This paper reviews some of the theoretical and econometric issues involved in estimating growth models that include military spending. While the mainstream growth literature has not found military expenditure to be a significant determinant of growth, much of the defence economics literature has...

It is estimated that by 2001 20 million people had died from AIDS, which is now the world´s fourth biggest cause of death. While the highest prevalence and death rates and number of infected persons are reported for sub-Saharan Africa, where life expectancies at birth are declining rapidly and...

The objective of this paper is to add to the the criticisms of the "macro-Mincer" approach by emphasizing two important theoretical points, not addressed so far in the literature. First, we show that the "macro-Mincer" relationship between aggregate human capital and average years of schooling...

Most of the currently existing endogenous growth models were developed within and for industrial countries, i.e. for a well endowed world. Most developing countries, especially in Africa, however, have low capital endowments, low rates of capital accumulation and low technological capabilities....

We apply Bayesian Model Averaging procedures to a dataset on growth to estimate the output gap caused by the recent financial crisis. The special focus of this work lies in group of variables that may simultaneously cause countries to behave differently during episodes of economic recessions. In...

Regional GDP is a key indicator in the assessment of the economic performance of the Belgian regions. But for assessing the wealth of a certain region, another important indicator is the household disposable income.In this paper the evolution since 1985 and the level of regional per inhabitant...

This study investigates the impact of stock market development on economic growth in China. To this end, the quarterly data from 1996 to 2011 are used and the empirical investigation is conducted within the unit root and the cointegration framework. The results show that the relationship between...

Product variety has played a central role in models of trade and growth. Classical trade theory postulates that the elimination of trade barriers improves welfare by reducing the wedge between domestic and import prices as well as the ensuing deadweight loss. An entirely different reason for the...

The objective of the current paper is to estimate the aggregate, country-level production function as a relationship between countries' aggregate inputs and their maximum attainable output, computed on the basis of the World Technology Frontier -- the best-practice frontier at each moment in...

One of the characteristics of the Spanish economy is the high percentage of small and medium-sized firms. Size is one of the factors that condition the managerial organization of the firm and their efficiency and productivity. On the other hand, it is a well-established connection between...