We study how barriers to business start-up affect the investment in knowledge capital when contracts are not enforceable. Barriers to business start-up lower the competition for knowledge capital and, in absence of commitment, reduce the incentive to accumulate knowledge. As a result, countries...

We present a tractable stochastic endogenous growth model that explains how social capital influences economic development. In our model, social capital increases citizens' awareness of government activity. Hence, it alleviates the electoral incentives to under- invest in education, whose...

Social capital – a dense network of associations facilitating cooperation within a community – typically leads to positive political and economic outcomes, as demonstrated by a large literature following Putnam. A growing literature emphasizes the potentially "dark side" of social capital....

Conventional financial accounting information is slanted in favour of certain economic interests. This paper argues in favour of accounting information capturing and showing relevant aspects of the economic-social situation, and of decision-making based on it allowing for decisions to be taken...

This article investigates the main sources of heterogeneity in regional efficiency. We estimate a translog stochastic frontier production function in the analysis of Spanish regions in the period 1964-1996, to attempt to measure and explain changes in technical efficiency. Our results confirm...

We investigate the determinants of regional development using a newly constructed database of 1569 sub-national regions from 110 countries covering 74 percent of the world’s surface and 97 percent of its GDP. We combine the cross-regional analysis of geographic, institutional, cultural, and...

This paper provides regression discontinuity evidence on long-run and intergenerational education impacts of a temporary increase in federal transfers to local governments in Brazil. Revenues and expenditures of the communities benefiting from extra transfers temporarily increased by about 20%...

Throughout the 19th century and until the mid-20th century, in terms of long-term investment in human capital and, above all, in education, Spain lagged far behind the international standards and, more specifically, the levels attained by its neighbours in Europe. In 1900, only 55% of the...