This paper revisits the two-equation model of Carree, van Stel, Thurik and Wennekers (2002) where deviations from the ‘equilibrium’ rate of business ownership play a central role determining both the growth of business ownership and that of economic development. Two extensions of the...

This article examines to what extent recent empirical evidence can collectively and systematically substantiate the claim that entrepreneurship has important economic value. Hence, a systematic review is provided that answers the question: What is the contribution of entrepreneurs to the economy...

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 contributes to the productivity literature by using results from firm-level productivity studies to improve forecasts of macro-level productivity growth. The paper employs current research methods on estimating firm-level productivity to build times-series components that capture the...

Total Factor Productivity (TFP)is often used on the macro-economic level as an indicator of changes in efficiency of a country. In many transition economies TFP is seen to have been negative the last decade of the plan economy and starts increasing and become positive after a (quite a) few years...

It is well-known that individuals born in different periods of time (cohorts)exhibit different wealth accumulation paths. While previous studies have usedcohort dummies to proxy for this fact, research in this area suffers from aserious identification problem, i.e., how to disentangle age, time,...

A recently much debated issue is why observed investment and growth rates inpoor countries are lower than traditional theory predicts. Empirical evidencesuggests that social and political instability is a major reason for thedivergence between poor and rich countries. However, there is still the...

This paper provides an empirical analysis of decoupling economic growth and energy use and its various determinants by exploring trends in energy- and labour productivity across 10 manufacturing sectors and 14 OECD countries for the period 1970-1997. We explicitly aim to trace back aggregate...

Africa's interior-to-coast roads are well suited to export natural resources, but not to support regional trade. Are they the optimal response to geography and comparative advantage, or the result of suboptimal political distortions? We investigate the political determinants of road paving in...

This paper addresses the existence of an Environmental Kuznets Curve for China, using a sampleof thirty regions and covering the period 1982-1997. The types of pollution included in the studyare wastewater, waste gas and solid waste. We consider the development of the sources ofpollution in a...