The twenty-five years after WW 2 witnessed strong labour market institutions and beneficial labour market outcomes - high wage growth and integration of low-skilled immigrants. Then came the macro shocks of the mid 1970s. Labour market outcomes deteriorated as full-time employment population...

After many years of neglect, there is a renewed interest in agricultural mechanization in Africa. Since government initiatives to promote mechanization, e.g., by importing and subsidizing tractors, are confronted with major governance challenges, private-sector initiatives offer a promising...

The creation of S&T knowledge and development of S&T- based innovation has spread worldwide from traditionally advanced countries to traditionally developing countries, often under the direction of governments. Korea is an exemplar in this new locus. Korea's burst in Science and Technology...

This paper examines the post-War Summer and Winter Olympic Games in order to determine the economic and political determinants of national participation, of female participation in particular, and of success at the Games (i.e., medal counts). Compared to the Summer Games, Winter participation...

The paper asks whether trade can help to achieve the employment targets of the Sustainable Development Goals. The focus is on Goal 8, which is to "promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable growth, full and productive employment, and decent work for all." The theoretical and empirical links...

This paper discusses the role that finance plays in promoting the capital development of the economy, with particular emphasis on the current situation of the United States and the United Kingdom. We define both "finance" and "capital development" very broadly. We begin with the observation that...

This paper examines the link between imported technologies and a country's export performance, as measured by product quality. The analysis is set in the background of the process of regional integration between the EU and its neighbouring developing countries. The underlying question is whether...

This note revisits the conjecture that the use of broadband internet lowers transaction costs and thereby inflation. Using a macroeconomic panel of OECD countries, it roughly confirms previous findings reported by Yi and Choi (2005) by addressing conceptual and econometric issues.

This paper explores the role of IPR protection in the emergence of R&D linkages from newly emerging economies. Using data from a new survey on Chinese and Indian firms in the ICT sector, we find IPR protection to be key in the engagement of Southern firms in global innovation networks. A...

This paper studies technology adoption in a cluster of soccer-ball producers in Sialkot, Pakistan. We invented a new cutting technology that reduces waste of the primary raw material and gave the technology to a random subset of producers. Despite the arguably unambiguous net benefits of the...