It is generally believed that for the power of unit root tests, only the time span and not the observation frequency matters. In this paper we show that the observation frequency does matter when the high-frequency data display fat tails and volatility clustering, as is typically the case for...

In this paper we study the implications of population ageing in an economy with a sizeable non-traded goods sector. To this effect a highly stylized micro-founded macro model is constructed in which the age structure of the population plays a non-trivial role. The model distinguishes separate...

A major question in the globalization debate is whether outsourcing and offshoring activities are beneficial to the home country. This paper investigates the effects on productivity and trade from the perspective of transaction costs, using a recent theory on trade in tasks. A production...

We show that in a fully integrated economy, in which there is free mobility of goods and factors, each member’s share of total output will equal its shares of total stocks of productive factors (i.e., physical and human capital). We label this result the equal-share relationship. This...

This paper contributes to the productivity literature by using results from firm-level productivity studies to improve forecasts of macro-level productivity growth. The paper employs current research methods on estimating firm-level productivity to build times-series components that capture the...

The potential interactions among fiscal policies, investments and economic growth are complex and manifold. In this paper, we will perform a systematic comparative analysis of the various economic insights that are currently available on these complex relationships, both theoretically (by a...

We first demonstrate that, within a fully integrated economy (FIE) in which there is free mobility of goods and factors, each FIE member's share of total FIE output will equal its shares of the total FIE stock of each productive factor. This equal-share property implies that, if economic...

This discussion paper led to a forthcoming publication in </I>Journal of Regional Science</I> entitled 'Are EU Countries less Integrated than US States? Theory and Evidence'.<P> European economic integration is commonly believed to be incomplete, and that further reforms are needed. In this context, the...</p>

With tightening budgets and increasingly critical reviews of public expenditure, there is a need for a careful analysis of the performance of public bodies in terms of an efficient execution of their tasks. These questions show up everywhere in the public domain, for instance, in the provision...