"This paper examines the technical efficiency of U.S. Federal reserve check processing offices over 1980-2003. We use new unconditional quantile estimator of efficiency that avoids some drawbacks of other recently proposed estimators. The new estimator is fully non-parametric, robust with...

The question of protecting intellectual property rights by academic inventors was never seriously contemplated until the introduction of the Bayh-Dole Act in 1980 in the US. The Act allowed universities to retain patent rights over inventions arising out of federally-funded research and to...

This study assesses the effects of urban governance structure on the spatial expansion of metropolitan areas. A more fragmented governance structure, represented by a high number of administrative units with decision power on land use per inhabitant, is expected to increase the competition...