What characterizes regions where right-wing populist parties are relatively successful? A prominent hypothesis proposed in recent literature claims that places that are "left behind" or "do not matter" are a breeding ground for the rise of populism. We re-examine this hypothesis by analyzing the...

COVID-19 has created a trade crisis in Southern Africa, with a dramatic slowdown in cross-border trade. The crisis, which exposed weaknesses and deficiencies in the trade facilitation regimes, presents an opportunity for the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) to address and contribute...

This paper studies the general equilibrium impact of civil war in Sierra Leone. I first use an instrumental variable (IV) strategy and geographic conflict variation to estimate reduced-form effects. I show that civil war leads to affected areas having a higher share of workers in agriculture,...

In the 21st century clusters can be observed in most developed economies. However, the scientific results regarding the effect of clusters on firm performance are highly contradictive. This inconsistency in the empirical results makes it difficult to infer general conclusions about the...

This paper analyses the long-term relationship between regional inequality and economic development. Our data set includes information on national and regional per-capita GDP for four countries: France, Italy, Portugal and Spain. Data are compiled on a decadal basis for the period 1860-2010,...

This article is the first study to explore to what extent labour productivity, structural change, participation rates and the age structure of the population contributed to the pattern of Italy's regional economic inequality over the long run (1871-2011). We provide brand new regional estimates...

We propose a regional inequality-based mechanism to explain the heterogeneity in the spread of Covid-19 and test it using data from India. We argue that an area characterized by coreperiphery economic structure creates regional inequality in which the periphery remains dependent on the core for...

This paper contributes to the new literature on the role of personality for regional innovativeness by examining whether this role varies between different types of regions. Building on regionally aggregated levels of individual Big Five personality traits, we find that only extraversion has a...

The number of new apprenticeship training contracts has been declining for years. The decline can be explained by a variety of factors. It can initially be assumed that the economic development due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated loss of training places offer an explanation. However,...

The paper examines the foreign direct investment (FDI) spillover effects in developing countries and investigates the importance of the absorptive capacity of a firm and a country in realizing and facilitating FDI spillover. It uses data obtained from the World Bank's Enterprise Surveys for 107...