Productivity, or the amount of output produced by a given number of inputs,can be measured in a number of ways;1 the focus of Governmentpolicy, and much of the theoretical and empirical literature, is on labourproductivity, which provides the theme of the discussion in this review.A central...

In 2000, the Lisbon Agenda set out an ambitious plan to make the EuropeanUnion “the most dynamic and competitive knowledge-based economy inthe world”. The Agenda suggested a need for action on three broad fronts:the first explicitly macroeconomic; the second explicitly microeconomic;the third...

The growth process for a technological leader is different from that of a follower.While followers can grow through imitation and capital deepening, a leader must undertakeoriginal research. This suggests that as the gap between the leader and the follower narrows, thefollower must undertake...

This paper presents a simple model of risk-averse banks that face uncer-tainty over funding conditions in the money market. It shows when increasedfunding uncertainty causes interest rates on loans and deposits to rise, whilebank lending and bank pro…tability fall. It also …nds that funding...

In many markets firms set posted prices which are potentially negotiable. We analyze theoptimal marketing mix of pricing and bargaining when price takers buy at posted prices butbargainers attempt to negotiate discounts. The optimal bargaining strategy involves the firmsoffering bargainers...

In this paper we use a dynamic structural life-cycle model to analyze the employment,fiscal and welfare effects induced by unemployment insurance. The model features a detailedspecification of the tax and transfer system, including unemployment insurance benefitswhich depend on an individual's...

Many social networks have the following properties: (i) a short average distancebetween any two individuals; (ii) a high clustering coe±cient; (iii) segregation pat-terns; the presence of (iv) brokers and (v) hubs. (i) and (ii) de¯ne a small worldnetwork. This paper develops a strategic...

This paper discusses the place of oligopoly in international trade theory, and ar-gues that it is unsatisfactory to ignore …rms altogether, as in perfectly competitivemodels, or to view large …firms as more productive clones of small ones, as in monop-olistically competitive models. Doing...

This paper examines monetary policy in a currency union whose member countries exhibitheterogeneous rates of limited asset markets participation (LAMP). As a result risksharing among member countries is imperfect and the monetary transmission mechanismcan dier across countries. In the limit the...

This paper presents simple conditions for monopoly third-degree price discrimination to have negative or positive e¤ectson aggregate consumer surplus. Consumer surplus is often re-duced by discrimination, for example when total welfare (con-sumer surplus and pro…ts) falls. Surplus increases...