Productivity growth in Japan, as in most advanced economies, has moderated. This paper finds supportive evidence for the important role of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in explaining Japan's modest productivity growth. Results show a substantial dispersion in firm-level productivity...

Using a new firm-level dataset on private and listed firms from 20 countries, we documentfive stylized facts on market power in global markets. First, competition has declinedaround the world, measured as a moderate increase in average firm markups during 2000-2015. Second, the markup increase...

Rapid growth of Islamic banking in developing countries is accompanied with claims about its relative resilience to financial crises as compared to conventional banking. However, little empirical evidence is available to support such claims. Using data from Pakistan, where Islamic and...

This paper constructs an industry-level dataset of productivity across advanced economies, showing that Korea’s labor productivity and total factor productivity levels are below the median of other advanced economies. We identify sizable industry-level productivity gaps in Korea with respect...

Interest rate pass-through from policy interest rates to market rates and inflation has been hypothesized to play a lesser role in Romania than in other Central European transition economies. This paper tests this hypothesis and concludes that it cannot be supported by the data. Hence...

The labor share in Europe has been on a downward trend. This paper finds that the decline is concentrated in manufacture and among low- to mid-skilled workers. The shifting nature of employment away from full-time jobs and a rollback of employment protection, unemployment benefits and...

The transitional recession in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union has lasted much longer than expected. It has been the result of both the legacy of the past and policy mistakes. Due to structural reforms and gradual institution-building, the postsocialist economies have started to...

Poland stands out among transition economies as having experienced a relatively short and shallow contraction followed by sustained, vigorous growth. This paper examines various aspects of Poland`s growth performance from 1992 through 1998 at the macroeconomic level as well as across sectors and...

The multiple indicator-multiple cause (MIMIC) method is a well-established tool for measuring informal economic activity. However, it has been criticized because GDP is used both as a cause and indicator variable. To address this issue, this paper applies for the first time the light intensity...

Why do firms lobby? This paper exploits the unanticipated sequestration of federal budget accounts in March 2013 that reduced the availability of government funds disbursed through procurement contracts to shed light on this question. Following this event, firms with little or no prior exposure...