In this paper we provide an analysis of the process of creative destruction across 24 countries and 2-digit industries over the past decade. We rely on a newly assembled dataset that draws from different micro data sources (business registers, census, or representative enterprise surveys). The...

In this paper we explore the relationship between the size of a country, the size of its cities, and the economic performance of the country. In order to do this we integrate three different literature, namely the literature on optimal country size, literature on historical processes of...

This study explores the impact of social capital on innovation by constructing a more general measure of social capital indicator consisting of generalized and institutional trust, associational activities and civic norms. We test the hypothesis that social capital has a positive impact on...

How does factor accumulation affect the pattern of international specialization and returns to capital? We provide a new integrated treatment to this question using a panel of 44 developing and developed countries over the period 1976-2000. We confirm the Heckscher-Ohlin prediction that, with...

This paper combines different strands of the productivity literature to investigate the effect of idiosyncratic (firm-level) policy distortions on aggregate outcomes. On the one hand, a growing body of empirical research has been relating cross-country differences in key economic outcomes, such...