The pressure from national lobbies may lead governments to shift from an optimal into a non-optimal innovation policy. This paper examines the growth and welfare effects of optimal and non-optimal innovation policies. The non-optimal policy corresponds to a subsidy for national innovators that...

The increasing popularity of increasing block tariffs (IBT) for water is reflected in Portugal by a virtually universal implementation for residential use. IBT are often supported as a good tool for achieving the goals of equity, water conservation and revenue neutrality but seldom have they...

The tourism and economic growth relationship is investigated for a panel of European countries over the period 1988–2010. The results reveal that the variables contain a panel unit root and they cointegrate in a panel perspective. The findings show that tourism enhance economic growth for some...

In this article we document the features of business cycles in German Länders from 1970 and 2007. Specifically, we answer the question if German Länders are becoming more synchronized or not. All results indicate that the synchronization of cycles is stronger inside the former Western Germany...

In this work we assess the existence of a S-Curve pattern in ten Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC-10) for the relation between the trade balance and the terms of trade. Empirical results support the existence of this curve for Slovenia, Czech Republic, Hungary, and also for an...

Resorting to an endogenous growth framework, the paper studies the implications of taking market clearing as a long term possibility rather than an every period implicit assumption, as is conventional in growth analysis. Under the proposed setup, the system may converge to a market equilibrium...

This paper aims to establish whether geographical proximity between multinational and domestic firms is relevant to the occurrence of FDI spillovers, by considering both horizontal and vertical spillovers. Using data for Portugal, this hypothesis is confirmed. In the case of horizontal...

A local stability condition for the standard neo-classical Ramsey growth model is derived. The proposed setting is deterministic, defined in discrete time and expectations are formed through adaptive learning.

In this work we empirically test optimum currency area theory regarding the efficiency of two usual stabilization mechanisms for members of a given monetary union (the United States): federal transfers and migration. The US is recognized as a country where labor mobility between states is high....

New horizontally-differentiated goods involving product-specific network effects are quite prevalent. Consumers’ preferences for each of these new goods often are initially unknown. Later, as sales data begin to accumulate, agents learn market-wide preferences which thus become common...