that spillovers can enhance private returns to innovation if they feed back into the dynamic research of the original inventor (Internalized spillovers), but will always reduce private returns, if the original inventor does not benefit from the advancements other inventors build into...

Productivity is high in cities partly because the urban environment acts as a self-selection mechanism.  If workers have imperfect information about the quality of workers with whom they match and matches take place within cities, then high-ability workers will choose to live and work in...

This paper investigates two channels through which research and development (R&D) and human capital may affect regional total factor productivity growth in the manufacturing sector, using panel data on 159 EU-15 regions from 1992 to 2005.  Based on the endogenous growth model of Griffith,...

I show that the fiscal position of the UK means it will be very hard for the next government to allow the undergraduate fee cap to increase beyond the rate of inflation.  The funding postion of the higher education sector can be improved by the government removing the interest rate subsidy it...

We study the role of preferences in the process of unemployment benefit determination. Perhaps surprisingly, survey evidence for the UK suggests that both the employed and unemployed wish to see a more generous level of unemployment benefits.

We present a simple model where unemployment benefits are determined in an economy in which there is endogenous delay in finding a job so that workers desire insurance against the possibility of unemployment.