This paper constructs a two-sector unified growth model that explains the timing and the inevitability of an industrial revolution through entrepreneurs' role for the accumulation of useful knowledge. While learning-by-doing in agriculture eventually allows the preindustrial economy to leave its...

Unlike in Asia, the manufacturing sector has not (yet) become a driver of structural change in Africa. One common explanation is that the natural resource-focus of many African economies leads to Dutch disease effects. To test this argument for the case of newly found oil in Ghana we develop a...

Using data from the India Human Development Survey, this paper analyses the relationship between child disability and maternal work participation for India. The authors' findings suggest a significant positive relationship between child disability and the work participation of the urban mothers...

This paper is based on my thesis from the year 2008. It uses the German Microcensus (MC) to study the effects of continuing vocational training (CVT) on employment, the risk of unemployment, and wages. To control for education, profession and heterogeneity in the sectors and industrial branches...

Donations by migrants to community projects in their home countries (“collective remittances”) help to provide local public goods and may promote economic development. We draw on the literatures on migrant remittances and on philanthropy in general to identify possible motives for collective...

International migration not only enables individuals to earn higher wages but also exposes them to new environments. The norms and values experienced at the destination country could change the behavior of the migrant but also of family members left behind. In this paper we argue that a brain...

Using information on more than 1000 firms in a number of emerging countries, we find quantitative evidence that suppliers of multinationals that are pressured by their customers to reduce production costs or develop new products have higher productivity growth than other firms, including other...

The aim of this paper is to contribute to the debate on the pro-poor growth measurement techniques using monetary versus non-monetary indicators. In this context, an alternative method for introducing non-monetary indicators into monetary pro-poor growth analysis is presented. The method is...

Many conventional economic analyses assume that risk preference is taken as given and do not give much scrutiny on it. However, empirical studies show that risk preference is not random: shocks and predetermined characteristics can determine risk preference. This study tried to see if these...

Estonia is widely regarded as a paramount example for a successful transformation of a socialist economic system to a functioning market economy. Against the backdrop of this positive image which contrasts strongly with the crisis scenarios in Southern Europe the remaining problems of Estonia...