Governments in developing countries play an important role in the growth process, most notably through their budgetary policies. This potentially beneficial role is, however, hindered by government expenditure inefficiency. This is illustrated in a basic model of public spending and economic...

Purpose – The paper aims to assess to what extent the general trends with regard to world inequality can be explained by rising international economic integration, technological change and (labour market) institutions. Design/methodology/approach – Based on the existing literature, the...

Purpose – The purpose of the paper was to establish the implications of globalisation for labour markets when efficiency wages create endogenous wage rigidity and to re‐examine the credibility of the arguments that call for deregulation, more wage flexibility and less social protection in...

Purpose – The paper aims at providing evidence on the impact on employment of outward foreign direct investment, particularly from developed countries into low‐wage countries, which is a major concern in many developed countries. Design/methodology/approach – The effects of foreign...

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is try to answer the following question: to which extent the observed location pattern is driven by network effects or by traditional location factors, like the structure and behaviour of the local labour market, housing market, public goods, and local tax...

Purpose – This paper aims to review the case for improved (supra‐national) regional social and labour policies in principle, assess the extent to which existing regional associations of governments and regional organizations are actually developing effective regional labour policies in...

Using firm-level data for Belgium, we study the validity of Hicks neutrality in several sectors that cover the spectrum of knowledge intensity. We find that Hicks neutrality is clearly not supported by the data in different sectors. The results are not sensitive to altering the specification of...

This paper analyses to what extent the decision to start exporting may be subject to spillovers of the internationalisation behaviour of other (foreign and domestic) firms. We distinguish between two possible channels: effects on productivity and effects on the perceived level of sunk costs of...