The intensity of international transactions remains lower than could be potentially justified on the basis of transportation costs alone. This has become known as the ?mystery of the missing trade?. Transaction costs may be responsible for ?under-trading? across national borders. More...

In this paper we study the cultural aspects of the ‘Europe of the regions’. We try to explain value differences in European regions. In explaining value differences between regions we build on Inglehart, who has described and empirically analysed the relationship between cultural values and...

In this paper we develop a model of growth and social capital, and test it using data from the European Value Survey (EVS). Following Putnam’s distinction between bonding and bridging social capital, we model social capital as participation in two types of social networks: first, closed...

We study a cross-section of 54 European regions in the period 1950-1998. The central question is whether social capital, in the form of generalized trust and associational activity, is related to regional differences in economic growth. Based on extensive robustness tests, we present evidence...