Applying the general question of aid effectiveness to the sector of education, this paper reveals an overall positive effect of development assistance on primary enrolment. However, even the most optimistic estimates clearly show that at any realistic rate of growth, aid will never be able to...

This paper empirically assesses the impact of specialisation on the synchronisation of regional business cycles in two core countries of EMU, namely France and Germany. Several specialisation indices are introduced and some first stylised facts about interregional business cycle correlations are...

This paper proposes a model of the US unemployment rate which accounts for both its asymmetry and its long memory. Our approach, based on the tests of Robinson (1994), introduces fractional integration and nonlinearities simultaneously into the same framework (unlike earlier studies employing a...

A firm monopsonistically hires labor from a pool containing both skilled and unskilled workers. The marginal value of a worker depends on the match between the job and the worker's skill level. Unskilled workers can have negative productivity if they are placed in a skilled job. The firm cannot...

Border regions are likely to play a critical role within the spatial dynamics initiated by the enlargement of the EU. This paper deals with the effects of integration on labour markets in border regions. Within the framework of different theoretical approaches, the effects of integration on...

Recent studies of border effects have focused on the intra-country and inter-country comparison of trade flows. It is found that borders have a negative impact on the size of cross-border trade. In order to estimate border effects on a regional level one needs not only data on inter-country but...

In this paper we find evidence that the new economic geography approach is able to describe and explain the spatial characteristics of an economy, in our case the German economy. Using German district data we estimate the structural parameters of a new economic geography model as developed by...

Wie viele Menschen aus den mittel- und osteuropäischen Ländern (MOEL) werden von dem mit dem EU-Beitritt verbundenen Recht auf Freizügigkeit Gebrauch machen und nach Westen in die "alten" EU-Länder wandern? Die vorgestellten Simulationen ergeben eine Bandbreite für das...

Was bestimmt das individuelle Wanderungsverhalten? Herkömmliche migrationsökonomische Theorieansätze greifen oft zu kurz und überschätzen deshalb die grenzüberschreitenden Wanderungsbewegungen bei weitem. Dieses Diskussionspapier stellt die bisherige Optik auf den Kopf und sucht nach...