Total factor productivity of twenty OECD countries for a recent period (1971-2002) is explained using six different models based on the established literature. Traditionally, entrepreneurship is not dealt with in these models. In the present paper it is shown that – when this variable is added...

This paper examines the effects of taxation on long-run growthin a two-sector endogenous growth model with (i) physical capitalas an input in the education sector and (ii) leisure as anadditional argument in the utility function. The analysis of theeffects of taxation - including income...

Estimates of the effect of education on GDP (the social return) have been hard to reconcile with micro evidence on the private return to schooling. We present a simple explanation combining two ideas: imperfect substitution and endogenous skill-biased technological progress and use cross-country...

The need to absorb windfalls gains and manage them appropriately has been discussed extensively by academics and policy makers alike. We explore the role of the financial sector in intermediating these windfalls. Controlling for the level of financial development, inflation, GDP growth and...

This paper employs a Markov regime-switching approach to investigate whether the Great Moderation is over since the start of the late 2000s recession. The results conrm that the recent nancial crisis did cause a simultaneous high-volatility period among the G7 countries. However, the nancial...

Fifteen years after German reunification, the facts about slow regional convergence have born out the prediction of Barro (1991), except that migration out of East Germany has not slowed down. I document that in particular the 18-29 year old are leaving East Germany, and that the emigration has...

We present a dynamic general equilibrium model with agency costs, where heterogeneous firms choose among two alternative instruments of external finance-corporate bonds and bank loans. We characterize the financing choice of firms and the endogenous financial structure of the economy. The...

The purpose of the paper is to present the fundamental equation in tourism finance that connects tourism research to empirical finance and financial econometrics. The energy industry, which includes, oil, gas and bio-energy fuels, together with the tourism industry, are two of the most important...

Cyclicality in the losses of bank loans is important for bank risk management. Because loans have a different risk profile than bonds, evidence of cyclicality in bond losses need not apply to loans. Based on unique data we show that the default rate and loss given default of bank loans share a...

We introduce a new estimation framework which extends the Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) to settings where a subset of the parameters vary over time with unknown dynamics. To filter out the dynamic path of the time-varying parameter, we approximate the dynamics by an autoregressive process...