In this paper, we empirically test the effects of the EU's "cohesion policy" on the performance of 273,500 European manufacturing firms after combining regional policy data at NUTS 2 level with firm-level data. In a framework of heterogeneous firms and different absorptive capacity of regions,...

In the past few decades, China has put substantial efforts into liberalising its trade and economy that accelerated after its accession to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in December 2001. In this period China has significantly reduced its tariffs on manufacturing imports. However, the...