The idea that certain economic variables are roughly constant in the long-run is an old one. Kaldor described them as stylized facts, whereas Klein and Kosobud labelled them great ratios. While such ratios are widely adopted in theoretical models in economics as conditions for balanced growth,...

Should shocks be part of our macro-modeling tool kit - for example, as a way of modeling discontinuities in fiscal policy or big moves in the financial markets? What are shocks, and how can we best put them to use? In heterodox macroeconomics, shocks tend to come in two broad types, with some...

This study investigates the effects of historical prevalence of infectious diseases on contemporary sustainable development. Previous studies reveal numerous proximate causes of sustainable development, but little is known about the fundamental determinants of this widespread economic concern....

This paper studies the impact of public infrastructure on economic performance. We employ three different methodologies to estimate the returns to public investment. First, we relate growth in total factor productivity to accumulation of public capital. Second, we assess the role of public...

Climate change has inspired the interest of the academic community in the most diverse areas of knowledge. This study tests and revisits the environmental Kuznets curve assumptions for Portugal. The econometric strategy used in this research is time series (ARIMA model, OLS estimator, ARCH...

This paper delineates the theoretical structure of the factors that determine economic growth in Qatar. The focal point of this paper is identifying the role of major macroeconomic variables that determine growth, namely; government spending, institutional settings, money supply, investment,...

This study revisited the traditional money supply - inflation nexus, presented in Fisher's equation, but relaxed its basic assumption of constant level of output, within the context of the Nigerian economy. The idea was to reveal the level of asymmetry in this relationship under conditions of...

In this paper I discuss three econometric problems that are rarely given adequate discussion in textbooks: model uncertainty, parameter heterogeneity, and outliers. I show how Leamer's extreme bounds analysis can be adapted to address all three problems simultaneously, and present two examples...