"Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of "official" GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing...

Our estimates, based on large firm-level and industry-level data sets from eighteen countries, suggest that FDI and trade have strong positive spillover effects on product and technology innovation by domestic firms in emerging markets. The FDI effect is more pronounced for firms from advanced...

The main goal of regionalization is the creation of free trade areas and the guarantee for countries to accede to a widened market. Many studies dealing with the effects of regional free trade agreements on trade flows already exist in the economic literature and the explosion in the number of...

Our paper deals with econometric developments for the estimation of the gravity model which lead to convergent parameter estimates even when a correlation exists between the explanatory variables and the specific unobservable characteristics of each unit. We implement panel data econometric...

The analysis presented in this paper defines three different synthetic measurements of disincentives for formal work: two standard measurements, namely the tax wedge and the marginal effective tax rate (METR); and a new, innovative measurement called formalization tax rate (FTR). The novelty of...

This study analyses whether the role of religion for employment of married women in Europe has changed over time and along women's life cycles. Using information on 44'000 married European women from the World Values Survey 1981-2013, we find that in OECD-Europe there is little difference among...

Using the currency demand and DYMIMIC approaches estimates are presented about the size of the shadow economy in 22 Transition and 21 OECD countries. Over 2001/2002 in 21 OECD countries is the average size of the shadow economy (in percent of official GDP) 16.7% of "official" GDP and of 22...

Data on educational access show gender parity of pupils attending primary and secondary schools in transition countries. The first aim of this analysis is to examine whether the gender balance in educational access translates also into gender equality in educational achievement. There are...

The striking thing about the happiness-income paradox is that over the long-term - usually a period of 10 y or more - happiness does not increase as a country's income rises. Heretofore the evidence for this was limited to developed countries. This article presents evidence that the long term...