How does trade policy a affect technology adoption, total factor productivity (TFP henceforth), and per capita income? To study this question we construct a dynamic general equilibrium model of a small open economy in which a coalition of skilled workers chooses the technology. We obtain three...

In most transition countries the aggregate level evidence suggests that most industries are just destroying jobs, due to the legacy of communism where over-manning levels of employment were the norm. This Paper sheds light on whether the transition process in Slovenian manufacturing has been one...

Convergence in per capita income turns on whether technological knowledge spillovers are global or local. Global spillovers favour convergence, while a geographically limited scope of knowledge diffusion can lead to regional clusters of countries with persistently different levels of income per...

We investigate the link between real exchange rates and sectoral total factor productivity measures for countries in the Eurozone. Real exchange rate patterns closely accord with an amended Balassa-Samuelson interpretation, both in cross-section and time series. We construct a sticky price...

In this paper we present stylized facts of the Greek economy that characterize the causes and the consequences of its ongoing crisis. Then, we offer an explanation that can account for those causes and consequences. This explanation is based on the view of Greek society as consisting of two...

This paper assesses the strength of productivity spillovers non-parametrically in a data-set of 12 industries and 231 NUTS2 regions in 17 European Union member countries between 1992 and 2006. It devotes particular attention to measuring catching up through spillovers depending on the technology...

We estimate the effect on economic development of China's industrial policy, in particular, the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ). We use data from a panel of 276 Chinese cities and prefectures from 1988 to 2010. Our difference-in-difference estimator exploits the variation in the...

The EU-US total factor productivity (TFP) growth gap since the mid-1990's is concentrated in a handful of market service industries (most notably retail trade) and in ICT-producing manufacturing, whilst the EU exhibits a stronger performance in a number of the network utilities. This paper...

The Paper considers the accuracy of traditional TFP growth estimates using an econometric methodology which takes account of scale economies, fixed factors of production and adjustment costs to reveal underlying ‘pure technological change’. The results suggest that these biases vary...

The 'big-bang' liberalization of the inefficient Russian economy in 1992 provides a fruitful setting for analysing the impact of several dimensions of market competition and other factors on enterprise efficiency. We analyse 1992-1998 panel data on 14,961 enterprises covering 75 percent of...