This paper provides a comprehensive literature review of the use of non- monetary transactions (barter, debt offsets, etc.) in Russia since the fall of Communism. The two primary theories are the credit crunch (liquidity constraint) theory and the virtual economy theory. The former relates to...

This paper uses household survey panel data of 416 rural households to study livestock asset dynamics in the north-east of Ethiopia. The period under examination (1996-2003) was marked by severe environmental shocks, including a series of droughts. Using as point of departure the literature on...

A growing literature argues that the Information Technology rev- olution caused the stock market crash of 1973-1974, its subsequent stagnation and eventual recovery. This paper employs general equi- librium theory to test whether this good news hypothesis is consistent with the behavior of US...

This paper analyzes the per-capita incomes convergence process across 140 NUTS2 European regions during the period 1980-1999. Two methods of analysis have been used. The first adopts the non parametric method proposed by Quah (1996, 1997) to study whether the cross-regions income distribution...

This paper tests whether consumer adoption of online banking is affected by the distance to one's bank branch. During the last decade, rapid diffusion of the Internet has dramatically changed the ways consumers conduct every-day businesses. An important trend in the rapid increase of Internet...

Transition from planned to a market economy is an evolutionary process. Evolutions do not have finite beginning and ending points. We may look to the beginning of transition in 1991 when the Soviet Union broke up, or we may see it as beginning earlier, when the Soviet Union began to allow its...

The progress of scientific and technological knowledge is a cumulative process, one that depends in the long?run on the rapid and widespread disclosure of new findings, so that they may be rapidly discarded if unreliable, or confirmed and brought into fruitful conjunction with other bodies of...

Attraverso una rassegna critica della letteratura, questo articolo vuole fornire una prima introduzione al concetto di capitale sociale - con particolare riferimento alla sua rilevanza nello studio dei processi di sviluppo - e dare conto del dibattito in corso su questo tema da più di un...

If there is one single expectation of Government, which we share throughout our lives, it is security and protection. This is one of the most basic functions of all forms of Government throughout the ages. This policy paper, inevitably concentrates on those aspects of reform, which are primarily...