In this paper, we study development in a panel of 87 countries from 1970 to 2005. We focus on characterizing institutionally driven heterogeneities in the development effects of macroeconomic policies and on comparing the development process as measured by GDP to that measured by the Human...

The goal of this paper is to provide a preliminary overview of empirical Capability Approach (CA) applications for high-income OECD countries. The survey aims at a basis of mutual exchange on relevant CA issues among researchers analyzing well-being in affluent countries. It focuses on CA...

We empirically analyze the effect of UN and US economic sanctions on life expectancy and its gender gap in target countries. Our sample covers 98 less developed and newly industrialized countries over the period 1977–2012. We employ a matching approach to account for the endogeneity of...

The purpose of this paper is to construct a relative performance index for the States in India in terms of their performance in combatting Covid-19 pandemic. The data is analyzed up to August, 2020, though the methodology used can be readily extended to update the index. The methodology can be...

Research on happiness has produced valuable insights into the sources of subjective well-being. A major finding from this literature is that people exhibit a baseline happiness that shows persistent strength over time, and twin studies have shown that genes play a significant role in explaining...

Strong forces lead to a withering of academia as it exists today. The major causal forces are the rankings mania, increased division of labor in research, intense publication pressure, academic fraud, dilution of the concept of 'university' and inadequate organizational forms for modern...

The German government provides discretionary investment grants to structurally weak regions to reduce regional disparities. We use a regression discontinuity design that exploits an exogenous discrete jump in the probability of receiving investment grants, to identify the causal effects of the...

The paper is devoted to an econometric analysis of learning foreign languages in all parts of the world. Our sample covers 193 countries and 13 important languages. Four factors significantly explain learning, two of which affect the broad decision to learn, while two concern as well the choice...

The structural stability of different languages subject to the import of external elements is analyzed. We focus on the temporal side of the different processes interacting to produce a change in the structure of the language. That is, the rate of import and dissipation of new elements is seen...

The structural stability of different languages subject to the import of external elements is analyzed. We focus on the temporal side of the different processes interacting to produce a change in the structure of the language. That is, the rate of import and dissipation of new elements is seen...