We measure technological progress in oceanic shipping by using a large database of daily log entries from ships of the British and Dutch navies and East India Companies to estimate daily sailing speed in different wind conditions from 1750 to 1850. Against the consensus, dating back to North...

Drawing on selective stylized facts, the paper evaluates the growth-effects for African countries and the disruptive potentials resulting from the COVD-19 pandemic, as African countries are involved in intra-regional integration processes. As AfCFTA involving 55 countries (ratified by 22...

Stylised evidence on trade, total factor productivity (TFP) and skill intensity of the labour force is presented. Features emerging as salient are: Growing trade in technology-intensive products from the industrialised nations to the relatively laggard nations leads to embodied technology...

This paper reviews the empirical literature on growth and convergence that has addressed the importance of spatial factors. An important distinction in this literature is the one between absolute and relative location. The literature on absolute location predominantly uses non-spatial...