Less restrictive product market policies are crucial in promoting convergence to higher levels of GDP per capita. This paper benchmarks product market policies in Romania to those of OECD countries by estimating OECD indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR). The PMR indicators allow a...

This paper examines whether natural resource dependence has a negative influence on various indicators of institutional quality when controlling for the potential effects of other geographic, economic and cultural initial conditions. Analysis of a panel of countries from 1996 to 2010 indicates...

Romania's European Union accession in 2007 has resulted in a substantial reduction of the formal barriers to integration with the European Union Single Market. This study takes stock of the progress by benchmarking product market policies in Romania to those of European Union countries, as...

Inappropriate regulation can influence productivity performance by affecting incentives to invest and adopt new technologies, as well as by directly curbing competitive pressures. Results of a labor productivity growth model for European countries suggest that improving the regulatory...

Using enterprise data for the economies of Central and Eastern Europe and the CIS, this study examines the effects of corruption on productivity. Corruption is narrowly defined as the occurrence of informal payments to government officials to ease the day-to-day operation of firms. The effects...

Less restrictive product market policies are crucial in promoting convergence to higher levels of GDP per capita. This paper benchmarks product market policies in Bulgaria to those of OECD countries by estimating OECD indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR). The PMR indicators allow a...

To many, reducing water losses is seen as key to more sustainable water management. The arguments to reduce water losses are compelling, but reducing water losses has turned out to be challenging. This paper applies a panel data analysis with fixed effects to determine the major drivers of...

Aid is good for the poor. This paper uses detailed aid data spanning 60 developing countries over the past two decades to show that social aid significantly and directly benefits the poorest in society, while economic aid increases the income of the poor through growth. This new and unequivocal...

This paper uses the gravity model to analyze whether the varying export performance of Croatian counties can be explained by their proximity to border gates, ports, and other county-specific characteristics. The analysis finds that longer distances to border gates increase trade frictions...

Extension services are a keystone of information diffusion in agriculture. This paper exploits a large randomized controlled trial to track diffusion of a new technique in the classic Training and Visit (T&V) extension model, relative to a more direct training model. In both control and...