Utilising panel data for 14 East European transition economies we find support for the hypothesis that a greater degree of export variety relative to the U.S. helps to explain relative per capita GDP levels.The empirical work relies upon some direct measures of product variety calculated from...

We study an overlapping generations model of human capital accumulation with threshold effects using regional data for West Germany. Our basic goal is to shed light on what makes German regions grow. The paper finds that the relative income distribution appears to be stratifying into a trimodal...

Understanding the mechanism through which financial globalization affects economic performance is crucial for evaluating the costs and benefits of opening financial markets. This paper is a first attempt at disentangling the effects of financial integration on the two main determinants of...

In a world where poor countries provide weak protection for intellectual property rights, market integration shifts technical change in favor of rich nations. Through this channel, free trade may amplify international income differences. At the same time, integration with countries where...

This paper presents a dynamic general equilibrium model of R&D-based trade between two structurally identical countries in which both innovation and skill acquisition rates are endogenously determined. Trade liberalization increases R&D investment and the rate of technological change. It also...

This paper briefly surveys the development of international finance theories after the 1960s. The important theories reviewed in this paper include: exchange rate dynamics, policy pre-announcement, first-generation currency crises, intertemporal optimizing model, exchange rate target zones,...

This paper examines the precise links between foreign direct investment (henceforth, FDI) and poverty alleviation, where so far there are few studies attempted to analyze empirically this relationship. The FDI inflows vary across international borders, therefore FDI reduces poverty only under...

Empirical evidence supporting the export-led growth (ELG) hypothesis has been mixed and inconclusive. Some studies may have been misspecified since they tested the ELG hypothesis using bivariate models. Others used multivariate cointegration framework but presumed (either explicitly or...

This paper builds a theory of the shape of the distribution of total-factor productivity (TFP) across countries. The data on productivity suggests vast differences across countries, and arguably even has \twin peaks". The theory proposed here is consistent with vast differences in long-run...

This paper contributes an estimation framework to measure both technological and linkage externalities from foreign direct investment (FDI). Empirical research dealt mainly with intra-industry spillovers from FDI with restrictive treatment of inter-industry effects until recently. However, as...