Growth empirics with institutional measures is performed for 25 transition countries overthe period 1990-95. Estimation results suggest that (particularly state) institutions aresignificant for growth and, especially, foreign direct investment (FDI), the latter in turnbeing important for the...

Among Polish cities facing socio-economic difficulties are the former regional capitals which lost their administrative status due to the 1998 reform, reducing the number of regions from 49 to 16. Making use of this quasiexperimental setting, we assess the impact of the loss of administrative...

This paper studies the intangible costs of international trade by extending the basic gravity equation with measures of cultural and institutional distance, and institutional quality. Analyzing a sample of bilateral trade flows between 92 countries in 1999, we find that institutional distance...