The central question this paper sought to tackle was “does the quality of institutions matter for the relationship between Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and economic growth?” Using macroeconomic data on 27 Sub Saharan African (SSA) economies and six distinct measures of governance the...

Over the last three decades the global economy has expanded in a remarkable fashion. While nominal world GDP has increased four times, world bilateral trade flows have grown more than six-fold, and the stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) has grown by roughly 20 times since 1980. The sources...

In this paper I study and quantify the long-run effects of openness to trade and multinational production in a model of endogenous innovation with firm heterogeneity. When trade is liberalized, some multinationals find it more profitable to export and forgo the cost of maintaining capacities in...

In this paper, we extend the growth model to include firm-specific technology capital and use it to assess the gains from opening to foreign direct investment. A firm's technology capital is its unique know-how from investing in research and development, brands, and organization capital....

In the early 1990s, when the break-up of the soviet bloc spread to the Balkans, dominant neoliberal economic wisdom recommended swift privatization of public assets, deregulation, and dismantling of the social safety net. Building upon the research of one of neoliberalism’s leading architects,...

We study an endogenous growth model where a profit-motivated R and D sector coexists with the introduction of free blueprints invented by philanthropists. These goods are priced at marginal cost, contrary to proprietary ones which are produced by a monopoly owned by the inventor. We show that...

In media markets, consumers spread their attention to several outlets, increasingly so as consumption migrates online. The traditional framework for studying competition among media outlets rules out this behavior by assumption. We propose a new model that allows consumers to choose multiple...

I estimate the impact of very high-speed broadband networks on some measures of local economic growth in France. I use panel data estimations with time- and municipal-fixed effects. I show that municipalities with a very high-speed broadband network tend to be more attractive for companies. I...

We analyse how spatial disparities in innovation activities, coupled with migration costs, affect economic geography, growth and regional inequality. We provide conditions for existence and uniqueness of a spatial equilibrium, and for the endogenous emergence of industry clusters. Spatial...

Africa: A continent is waking up. Not through aid or wealth from the exploitation of natural resources, but through a technological revolution. The access to affordable mobile telecommunication. Inspired by deregulation and pioneered by local champions who have taken a lead in what is today's...