Like Japan, the countries of Scandinavia went through big macroeconomics crises brought on by structural flaws. The difference is that their recoveries came more quickly and have been far more robust. Once again, the Scandinavian economies are treated as models. We argue that three factors shed...

We extend agency theory to propose that structural reform positively impacts firm profitability in developing countries because the improvements in external monitoring that accompany structural reform decrease the agency costs faced by firms. However, we also argue that not all firms benefit...

Wage inequality is a particular focus of attention not only in public debates over the need for social regulation to support equity, but those over the implications of social regulation for productive performance. The present paper employs panel techniques to examine the comparative historical...

SUMMARY: This study focuses on the analysis of the production behavior and risk preferences in the presence of output price uncertainty. Following a theoretical model based on the assumption of maximization of expected utility of profits, the approach used in this study infers information about...

We characterize the degree of microeconomic inflexibility in several Latin American economies and find that Brazil, Chile and Colombia are more flexible than Mexico and Venezuela. The difference in flexibility among these economies is mainly explained by the behavior of large establishments,...

This paper uses the detailed information in the 1995 Census of Industrial Production as a benchmark for analysing the coverage, concepts and consistency of published statistical series. On the basis of the analysis, the paper proposes a series of adjustments which result in more consistent...

Microeconomic flexibility, by facilitating the process of creative-destruction, is at the core of economic growth in modern market economies. The main reason for why this process is not infinitely fast is the presence of adjustment costs, some of them technological, others institutional. Chief...

This paper measures agricultural productivity among a set of thirteenMediterranean countries which includes two EU- 15 countries (Greece and Spain), anothertwo EU- 25 (Cyprus and Malta) one country under accession negotiations (Turkey) andeight Middle East and North Africa (MENA) countries...

This paper measures agricultural productivity growth by means of the sequential Malmquist Total Factor Productivity (TFP) index among a set of thirty-two countries including West European, Central and East European (CEE) and Middle East and North African (MENA) countries for the period...

The development of genetically modified (GM) agricultural products requires new policies to manage potential food safety and environmental risks. The policy positions taken to date on GM foods by the United States and the European Union are very different. The US has few restrictions on...