We assess empirically whether foreign official development assistance (ODA) has been effective in alleviating HIV/AIDS epidemics, which figures prominently among the Millennium Development Goals. We employ a difference-in-difference-in-differences approach to identify the treatment effect of ODA...

There is a large body of literature analyzing the relationship between objective economic conditions and voting behavior, but there is very little evidence of how perceived economic insecurity impacts on political preferences. Using seventeen years of household panel data from the German...

The German educational system finds itself being criticized by the OECD in its Programme for International Student Assessment. Family background would heavily influence children's academic achievements. A child stemming from a high class family has a 3.1 times higher chance to go to secondary...

This paper analyses currency options for six Pacific states - Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga and Vanuatu - that issue their own currencies. Empirical estimates indicate that these states already stabilize their currencies against the US dollar because of their large and...

Using the KOF Index of Globalization and two indices of economic freedom, we empirically analyze whether globalization and economic liberalization affect governments´ respect for human rights using a panel of 106 countries over the 1981-2004 period. According to our results, physical integrity...

In the present contribution, we concentrate on the process of financial liberalization in a specific context of European economic and monetary integration. We implement de facto and de jure measures of financial liberalization and find that formal aspects of financial openness generate a...

This paper investigates the link between exporting and importing activities and firm performance using a rich dataset on Egyptian and Moroccan firms. We test the export premium, self-selection and learning-by-exporting hypotheses using a number of firm characteristics. Our analysis also includes...

Die vergangenen Jahrzehnte waren weltweit durch eine Zunahme der außenwirtschaftlichen Ungleichgewichte gekennzeichnet. Den Leistungsbilanzüberschussländern, insbesondere Deutschland, wird in diesem Zusammenhang zunehmend vorgeworfen, durch zu moderate Lohnsteigerungen wesentlich zum Aufbau...