Constructing a comprehensive data set covering Dutch firms over the years 2002-2008 I am the first to investigate the relationship between trade status, firm size and firm-level productivity in the Netherlands, thereby focusing particularly on small and medium sized enterprizes (SMEs). The...

The ambition to host mega sports events is (or can be) perfectly justifiable with various arguments. The most persistently used argument is the supposed financial or direct economic gain for the host economy, of which the compelling body of evidence is discouraging. This implies that the...

When it comes to discussing club football emotions tend to get heated quite easily across the globe. This heterogeneity in likes and dislikes is not only reflected in name or financial possibilities, but also in the clubs approach to building a team. We analyze whether clubs' strategies...

Using micro-data for Dutch firms, we argue that the productivity spillovers from importing technology intensive products from Taiwan differ from importing unskilled-labor intensive products from Switzerland. We show that both the geographic component (what country is the import from) and the...

This paper discusses reasons why politicians still favor hosting mega events despite the discouraging evidence regarding their financial benefits: (1) early political enthusiasm, (2) tying side-projects to the bid to raise political support, (3) biased reading of history, (4) the winners curse,...

We show how to estimate a Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient in Stata after running a principal component or factor analysis. Alpha evaluates to what extent items measure the same underlying content when the items are combined into a scale or used for latent variable. Stata allows for...

This paper tests the question whether the integration process in the EU has contributed to the often-observed growing dispersion of income over the regions of the EU, in the presence of convergence between the member states. We do this by introducing price convergence as an indicator of...

There are both empirical and theoretical arguments for the thesis that external factors have an impact on domestic institutional quality. Consequently, external factors may have large effects on domestic income via local institutions. This paper investigates the role of external factors by...