In this paper we try to estimate the impact of Structural Funds on the growth rates of Objective 1 European regions during the two first Programming periods (1989-2000). For that purpose, we develop a ''hybrid'' model of economic growth that partially endogenizes the rate of technical progress...

This paper examines the optimal (first-best) fiscal policy in a stochastic representative agent model that exhibits a ``keeping up with the Joneses'' utility function and imperfectly competitive product markets. We find that the optimal labor tax is a constant, whose sign is determined by the...

This paper investigates the properties of optimal monetary and fiscal policy in a two sector small open economy. If the government can optimally select all possible distorting tax rates, then it can implement Pareto efficient outcomes and the Friedman Rule is found to be a necessary condition...

One way to interpret the current policies of many central banks is that they seek to stabilize economic activity. One possible justification for such a policy is that there is volatility in macro variables that individual agents cannot insure against. We study the simplest possible extension of...

This paper studies subsampling hypothesis tests for panel data that are possibly nonstationary, and cross-sectionally correlated and cross-sectionally cointegrated. The tests include panel unit root and cointegration tests as special cases. The number of cross-sectional units in the panel data...

The relationship between income distribution and economic growth has been found to depend on several factors such as capital markets imperfections, moral hazard, indivisibility in investments, and existence of dual economic characteristics. In recent literature the importance of geography has...

This paper looks into the total factor productivity performance and economic growth of Latin America. A stochastic production frontier function was estimated as a translog leading to technical inefficiency in a set of 19 Latin American countries over the period 1961–1990. Using the...

This paper analyzes the influence of exchange rate regimes on fiscal performance, focusing on the difference between fixed and flexible exchange rates. For these ends, a sample of 83 countries for the 1974-1998 period, the GMM methodology for dynamic proposal panel models proposed by Arellano...

This paper develops a new simulation estimation algorithm that is particularly useful for estimating dynamic panel data models with unobserved endogenous state variables. The new approach can deal with the commonly encountered and widely discussed ``initial conditions problem,'' as well as the...

In this paper we compare the size and the power of four cointegration tests in heterogeneous panel data, with both varying intercepts and slopes. These tests are (i) Kao (1999) Tests (both Dickey-Fuller (DF) and augmented Dickey-Fuller (ADF) types of cointegration tests in panel data), (ii)...