This study compares transition processes in countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union (FSU) and sub-Saharan Africa. By widening the scope from most- to least-developed transition economies, the study establishes the importance of a strong state with evolved institutional...

Using comparable data sets for five African countries we estimate, and evaluate possible explanations for, the employer size wage effect across these. Our results indicate, just as has been generally found for other developing and developed nations, that apart from observable worker...

European policy makers have repeatedly suggested that fiscal- policy coordination and fiscal federalism will play key roles in Europe's monetary union. This paper warns that this hope is misplaced. Fiscal federalism will not be available to offset recessionary shocks for the foreseeable future....

DOMESTIC MARKETS AND INTERNATIONAL COMPETITIVENESS This paper develops a theoretical and empirical model to analyze the effects of the size and nature of domestic markets on the international competitiveness of national industries. We validate our theory using data on the more than 20,000 plants...

This paper is concerned with two issues. First, it discusses some of the main problems and inferences the methodological approach of critical realism raises for empirical work in economics, while considering an approach adopted to try to overcome these problems. Second, it provides a concrete...

This work considers effects of energy market liberalisation in the countries of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Our analysis is based on a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model called the Global Trade Analysis Project (GTAP). This specialised model makes it possible to evaluate effects in a...

Offshoring is generally believed to be productivity-enhancing and this belief is underpinned by economic theory. This article contributes to the growing literature that tests empirically whether offshoring does indeed help to improve productivity. Estimating the impact of materials and business...

We provide, for the first time, comparative evidence of the impact of various types of extreme events – natural disasters, terrorism, and violent conflicts – on the perceptions of entrepreneurs concerning some key entrepreneurial issues – such as fear of failure in starting a business...

The Asian crisis was the third financial crisis of the 1990s. Even more than its predecessors it raised questions about the international community’s approach to crisis prevention and crisis management. It led reservations to be voiced, and not only in Asia, about full and unfettered...

A welfare analysis of a risky policy is impossible within a linear or linearized model and its certainty equivalence property. The presented algorithms are designed as a toolbox for a general model class. The computational challenges are considerable and I concentrate on the numerics and...