In this work we empirically test optimum currency area theory regarding the efficiency of two usual stabilization mechanisms for members of a given monetary union (the United States): federal transfers and migration. The US is recognized as a country where labor mobility between states is high....

Social capital has recently been introduced in the economic literature as a growth factor. In this paper we study the interactions between social and human capital, and their contributions to economic growth in an endogenous growth model. In particular, we are interested in comparing the results...

Federal transfers in the USA comprises some components such as retirement and disability payments for individuals, other direct payments for individuals or organizations, grants, procurement contracts, and wages. It is recognized that one of the goals of federal transfers is to alleviate di¢...

Models of economic growth are typically based on the use of one or more stocks of productive assets to create goods for utility-generating consumption. The roles played by man-made capital, natural capital and human capital have been explored, often separately, in the literature, and more...

We address intertemporal utility maximization under a general discount function that nests the exponential discounting and the quasi-hyperbolic discounting cases as particular specifi?cations. The suggested framework intends to capture one important anomaly typically found when addressing the...

In this article we document the features of business cycles in German Länders from 1970 and 2007. Specifically, we answer the question if German Länders are becoming more synchronized or not. All results indicate that the synchronization of cycles is stronger inside the former Western Germany...

In this work we assess the existence of a S-Curve pattern in ten Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC-10) for the relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade. Empirical results support the existence of this curve for Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and also for an...

We address intertemporal utility maximization under a general discount function that nests the exponential discounting and the quasi-hyperbolic discounting cases as particular specifications. Under the suggested framework, the representative agent adopts, at some initial date, an optimal...

The reasons why inventions that shaped industrial revolutions, occurred in the UK and in the USA, have been suggested by economic historians. For the first time,we access the determinants of more than a hundred inventions around the world, explaining why they occurred in a given country and why...

The determinants of human capital have been studied sparsely in the literature. Although there is a huge literature on the determinants of schooling linked with the quality of schooling, there are not many contributions that explore the deep determinants of investment in, quantity and quality of...