Emerging world countries have experienced over the last two decades a significant change in their trade patterns. Bold trade reforms have been followed by rapid rises in international trade levels. However, despite these radical changes, we know remarkably little about how changes in trade...

This study analyses how firms' internal variables and regional factors affect total factor productivity (TFP) of Italian manufacturing firms. Due to the hierarchical structure of our data, we employ a multilevel model that allows for a clear distinction between firm and region-specific effects....

Regional disparities in Central and Eastern Europe rose substantially since 1990. Still, prima facie evidence of beta-convergence is often found in the CEE data. To reconcile this seeming paradox, we sketch out and test empirically a hybrid model of regional growth that draws on the regional...

Does agglomeration matter for growth? This paper addresses this question by evaluating the impact that intra-regional income distribution has on regional growth in Europe. By using a spatially augmented Solow growth model, we investigate the convergence process among 188 EU regions between 1991...

In this article, we introduce and evaluate testing procedures for specifying the number k of nearest neighbours in the weights matrix of a spatial econometric model. An increasing and a decreasing neighbours testing procedure are suggested. Kelejian's J-test for non-nested spatial models is used...

We consider the 10 most salient key sector measures (linkages) and identify groups of the most similar indicators on both analytical and empirical grounds. We derive new closed-form formulas for the generalized complete and partial hypothetical extraction linkages and add the...

In this editorial, we summarize and comment on the papers published in Issue 9.3. The first paper is entitled 'The Magnitude and Distance Decay of Trade in Goods and Services: New Evidence for European Countries', by Martin J. Burger, Mark J. P. M. Thissen, Frank G. Van Oort and Dario Diodato....

This paper investigates the relationship between market potential and the spatial variation in the number and the average size of firms. We adapt the canonical model of the New Economic Geography to demonstrate this relationship and to derive an empirical specification suitable for estimation...

Using a newly assembled, consistent and disaggregated dataset (12 goods and 7 services) on internal and bilateral trade for 25 European countries, we analyse the difference between trade in goods and services. The measurement of both trade in goods and trade in services is improved over earlier...