Likelihood functions of spatial autoregressive models with normal but heteroskedastic disturbances have been already derived [Anselin (1988, ch.6)]. But there is no implementation for maximum likelihood estimation of these likelihood functions in general (heteroskedastic disturbances) cases....

The paper presents an analysis of real income convergence between the 11 countries of Central Eastern Europe which have joined the European Union (EU11) and 15 countries of Western Europe (EU15) in the period 1993-2015. The evolution of the income gap between the two groups of countries in terms...

We study a possible nurture effect of political systems on the evolution of gender differences in work preferences by exploiting the 41-year division of Germany and its reunification in 1990 as a natural experiment. We investigate whether disparate political and social systems produced different...

Most German states have reformed university preparatory schooling by reducing duration from 13 to 12 years with unchanged graduation requirements. The reform was implemented in the states during the last decade in several consecutive years. In this paper, we use nationwide data on high school...

This paper uses a clean experiment to investigate the impact of peer observation on the consumption decisions of rural households in Thailand. We find that those groups that observe each other show lower within group standard deviation in their decisions. At the same time, we also find that...

In this study we investigate the minimum wage (MW) effects for a German sub-construction sector where the MW bites extraordinary hard by international standards. Within a quasi-experiment we estimate the Quantile Treatment Effects of the MW on the conditional and unconditional distribution of...

As it is well known, universities constitute sources of important multiplier effects on the economic activity of the regions where they are located. Plainly, in the case of economically depressed regions, the importance of universities becomes higher. This is certainly the case with the...

Several recent econometric investigations found externalities related to the density of economic activity to account for one fifth to one half of total regional variations in average labor productivity in the U.S. and big European countries, including Germany. The present paper shows for German...

Relevant scientific literature has demonstrated that in spaces of smaller scale than the national, the availability of scientific knowledge is also relevant for generating spillover effects that benefit the industrial sector. The proliferation of such literature consistently stressing the...

We investigate the spatial distribution of TFP growth rates using exploratory spatial data analysis and other spatial econometric techniques. Our sample consists of 73 countries and covers the period 1960-2000. We identify significant positive spatial autocorrelation in TFP growth rates,...