This paper presents a single unified framework that integrates the theoretical literature on Schumpeterian endogenous growth and major strands of the empirical literature on R&D, productivity growth and productivity convergence. Starting from a structural model of endogenous growth following...

Chinese economic growth has been spectacular in the last 30 years.  We investigate the role of International Joint Ventures with Technology Transfer agreements, an understudied area.  Technology transfer is the traditional mechanism for developing countries to "catch up" and has been a key...

A major empirical challenge in economics is to identify how regulations (such as firing costs) affect economic efficiency. Almost all countries have regulations that increase costs when firms cross a discrete size threshold. We show how these size-contingent regulations can be used to identify...

We have conducted the first survey on management practices in transition countries. We found that Central Asian transition countries, such as Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, have on average very poor management practices. Their average scores are below emerging countries such as Brazil, China and...

We present a survey of recent contributions in empirical organizational economics, focusing on management practices and decentralization. Productivity dispersion between firms and countries has motivated the improved measurement of firm organization across industries and countries. There appears...