To identify the determinants of cross-country disparities in personal computer and Internet penetration, we examine a panel of 161 countries over the 1999-2001 period. Our candidate variables include economic variables (income per capita, years of schooling, illiteracy, trade openness),...

Of the diverse factors motivating technological change, one factor that has received increasing attention in the recent past has been the protection of intellectual property rights. Given fairly recent changes in the international policy ethos where a regime of stronger intellectual property...

This paper investigates the impact of the history of crises on macroeconomic performance. We first study the impact of past banking crises on the probability of a future banking crisis. Applying data for 1980 - 2010 for all countries for which the required information is available, controlling...

Food price developments have various impacts at the country and household level, in particular in developing countries with severe implications on food security, poverty and economic stability. The focus of this paper is on wheat as it is, together with rice, the most important food crop. The...

The financialisation of commodity derivative markets, reflected in the increased presence of financial investors, and its effects on commodity prices and the fundamental roles of these markets, i.e. price discovery and price risk management for commercial traders, have been controversially...

In the context of recent commodity price hikes, the financialisation of commodity derivative markets, reflected in the increased presence of financial investors and new financial products such as commodity index and exchange traded funds has been controversially discussed. Many studies focus on...

Berufliche Bildung in der Entwicklungszusammenarbeit (EZA) erlebt derzeit nach einer Phase relativer Vernachlässigung eine Renaissance. Dies hängt einerseits mit dem weltweiten Anstieg der Jugendarbeitslosigkeit, andererseits mit der Erkenntnis, dass Primarschulförderung als Bildungsstrategie...