This paper develops a foreign expansion index (FEI) of the firm which integrates various dimensions of commitment to internationalization, i.e. exports, foreign penetration operations and FDI. This study focuses on Italy, constructing FEIs for each of some 4,000 firms for three periods...

Although recet research has repeatedly found a negative association between investment and socio-political instability (SPI), the existence and direction of causality between these two variables has not yet been investigated. We construct an index of SPI for non-overlaping five-years periods...

An unstable macroeconomic environment is often regarded as detrimental to economic growth. Among the sources contributing to such instability, much of the blame has been assigned to political issues. This paper empirically tests for a causal and negative long-run relationship between political...