The availability of broadband Internet service should have increased firm productivity and lowered firm entry costs.  However, validating the broadband effect is complicated by the rapid deployment of broadband Internet service across metropolitan areas, removing meaningful variation in...

Sri Lanka's Termination of Employment of Workmen Act (TEWA) requires that firms with 15 or more workers justify layoffs and provide generous severance pay to displaced workers, with smaller firms being exempted. Although formally subject to TEWA, firms in Export Promotion Zones (EPZs) do not...

We test whether commonly used measures of agglomeration economies encourage new firm entry in both urban and rural markets.  Using new firm location decisions in Iowa and North Carolina, we find that measured agglomeration economies increase the probability of new firm entry in both urban and...

This study submits eleven business climate indexes to tests of their ability to predict relative economic performance on either side of state borders. Our results show that most business climate indexes have no ability to predict relative economic growth regardless of how growth is measured. ...

Using a unique longitudinal data set on all manufacturing firms in Slovenia from 1994-2001, this study analyzes how firm efficiency changed in response to changing competitive pressures associated with the transition to market. Results show that the period was one of atypically rapid growth of...

Many educators and policymakers have argued for lenient grade promotion policy – even automatic promotion – in developing country settings where grade retention rates are high. The argument assumes that grade retention discourages persistence or continuation in school and that the...

Over the past quarter century, Kansas has grown at 2.4% per year compared to the U.S. average of 3.1% per year. Kansas has also grown more slowly than the other Prairie states, although the gap is only 0.1% per year. The puzzle is that as a relatively highly educated state, Kansas should have...

Abstract Currently Unavailable.

Two-digit manufacturing industry-level production functions are used to test efficiency wage propositions. Conclusive tests require functional forms which allow differences in elasticities of substitution between observable human capital, wage premia and other inputs. Results demonstrate that...

Balochistan Province of Pakistan initiated two pilot programs attempting to induce the creation of private schools for poor girls. Randomized assignment to treatment and control groups is used to measure program effectiveness. The pilot schools were successful in urban areas, but relative...