This paper suggests that efficiency considerations do not explain why privatization policy is so appealing to the centre-left parties in Europe. Divestitures of state owned corporations in the UK and elsewhere were implemented by right wing parties with the over-arching objective to defeat trade...

Application of the social discount rate to public sector projects is one of the most crucial parameters in cost benefit analysis. Because of its importance some countries have a formal discount rate and method of discounting policies. The United Kingdom was one of the earliest to adopt a policy...

Time discounting in the public sector remains a source of confusion and some academic controversy. The very concept of a ”social” discount rate, not revealed by the market, is rejected by mainstream financial economics. Elsewhere the setting of public sector discount rates equal to the...

The recent agreement on financial perspective 2007-2013 provided new member states with substantial cohesion resources to speed up their real convergence process. The primary objective of the paper is to explore key policy issues, faced by new member states, if they want to successfully absorb...

This paper tests directly a geography and growth model using regional data for Europe, the US, and Japan during di®erent time periods. We set up a standard geography and growth model with a poverty trap and derive a log- linearized growth equation that corresponds directly to a threshold...

We present a two-sector endogenous growth model with human and physical capital accumulation in order to analyze the long run relationship between population growth and real per capita income growth. Learning is assumed to affect agents’ decision of how much to invest in formal education....

The influence of product market competition on growth is reconsidered by developing an extension of the basic Romerian model of horizontal product innovation. We find that the relationship between competition and growth is inverse-U shaped, provided that the non accumulated factor input (e.g....

This paper analyzes the conditions under which, within a two-sector endogenous growth model with human and physical capital accumulation but without R&D-driven disembodied technological progress, it is possible to observe an ambiguous effect of population growth on economic growth, as empirical...

Using a balanced-growth model with physical and human capital accumulation, this article analyzes quantitatively the long run effects of changes in the saving rate and in income distribution (i.e., the shares of physical and human capital in income) on investment in human capital, growth of...

The aim of this paper is to investigate the role of culture, viewed according to Throsby’s definition of cultural capital (that is, an asset of tangible and intangible cultural expressions), in fostering economic growth. Recent literature in the field of cultural economics highlights a...