This paper compares two alternative growth paths, assessing the effects on productivity of specialisation in natural resources (NR) and in technologically advanced products. The empirical analysis exploits product-level export data for 109 developing and 51 developed economies over the period...

This study aims to analyze the evolution of Brazilian agricultural production from the 1960s to now. We will summarize some of the main findings from the historical view of Brazilian agriculture development. The arguments should rest here on how technical change and the national system of...

Genetically Modified Crops (GMO foods) have been widely available to farmers since 1996. The Gene Revolution, based on recombinant DNA (rDNA) genetic engineering techniques, is seen by proponents as both supplanting Green Revolution varieties, based on conventional plant breeding techniques, and...

Genetically Modified Crops (GMO foods) have been widely available to farmers since 1996. The Gene Revolution, based on recombinant DNA (rDNA) genetic engineering techniques, is seen by proponents as both supplanting Green Revolution varieties, based on conventional plant breeding techniques, and...

I examine the history of employee engagement and how it has been characterised by thinkers in sociology, psychology, management and economics. I suggest that, while employers may choose to invest in employee engagement, there are alternative management strategies that may be profit-maximising. I...

We explore whether the introduction of trust based working hours is related to the subsequent innovation performance of firms. Employing a panel data set of over 5,000 German establishments, we implement a propensity score matching approach where we only consider firms that did not use trust...

Does the matching between workers and jobs help explain productivity differentials across firms? To address this question we develop a job-worker allocation quality measure (JAQ) by combining employer-employee administrative data with machine learning techniques. The proposed measure is...

This paper addresses the question of organization of work and efficient reorganization. An emerging literature is basically concerned with the polar model of high involvement (holistic) vs. traditional (Tayloristic) work organizations. This paper extends in two ways: First, the polar case is...

Das Polarmodell zur holistischen Reorganisation nimmt seinen Ausgang bei den stilisierten Fakten der vergangenen zwei Dekaden, die durch massive Umbauprozesse, gerade auch bei der Arbeitsorganisation, gekennzeichnet sind. Der vorliegende Beitrag schließt den Kreis, indem er das Polarmodell...

This paper proposes and estimates a two-step methodology to measure international managerial skill and calculate its impact on firm performance, using a sample of the biggest private Colombian exporting firms. The first step quantifies the manager’s organizational capital contribution to...