This paper discusses some of the recent developments in growth theory, doing so from the perspective of a small open economy. After setting out a basic generic model, we show how it may yield two of the key models that have played a prominent role in the recent literature, the endogenous growth...

This paper explores a newly-available panel data set merging balance sheet and international trade transaction data for Belgium. Both imports and exports appear to be highly concentrated among few firms and seem to have become more so over time. Focusing on manufacturing, we find that facts...

Consisting of teams working with firm level data, the International Study Group on Exports and Productivity has used comparable micro level panel data for 14 countries and a set of identically specified empirical models to investigate the relationship between exports and productivity. The...

This paper evaluates the causal effects of exports to different destination countries using a comprehensive dataset on Belgian manufacturing firms from 1998 to 2005. Initial evidence suggests that, before export market entry, exporters to more developed economies have superior productivity...

We analyze financial risk premiums and real economic dynamics in a DSGE model with three types of agents - shareholders, bondholders and workers - that differ in participation in the capital market and in terms of risk aversion. Aggregate productivity and distribution risk are shared among these...

Using firm-level data for Belgium over the period 1997-2005, we evaluate the elasticity of firms' labour and real average labour compensation to microeconomic total factor productivity (TFP). Our results may be summarised as follows. First, we find that the elasticity of average labour...