The empirical economic growth literature is criticized for its lack ofrobustness. For different definitions of robustness, conclusions vary from 'almost everycorrelation is fragile' to 'a substantial number of explanatory variables are robust.' Were-analyze the empirical results of the economic...

Accepted for publication in the <I>Journal of Development Economics</I>.<P> This paper introduces the Small World model (Watts and Strogatz, Nature, 1998) into the theory of economic growth and investigates how increasing economic integration affects firm size and efficiency, norm enforcement, and...</p></i>

This discussion paper resulted in a publication in <A href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs11187-012-9436-x">'Small Business Economics'</A>, 2013, 41(2), 335-357.<P> Policy in developed countries is often based on the assumption that higher business ownership rates induce economic value. Recent microeconomic empirical evidence casts doubts on the validity of...</p></a>

Regression analyses of cross-country economic growth data are complicated by two main forms of model uncertainty: the uncertainty in selecting explanatory variables and the uncertainty in specifying the functional form of the regression function. Most discussions in the literature address these...

Total factor productivity of twenty OECD countries for a recent period (1971-2002) is explained using six different models based on the established literature. Traditionally, entrepreneurship is not dealt with in these models. In the present paper it is shown that – when this variable is added...

We present a multi-country theory of economic growth in which countries are connected by a network of mutual knowledge exchange. Growth is generated through human capital accumulation and knowledge externalities. The available knowledge in any country depends on its connections to the rest of...

This discussion paper led to a publication in <A href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095069611000556">'Journal of Environmental Economics and Management'</A>, 62(2), 229-40.<p>We analyze how the threat of a potential future regime shift affects optimal management. We use a simple general growth model to analyze four cases that involve combinations of stock...</p></a>

Structural funds are the most intensively used policy instrument by the EuropeanUnion to promote economic growth in its member states and to speed up the process ofconvergence. This paper empirically explores the effectiveness of European Structural Fundsby means of a panel data analysis for 13...

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...

With the advent of globalization, economic and financial interactions among countries have become widespread. Given technological advancements, the factors of production can no longer be considered to be just labor and capital. In the pursuit of economic growth, every country has sensibly...