This paper takes a modest step towards formalizing the theoretical interconnections among four post-Industrial-Revolution phenomena – the industrialization and growth take-off of rich ‘northern’ nations, massive global income divergence, and rapid trade expansion. Specifically, we present...

This paper analyses the incentives to participate in and the stability of international climate coalitions. Using the integrated assessment model WITCH, the analysis of coalitions’ profitability and stability is performed under alternative assumptions concerning the pure rate of time...

We use randomized program offers and multiple follow-up survey waves to examine the effects of entrepreneurship training on a broad set of outcomes. Training increases short run business ownership and employment, but there is no evidence of broader or longer run effects. We also test whether...

This paper builds a two-country (North, South), two-sector (polluting, nonpolluting) trade model with directed technical change, examining whether unilateral environmental policies can ensure sustainable growth. The polluting good is produced with a clean and a dirty input. I show that a...

What should be the West's top priority for climate-change policy? This article is a revised and updated version of my talk to the Potsdam Global Sustainability Symposium (which drafted the Potsdam Declaration presented to the 2007 UN Climate Change Conference in Bali).

The latest round of international negotiations in Copenhagen led to a set of commitments on emission reduction which are unlikely to stabilise global warming below or around 2°C. As a consequence, in the absence of additional ambitious policy measures, adaptation will be needed to address...

The outcome of the 15th conference of the Parties to the UNFCC showed a shift from a top-down approach with a collective target favoring environmental objectives to a bottom-up accord favoring political feasibility. There is no meaningful binding agreement in sight, also because the global...

This paper is a contribution to a series of seminars in honour of the late Ronald Henderson. The author was asked to address the question of how the national interest, possible loss of national sovereignty can be addressed within the market framework and whether there are reasons for concern...

This paper argues that globalization has led to a shift in developed countries from an industrial to an entrepreneurial model of production. Globalization is interpreted as a level shock in the supply of unskilled labor to the world economy, a decrease in the level of political risk associated...

This paper advances the hypothesis that the EMS crisis was caused by German unification. Unification stimulated massive resource demand, which paralleled resource demand in the United States following Reagan’s tax reforms in the 1980s. The resource demand revised German interest rates relative...