This article reviews the impact of intellectual property (IP) protection on foreign direct investment (FDI) by multinational enterprises (MNEs) in developing countries. Applying different panel data techniques to a newly-created comprehensive FDI/IP dataset of 31 Swiss MNEs investing into 53...

We develop an analytical framework where products go through a standard life cycle and product quality is driven by cumulative production experience. Production experience influences the nature of cross-country outsourcing activity, and hence, the contents of trade. Multinational enterprises...

Over the last couple of decades, it has become a commonplace to claim that institutions matterʺ for economic development. Yet, institutions are not exogenous but the result of hu-man action. It is argued here that the values and norms held by substantial parts of society’s members are an...

It is well established in the literature that, on average, economic growth is associated with reductions in income poverty. However, evidence suggests that some countries see a much faster decline in poverty with the same level of growth in income. The objective of this paper is to analyse the...

The paper shows that the relationship between GDP per capita and levels of specialization can be predicted differently depending on whether the intensive or the extensive margin is considered. It shows that at the extensive margin countries continuously diversify their exports and that...

The theoretical, conceptual, and practical difficulties with the use of cross-national data on schooling are so severe using aggregate data for any purpose for which individual level data would do should be avoided. There are, however, three questions for which the use of cross-national data on...

Externalities play a central role in most theories of economic growth. We argue that international externalities, in particular, are essential for explaining a number of empirical regularities about growth and development. Foremost among these is that many countries appear to share a common long...

In this paper we outline (i) why sigma-convergence may not accompany beta-convergence, (ii) discuss evidence of beta-convergence in the U.S., and (iii) use U.S. county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that sigma-convergence cannot be detected at the...

We use U.S. county data (3,058 observations) and 41 conditioning variables to study growth and convergence. Using OLS and 3SLS-IV we report on the full sample and metro, non-metro, and 5 regional samples: (1) OLS yields convergence rates around 2 percent; 3SLS yields 6-8 percent; (2) convergence...

We utilize county-level data to explore the roles of different types of human capital accumulation in U.S. growth determination. The data includes over 3,000 cross-sectional observations and 39 demographic control variables. The large number of observations provides enough degrees of freedom to...