This paper points out the problems of liquidity, disposal and obtaining funds, inability to collect receivables, delayed payments in times of economic and financial instability and dynamic business upheavals and uncertainty. As a contribution to resolve these issues new alternative methods of...

The US has experienced a sustained increase in productivity growth since the mid-1990s, particularly in sectors that intensively use information technologies (IT). This has not occurred in Europe. If the US "productivity miracle" is due to a natural advantage of being located in the US then we...

The concepts of s-convergence, absolute b-convergence and conditional b-convergence are discussed in this paper. The concepts are applied to a variety of data sets that include a large cross section of 110 countries, the sub-sample of OECD countries, the states within the United States, the...

We apply simple measures of convergence in per capita GDP, namely, the trends in the coefficient of variation (sigma-convergence) and rank concordance (gamma-convergence), for the period 1960-1992 to a wide group of countries which are classified using the World Bank typology. The findings...

The removal of barriers to trade and mobility is usually promoted as it allows for greater division of labor and, thereby, for improved economic welfare. Recent theory, however, suggests that the integration of markets might have serious consequences for the regional allocation of economic...

This paper argues that accumulation and growth both in Europe and Asia has been sustained by external factors represented by the international level of public expenditure generated by the United States mostly for military and political reasons. Both areas, although through different mechanisms,...

This paper provides an explanation of technical inefficiencies of financial exchanges in Europe as well as an empirical analysis of their existence and extent. A single-stage stochastic cost frontier approach is employed, which generates exchange inefficiency scores based on a unique unbalanced...

This paper considers a number of hypotheses. Primarily amongst them is the notion that foreign owned plants spend more on pollution abatement than domestically owned plants after controlling for productive efficiency and cognisant of the prevailing regulatory regime. In essence, this study...

Cette etude a pour but de verifier empiriquement la convergence regionale au sein de l'Union Europeenne. Les auteurs examinent, sur differentes periodes courrant sur les deux dernieres decennies, les formes de la convergence regionale en Europe. Suivant de nombreuses etudes, et puisqu'il s'agit...

The transition to a market economy in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union has been associated with greater inequality and social stratification. This paper prepared within the UNU/WIDER project on "Income Distribution and Social Structure during the Transition' analyses trends in social...