In recent years, international capital flows of all types have increased dramatically and most governments have been actively encouraging inflows of direct investment. However, concerns remain that reliance on foreign multinationals may be a risky development strategy as foreign firms are likely...

This paper is an exercise in comparative institutional analysis, asking what kinds of arrangements most facilitate innovation. After identifying pervasive market failures in innovation, it explains why those associated with the Nordic model may be particularly conducive to innovation, and...

This paper examines the robustness of explanatory variables in cross-country economic growth regressions. It employs a novel approach, Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates (BACE), which constructs estimates as a weighted average of OLS estimates for every possible combination of included...

This is the first paper to investigate the determinants of the demand for medical care in the People's Republic of China. It uses a data set that consists of detailed characteristics of 6407 urban households, a continuous measure of health care spending, and price. A two-part model and a...

Using Portugal's extensive matched employer-employee data set, this paper documents an unusual feature of the Portuguese economy. For decades, the entire Portuguese firm size distribution has been shifting to the left. We argue in this paper that Portugal's shrinking firms are linked to the...

A political miracle occurred when Germany was reunited, and at first glance an economic miracle has followed. Real incomes in the east have now reached the western level, and investment per capita has been much higher than in the west. However, every third deutschmark spent in the east has been...

Following a severe contraction in the early 1990s, the Swedish economy accumulated a strong record of output growth coupled with a disappointing performance in the labor market. As of 2005, hours worked per person 20-64 years of age are 10.5 percent below the 1990 peak and a mere one percent...

This study examines the effect of changes in the vintage distribution of cardiovascular system drugs on hospitalization and mortality due to cardiovascular disease using longitudinal country-level data. The vintage of a drug is the first year in which it was marketed anywhere in the world. We...