The strikingly different labor market performance of major industrial countries suggests that neither globalization nor skill-biased technological change necessarily result in rising unemployment or declining wages of low-skilled workers. Rather, globalization and technological change cause...

We find a U-shaped relation between happiness and religiosity in cross-country panel data after controlling for income levels. At a given level of income, the same level of happiness can be reached with high and low levels of religiosity, but not with intermediate levels. A rise in income causes...

Some recent empirical studies deny any direct performance effects of measures of geography and conclude that institutions trump all other potential determinants of development. For given effects of institutional quality, our empirical results indicate quantitatively important direct negative...

The empirical relation between happiness and religiosity is considered from the perspective of basic utility theory. An unbalanced cross-country panel data set is used to study whether religiosity can be considered as a substitute in the happiness function, which itself is held to be a proxy for...

Recent time series studies reject the hypothesis of catching up in terms of international per capita incomes as derived from the traditional neoclassical growth model. In turn, they seem to support new theories of economic growth which are capable of explaining persistent international...

Since the 1980s, competitive pressure has increased in the world economy. In addition to traditional trade flows, the globalisation of production and markets has greatly enhanced the complexity of the international division of labour. Declining transaction and information costs have stimulated...