I consider the implications of recent research for R&D policy in developing countries. Typical new growth models, which assume free entry and no strategic behaviour by R&D producers, are less appropriate for policy guidance than strategic oligopoly models. But the latter have ambiguous...

This paper exploits an unusual policy reform that had the effect of reducing the direct cost of schooling in Ireland in the late 1960's. This gave rise to an increased level of schooling but with effects that vary substantially across family background. This interaction of educational reform and...

This paper studies the effect on Anglo-Irish trade breaking the link between the Irish pound and sterling in 1979. A gravity model is used to explore this issue. No evidence is found of a structural break following the dismantling of the currency union. Nor did the resultant exchange rate...

This paper examines the issue of whether hamonising taxes across the traded and non-traded sectors is desirable.

We characterise optimal trade and industrial policy in dynamic oligopolistic markets. If governments can commit to future policies, optimal first-period intervention should diverge from the profit-shifting benchmark to an extent which exactly offsets the strategic behaviour implied by Fudenberg...

Low rates of inflation have been recorded in the United States in recent years despite a decline in the unemployment rate. This phenomenon could be the results of a series of transitory shocks or of a permanent charge in the structure of the economy leading to a lower NAIRU. The paper suggests...

This paper uses information on grain prices from mid-nineteenth century Finland to shed some light on how markets performed during one important, if unduly neglected, famine, the Great Finnish Famine of 1866-68. That famine, Europe's last major peace-time subsistence crisis, resulted in the...

Empirical evidence strongly suggests that R&D increases a firm’s "absorptive capacity" (its ability to absorb spillovers from other firms) as well as contributing directly to profitability. We explore the theoretical implications of this. We specify a general model of the absorptive capacity...