This paper analyzes whether the educational and professional background of a head of government matters for the implementation of market-liberalizing reforms. Employing panel data over the period 1970-2002, we present empirical evidence based on a novel data set covering profession and education...

The globalization of economic activities that is characterizing many economies raises questions about the future of the nation state. This paper discusses this trend and shows that cross-frontiers spillovers have become more frequent and have increased the need for international agreements and...

This paper reviews literature as well as explores analytical findings on the theory of national competitive advantage to define the trend and pattern of international trade from an emerging market perspective. For this purpose, RMG sector of Bangladesh is taken as an example industry, as its...

The paper discusses the effectiveness of independent fiscal institutions -- or fiscal councils -- in taming the deficit bias that emerged in the 1970s. After a review of the main theoretical arguments and recent trends about fiscal councils, we develop a stylized model showing how a fiscal...

This paper analyzes whether the educational and professional background of a head of government matters for the implementation of market-liberalizing reforms. Employing panel data over the period 1970-2002, we present empirical evidence based on a novel data set covering profession and education...

In the last 60 years, the results of development aid have been mixed. Thus far, it has been mostly the aid recipient countries, which have been held responsible for aid’s shortcomings. That focus is misplaced, however, since the donor countries, through development aid, also export some of their...

This report investigates the development of the blockchain ecosystem in Italy, against the background of the SME and entrepreneurship structure and trends in the country. The report analyses in particular the characteristics and trends of companies introducing blockchain-based services in the...

This paper takes stock of one year of policy responses to the 2022/2023 energy crisis triggered by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this paper, "SME policy responses" are defined as all government policies, whether...

Fiscal decentralization is high on the agenda in policy fora. This paper empirically investigates the underlying causes of fiscal decentralization, based on the predictions of a simple political economy model. We argue that the likeliness that a central government engages in devolution of powers...

Perceived corruption in the public sector is measured by the reversed Transparency International's Perception of Corruption Index (CPI). The dataset includes around 100 democracies over the period 2012-2016, a sample for which the CPI is comparable across countries and over time. The results...