This thesis composes of four empirical studies with an attempt to assess the role of institutions as key determinant of cross-country development. We have unbundled the different facets of institutions, including the security of property rights, democracy, regulation and stability of monetary...

This paper investigates the determinants of the institutionalisation of political risk assessment (IPRA) within publicly traded international firms in Jordan. The aim is to contribute to the development of IPRA theory by identifying indicators of institutionalisation; by describing and...

The aim of this research is to examine critically managerial practices of political risk assessment (PRA) in Jordan. In this research, unlike most recent studies, the managerial practices of risk assessment are examined within a firm-specific characteristics framework. In line with the research...

Im Jahr 1990 erlebte Japan eine nie gekannte Wirtschaftskrise. Binnen Jahresfrist verlor der Nikkei-Index über 40%. Die fallenden Börsen schlugen bis auf den Immobilienmarkt durch. Banken sperrten Kredite, Firmen mussten Insolvenz anmelden, Grundstückspreise fielen, bis sie 1996 in den...

This paper investigates how changes in fiscal policy can affect relative prices, optimal savings and steady state utility in a two-country, overlapping generations model of endogenous growth. We develop a simple model that combines Blanchard-type consumers with uncertain lifetimes, with an...

In this paper we analyze the interaction of income and preference heterogeneity in a political economy framework. We ask whether the presence of preference heterogeneity (arising, for example, from different ethnic groups or geographic locations) affects the ability of the poor to extract...

In this paper we examine the main challenges in promoting an effective market economy. While the paper ranges widely across the spectrum of economic institutions and policies, the central theme is the importance of macroeconomic stability for economic growth in the medium and long run....

The economic impact of climate change is usually measured as the extent to which the climate of a given period affects social welfare in that period. This static approach ignores the dynamic effects through which climate change may affect economic growth and hence future welfare. In this paper...

This paper discusses some of the elements that may characterise an efficient strategy to adapt to a changing climate. Such a strategy will have to reflect the long time horizon of, and the prevailing uncertainties about, climate change. An intuitively appealing approach therefore seems to be to...

Monetary valuation of climate-change impacts, and the cost-benefit analysis of climate-change policy into which it feeds, has long been controversial. Writers in ecological economics have done much to illuminate its difficulties. For the purposes of this paper, the key difficulties of the...