In this paper we investigate whether long run time series of income per capita are better described by a trend-stationary model with few structural changes or by unit root processes in which permanent stochastic shocks are responsible for the observed growth discontinuities. To this purpose, we...

Liquidity may be a serious challenge to growing nations especially in the absence of foreign aid or other necessary assistance like access to borrowing. This paper introduces the Invisible Reserves Theory which states that, “A country that is locked in a depression during the absence of...

The institutional perspective of cross-country differences in economic outcomes gives contrasting explanations on the persistence of inefficient institutions in developing countries. Colonization, social fragmentation and the existence and use of natural resources are the most frequently...

This article discusses the aggregation problem and its implications for ecological economics. The aggregation problem consists of a simple dilemma: when adding heterogeneous phenomena together, the observer must choose the unit of analysis. The dilemma is that this choice affects the resulting...

This paper assesses the optimal setting of fiscal spending and foreign exchange rate intervention policies in response to volatile foreign aid, in a small open economy model that incorporates typical features of low-income countries. Within a class of policy rules, it jointly considers the...

For more than fifty years, the Solow decomposition (Solow 1957) has served as the standard measurement of total factor productivity (TFP) growth in economics and management, yet little is known about its precision, especially when the capital stock is poorly measured. Using synthetic data...

We build China’s national production function based on national accounting data since 1997, when China primarily transformed from the Planned economy to Market. By proxying and measuring stocks of human capital(HC), physical capital and the efficiency units, as well as government expenditure...

This paper looks at the channels through which intangible assets affect productivity. The econometric analysis exploits a new dataset on intangible investment (INTAN-Invest) in conjunction with EUKLEMS productivity estimates for 10 EU member states from 1998 to 2007. We find that (a) the...

The extent of tax compliance has important implications for revenue yield, efficiency and the fairness of any tax system. Tax evasion undermines revenue collection, distorts competition, and undermines a country's development prospects. In this paper, we investigate whether higher productivity...