This paper shows in an empirical context that substantial cost reductions can be achieved in the implementation of Dutch national climate policy by (i) targeting the policy at the stock of greenhouse gases, thus allowing polluters flexibility in their timing of emission reductions; and (ii)...

The literature on the relationship between the size of government and economic growth is full of seemingly contradictory findings. This conflict is largely explained by variations in definitions and the countries studied. An alternative approach - of limiting the focus to studies of the...

In this paper I attempt to replicate for Sweden the Corrado, Hulten and Sichel (2006) and Marrano and Haskel (2006) working papers on spending on intangible assets in the US and the UK. Based on their measurement methods the total spending on intangibles in Sweden in 2004 was 277 billion SEK or...

In a recent paper, Colombier (2009) uses a robust estimation technique and claims to find empirical evidence that government size has not been detrimental to growth for OECD countries during the 1970 to 2001 period, and that endogenous growth theory is not corroborated. We examine the robustness...

After a severe crisis in the early 1990s, the Swedish economy experienced a boom in productivity growth. According to economists there have been primarily three explanations for the fast productivity growth in 1995-2004: Market reforms, recovery from the crisis and the impact of information and...

Empirical studies analyzing the effect of climate change on output growth sometimes neglect economic variables. This yields a biased picture of the growth process and does not represent a good approximation of the true data generating process. Thus, the question arises how valid the results are...

This paper questions the three standard propositions used by politico-economic models of growth and distribution according to which (1) rising inequality induces more government redistribution; (2) more government redistribution is financed by higher distortionary taxation; and (3) higher...

We evaluate explanations for why Germany grew so quickly in the 1950s. The recent literature has emphasized convergence, structural change and institutional shake-up while minimizing the importance of the postwar shock. We show that this shock and its consequences were more important than...

Germany has had an extremely low growth performance since 1995. The paper looks at the long-run reasons for this loss of economic dynamics besides German unification: These include leaving labor idle, a declining share of investment in GDP, a weaker innovative activity, an ineffective system for...