After a long period of economic divergence before 1914, the Portuguese economy recovered slightly until 1950, entering thereafter on a path of strong economic convergence. This paper focuses on Portuguese economic growth in the period 1950-1973 in order to show how institutional decisions...

Traditional explanations for Western Europe's demographic growth in the High Middle Ages are unable to explain the rise in per-capita income that accompanied observed population changes. Here, we examine the hypothesis that an innovation in information technology changed the optimal structure of...

In this paper we investigate the link between government debt-to-GDP ratio and real per capita income growth in Italy over 1861-2009. We model our regression analysis on a standard production function. Our results support the hypotheses of a negative relation between public debt and growth and...

Although cross section relationships are often taken to indicate causation, and especially the important impact of economic growth on many social phenomena, they may, in fact, merely reflect historical experience, that is, similar leader-follower country patterns for variables that are causally...

20 years after unification, the East German twin’s economic position is relatively stagnant compared to most of the West German productivity and income variables. The strong initial takeoff until the mid-end 1990s ended at a level of 70% to 80% of the western reference. In this paper, two...

A tanulmány célja az új osztrák iskola megalapítói, Mises, Hayek és mai vezéralakja Kirzner tanításainak világos, könnyen érthető rendszerezett kifejtése. Az új osztrák közgazdák figyelme a neoklasszikus közgazdáktól eltérően nem az egyensúlyi ár meghatározására...

This chapter discusses different approaches pursued to explore three broad questions related to technology diffusion: what general patterns characterize the diffusion of technologies, and how have they changed over time; what are the key drivers of technology, and what are the macroeconomic...

Heightened counterparty risk during the recent financial crisis has raised questions about the role clearinghouses play in global financial stability. Empirical identification of the effect of centralized clearing on counterparty risk is challenging because of the co-incidence of macro-economic...

The purpose of this paper is to introduce the concept of power density [Watts/m²] into economics. By introducing an explicit spatial structure into a simple general equilibrium model we are able to show how the power density of available energy resources determines the extent of energy...

Documentary evidence of the emergence and the eventual complete dominance of the Chinese mercantile traders (Sangleys) during the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines is first presented. We identify the critical traits in the Sangley mercantile genome and the new contractual and...