The Central and Eastern European countries' prospects of becoming EU members depend heavily on, among other things, their per capita GDP levels. It is shown that the neoclassical growth model does not yet adequately describe the growth process in these countries. This makes a direct growth...

For Africa, a regional customs union is unlikely to realise net welfare gains (in the sense of trade creation dominating trade diversion) which cannot be attained through unilateral trade liberalization. Unilateral reform has often failed in Africa, however. A regional customs union tied to...

In this paper, we develop a model of North-South trade to analyze the impact of a label certifying the absence of child labour in the export production of the South. When most eligible producers in the South can obtain the label, its impact is considerably reduced by a displacement effect...

This Paper focuses on policies facilitating firm adjustment to globalization. We briefly review the effects of trade and investment liberalization on firms, focusing on within- industry effects. We postulate that governments’ role in supporting the process is to: (i) ensure that firms face...

This paper analyses the impact of labour demand and labour market regulations on the corporate structure of fims. It finds that higher wages are associated with lower monitoring, irrespective of whether these high wages are caused by labour market regulations, unions or higher labour demand....

There exist two approaches in the literature concerning the multinational firm's mode choice for foreign production between an owned subsidiary and a licensing contract. One approach considers environments where the firm is transferring primarily knowledge-based assets. An important assumption...

The paper analyses the contemporary organizational restructuring of production and work and derives some salient implications for the labour market. The analysis focuses on the switch from occupational specialization at 'Tayloristic' organizations to multi-tasking at 'holistic' organizations....

This paper examines hierarchies’ role in the organization of human-capital-intensive production. We develop an equilibrium model of hierarchical organization, then provide empirical evidence using confidential data on thousands of law offices from the 1992 Census of Services. We show how the...

We analyse the optimal delegation of decision rights by a uninformed principal to an informed but biased agent. When the principal cannot use message-contingent transfers, she offers the agent a set of decisions from which he can choose his preferred one. We fully characterize the optimal...

The effects of the quality of institutions on economic development and comparative advantage have been so far investigated separately. This paper proposes a theoretical framework in which trade patterns and growth rates are jointly determined by international differences in contract enforcement...