As by product of economic growth, jobs are indeed transformational. In other words, efficiency increases as workers get better at what they do (as more productive jobs appear and less productive ones disappear). In fact societies flourish as jobs bring together people from different ethnic and...

This paper analyzes the relations between social capital, institutions and trust. These concepts are full of ambiguity and confusion. This paper attempts to dissolve some of the confusion, by distinguishing trust and control, and analyzing institutional and relational conditions of trust. It...

This paper explores the interactions between external trade and regional disparities in the Italian economy since unification. It argues that the advantage of the North was initially based on natural advantage (in particular the endowment of water, intensive in silk production). From 1880...

This paper exploits the division of Germany after the Second World War and the reunification of East and West Germany in 1990 as a natural experiment to provide evidence of the importance of market access for economic development. In line with a standard new economic geography model, we find...

This paper provides the first consistent long-run estimates of Finnish regional GDPs, from 1880 to 2010. Estimates are provided for 12 historical counties as well as for the 5 current-border NUTS 2-regions. The main results from the analyses of the long-run evolution of regional GDPs are the...

This paper uses a method devised by Geary and Stark to estimate regional GDPs for 24 Swedish provinces 1855-2007. In empirical tests, we find that the Swedish estimations yield results of good precision, comparable to those reported in the international literature. From the literature, we...

This paper constructs the first estimates of Irish regional GDP over the twentieth century and traces the relative economic performance of Ireland's regions since independence. Using an array of data sources available at a county level, output in Agriculture, Industry and Services in benchmark...

This paper constructs the first estimates of Irish regional GDP over the twentieth century and traces the relative economic performance of Ireland's regions since independence. Using an array of data sources available at a county level, output in Agriculture, Industry and Services in benchmark...

In recent years, a lot of rules concerning government expenditures as well as tax revenues were changed in Germany. Government expenditures in relation to GDP were reduced, income tax rates were lowered and the budget deficit declined. The structure of government expenditures changed in favor of...

Economically highly developed countries are mostly democratic. But does this association constitute a causal relationship according to which democracy is a determinant of economic development? Or is it, conversely, economic development that paves the way for democratization? This paper gives an...