The innovation systems approach has proven useful in explaining the reasons behind varying economic performance in developing countries. The systemic understanding of the innovation process, which pays attention to the knowledge flow among interactive actors, serves as a useful 'focusing device'...

We use Financial Optimum Portfolio Theory to obtain Optimum Development (Policy) Portfolios for Sub Saharan African (SSA) Countries. We estimate a model linking public expenditures on health, education and general government expenditures to the Human Development Index (HDI). Given the...

The effectiveness of Official Development Assistance is heavily debated. The emergence of new donors and the recent establishment of novel development actors, such as the BRICS-powered New Development Bank, will complement or substitute traditional financial flows and development cooperation....

Catching-up, leapfrogging and falling behind in terms of output and productivity in high-tech industries crucially depends on firms ability to keep pace with technological change. In fast changing industries todays specialization does not guarantee tomorrows success as changes in the...

The recent expansion of global demand for natural resources has created a production boom in countries endowed with natural resources. Increasing global trade and investment - globalization - offer an important opportunity for developing countries as the global flow of commodities often...

The term 'transaction cost' has been widely mentioned in the recent literature on aid effectiveness. In fact, the shift into the aid delivery system (see e.g. the Paris Declaration on aid effectiveness) has been justified among others by the high transaction costs generated by the previous aid...

We estimate the Anderson and van Wincoop model of trade by using the data on the bilateral export flows from 26 Turkish regions to 180 countries for the years 2002 through to 2010. Regional transportation and communication infrastructure capacity, the positioning of point infrastructure in a...

How important is the integration of immigrants in society for labour market outcomes? In this paper we examine the effect of residential segregation in neighbourhoods on labour market outcomes, exploiting the random assignment of asylum seekers to neighbourhoods in the Netherlands. Using Dutch...

That innovation and entrepreneurship are important for poverty alleviation and development is well established. However, despite a general agreement that finance affects growth and development by supporting innovative activities in the economy, little has been written specifically on how...

This paper discusses the possibility of a spatial hierarchy of innovation and growth dynamics in Europe. A spatial hierarchy is understood as a geographical clustering of regions, where important differences exist in terms of innovation and growth dynamics between the clusters. The literature on...