The purpose of this paper is twofold. First, we study the allocation of European Union (EU) expenditure in Research and Development (R&D) across European regions. Second, we focus on the effects of this variable on regional per capita GDP levels, and on regional growth rates. Using...

This paper examines the relationship between political competition and financial development across a global sample of 127 countries, with a particular focus on developed and democratic OECD countries. Building on the theoretical frameworks of Acemoglu and Robinson (2006) and Besley et al....

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to identify firms in the UK adopting a policy of high cash and low leverage and investigate how executive ownership contributes to this decision. Design/methodology/approach Firms following this policy are identified both by using a fixed classification...

Purpose The aim of this paper is to investigate the dynamics between executive ownership and excess cash policy in the UK. Design/methodology/approach The authors identify firms adopting an excess policy using a joint criterion of high cash and cash higher than the target. Logit analysis is used...

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the dynamics of the per capita GDP over the period 1961-1997 for the Spanish provinces. To avoid issues linked to the cross-sectional regression and the time series approaches, a non-parametric density estimation approach is instead used. The main goal...

This paper studies the impact of education on criminal activity in Italy. We propose a theoretical framework to determine the effects of education and past incidence of crime on criminal activity, and we test its predictions using annual data for the twenty Italian regions over the period...

We model the channels through which public expenditure on infrastructure influences firm value and shapes its investment decisions via both adjustment costs and marginal profitability of capital. We test these hypotheses by using a large panel of Italian firms. Empirical results show that...

This paper shows that the widely used log-linearization of the neoclassical model of growth implies a relevant loss in terms of the ability of the model in replicating the patterns of convergence of an economy to its equilibrium level.

This paper studies the dynamics of convergence and divergence in Spain over the period 1965-1995. We analyse the evolution of the per capita income distribution across Spanish provinces and estimate the effects on this evolution of factors such as private, human and public capital, and an...