This paper uses a panel of regional data to investigate the impact that the well-documented decline in trade unionism in the UK had on the economic performance of its regions. The analysis employed here departs from the traditional firm-level and cross-sectional analyses and looks at the...

This paper tests for the importance of cash flow on investment in fixed capital and R&D using firm-level panel data in two countries between 1985 and 1994. For German firms, cash flow is not informative in simple econometric models of fixed investment or R&D. In identical specifications for...

Tens of thousands of young people leave school with no or very few qualifications in England. This paper seeks to build a fuller picture of Key Stage 4 low achievement and its correlates than available hitherto. We focus on three aspects. Firstly, the role of students’ personal...

This paper investigates the efficiency wage hypothesis and derives a tractable expression for the profit loss incurred by deviations from the efficiency wage. The extent of the wage deviation can be inferred from production function parameters. The resulting profit loss shown to depend upon the...

This paper shows that, with (partial) irreversibility, higher uncertainty reduces the impact effect of demand shocks on investment. Uncertainty increases real option values making firms more cautious when investing or disinvesting. This is confirmed both numerically for a model with a rich mix...

Disadvantaged groups tend also to constitute population minorities. One consequence of this is that the policies implemented by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect minority interests. A policy solution is to enhance the political power of minority groups as a vehicle for...

In a panel data model with fixed effects, possible cross-sectional dependence is investigated in a spatial autoregressive setting. An Edgeworth expansion is developed for the maximum likelihood estimate of the spatial correlation coefficient. The expansion is used to develop more accurate...

Nonparametric regression is developed for data with both a temporal and a cross-sectional dimension. The model includes additive, unknown, individual-specific components and allows also for cross-sectional and temporal dependence and conditional heteroscedasticity. A simple nonparametric...

This paper analyzes differences in R&D spending and in the impact of R&D on productivity between German and UK firms. We confirm that German firms spend significantly larger amounts on R&D than their UK counterparts, even after controlling for firm size and industry effects. Using a dynamic...

This paper investigates the effect of minimum wages on employment using a panel of US state-based data. We estimate a minimalist dynamic version of the specification implied by neo-classical theory. We find statistically and economically significant effects of minimum wages on youth employment....