The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the shift toward digital services. Meanwhile, the race for technological and economic leadership has heated up, with risks of decoupling that could set back trade and growth and hinder the recovery from the worst global recession since the Great Depression....

We analyze investment decisions when information is costly, with and without delegation to an agent. We use a rational-inattention model and compare it with a canonical signal-extraction model. We identify three "investment conditions". In "sour" conditions, no information is acquired and no...

In pre-industrial Europe, growth was driven by the expansion of trade, and the expansion of trade was driven by falling trading costs. This paper discusses the mechanisms linking these processes: profit-seeking behavior by merchants, changes in the organization of production, technological...

The history of Italy since her unification in 1861 reflects the two-way relationship between foreign trade and economic development. Its growth was accompanied by a dramatic increase in the country's integration with European and global commodity markets: foreign trade in the long run grew on...

There has been a growing concern of developing industrial clusters in developed nations and emerging economies in the past two decades to strengthen economic growth and development. The concept of properly organised industrial clusters has not yet been heavily implemented in developing nations,...

We undertake a trade-growth accounting exercise by decomposing data on changes in bilateral international trade flows into their direct (endowment accumulation, productivity growth, changes in trade costs, changing preferences) and indirect components (general equilibrium effects). Furthermore,...

Weak productivity in Egypt is rooted in deep-seated structural causes that impede market competition and prevent a more efficient resource allocation. This implies a number of challenges for economic policy to meet the objectives for long-term sustainable growth as set out in the National...

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of trade between two advanced countries in which both innovation and skilled acquisition rates are endogenously determined. The model offers a North-North (as opposed to a North-South) trade explanation for increasing relative wage...

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of trade between two advanced countries in which both innovation and skilled acquisition rates are endogenously determined. The model offers a North-North (as opposed to a North-South) trade explanation for increasing relative wage...

Well-functioning economic structures are key for resilient and prospering euro area economies. The global financial and sovereign debt crises exposed the limited resilience of the euro area’s economic structures. Economic growth was masking underlying weaknesses in several euro area countries....