This paper investigates the robustness of determinants of economic growth in the presence of model uncertainty, parameter heterogeneity and outliers. The robust model averaging approach introduced in the paper uses a flexible and parsimonious mixture modeling that allows for fat-tailed errors...

This paper introduces a new measure of dependence or jointness among explanatory variables. Jointness is based on the joint posterior distribution of variables over the model space, thereby taking model uncertainty into account. By looking beyond marginal measures of variable importance,...

This paper presents an endogenous growth model of migration and technological diffusion with transitional dynamics, which provide explanations for the empirical pattern of the mobility transition. A two-skill group extension of this model offers new hypotheses regarding the skill composition of...

The problem of the relevance of human and natural capital, as well as the potential adverse effect of natural capital on economic growth, has gained increased attention in development economics. The aim of this paper is to assess, theoretically and empirically, the relevance of several forms of...

We consider a small open economy in which the level of public education funding is determined by popular vote. We show that growth can be enhanced by the introduction of pay-as-you-go pensions even if the growth rate of aggregate wages falls short of the interest rate. The reason is that the...

We use Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) to evaluate the robustness of determinants of economic growth in a new dataset of 255 European regions in the 1995-2005 period. We use three different specifications based on (1) the cross-section of regions, (2) the cross-section of regions with country...

Conceptual and applied studies assessing the linkage between economic freedom and corruption expect that economic freedom boosts economic growth, improves income, and reduces levels of corruption. However, most of them have concentrated on developed and developing groups, while the Association...

In this paper, we apply a convex hull approach to counterfactual analysis of trade openness and growth. The experiments we choose evaluate the importance of trade openness for growth across African countries. Specifically, we ask the question “what would happen if African countries were more...

We develop an overlapping generations monetary endogenous growth (generated by productive public expenditures) model with inflation targeting, characterized by relocation shocks for young agents, which in turn generates a role for money (even in the presence of the return-dominating physical...

This paper takes a fresh look at the nature of financial and real business cycles in OECD countries using annual data series and shorter quarterly and monthly economic indicators. It first analyses the main characteristics of the cycle, including the length, amplitude, asymmetry and changes of...