Can patent protection and product market competition complement each other in enhancing incentives to innovate? In this paper, we address this question by investigating how innovation responses to a substantial policy initiative increasing product market competition interact with the strength of...

The internal market in Europe will greatly increase the international mobility of resources. How will this affect fiscal policy in different countries? The first part of the paper considers taxation of capital in a two country model, where a democratically chosen government in each country...

Most observers have concluded that while money markets and government bond markets are rapidly integrating following the introduction of the common currency in the euro area, there is little evidence that a similar integration process is taking place for retail banking. Data on cross-border...

In the last two decades the European financial markets have become more market oriented. We analyze the economic and political forces that have triggered these changes as well as their likely welfare implications. We also try to assess whether this trend will continue. Based on our analysis, we...

This paper documents a set of stylized facts about recent trends in cross-border M&A (CBMA) activity around the world. The facts focus on key features of CBMA such as (i) the magnitude; (ii) how it varies across industries and locations; (iii) how it compares to levels of greenfield FDI over time;...

This paper tests the differential effects of the generosity of the welfare state under free migration and under policy-controlled migration, distinguishing between source developing and developed countries. We utilize free-movement within the EU to examine the free migration regime and compare...

In contemporary America, racial gaps in achievement are primarily due to gaps in skills. Skill gaps emerge early before children enter school. Families are major producers of those skills. Inequality in performance in school is strongly linked to inequality in family environments. Schools do...

Exploiting variation in welfare reform across states and over time and using relevant comparison groups, this study estimates the effects of welfare reform on an important source of human capital acquisition among women at risk for relying on welfare: vocational education and training. The...

The passage of the 1996 welfare reform bill led to sweeping changes to the central U.S. cash safety net program for families with children. Importantly, along with other changes, the reform imposed lifetime time limits for receipt of welfare de facto ending the entitlement nature of cash welfare...

Social experiments are powerful sources of information about the effectiveness of interventions. In practice, initial randomization plans are almost always compromised. Multiple hypotheses are frequently tested. "Significant" effects are often reported with p-values that do not account for...