This short piece discusses the results of simple regression analysis using cross country data to determine the factors that have influenced fluctuations in real output during the covid-19 pandemic period. Focus is on explaining not only output growth from 2020 to the first half of 2021, but also...

Most small island economies or "microstates" have distinctly different characteristics from larger developing economies. They are more open and vulnerable to external and environmental shocks, resulting in high output volatility. Most of them also suffer from locational disadvantages. Although a...

Aggregate votes for incumbent parties in post-war Germany were determined by the weighted-average growth of real per capita disposable income and the attrition of power, especially when the Federal Chancellor sought re-election more than twice. Similar to earlier results for the US, each...

Ein staatliches Investitionsprogramm zum Anschub schnelleren Wachstums wird in den Krisenländern der Europäischen Währungsunion von vielen gewünscht. Die Europäische Währungsunion hat dazu eine Investitions-Initiative gestartet. Aktuell wird diskutiert, ob diese zusätzlichen staatlichen...

The article provides a broad-based overview on competing development strategies and the economic performance of developing countries, mainly since the year 2000. Four traditional mainstream development strategies are discussed (Washington Consensus, neo-liberalism, "good governance" and MDGs)...

The debate on growth versus the environment is usually summarized as optimists believing in limitless growth versus pessimists seeing environmental and resource limits to growth. This opposition defines the main strategies: namely, striving for green growth versus some anti-growth approach. In...

This paper puts the original Reinhart-Rogoff dataset, made public by Herndon et al. (2013), to a formal econometric test to pin down debt thresholds endogenously. We show that the nonlinear relation from debt to growth is not very robust. Taken with a pinch of salt, our results suggest, however,...

Notwithstanding a very strong economic performance over the past decade or so, Poland’s per capita income is substantially lower in comparison with the United States and per capita income growth will be sharply slowing down over the coming decades under the scenario of gradual policy changes...

The economics profession seems to increasingly endorse the existence of a strongly negative nonlinear effect of public debt on economic growth. Reinhart and Rogoff (2010) were the first to point out that a public debt-to-GDP ratio higher than 90% of GDP is associated with considerably lower...