In this paper we study the dynamics of local employment growth in West Germany from 1980 to 2001. Using dynamic panel techniques, we analyse the timing of the impact of diversity and specialisation, as well as of the human capital structure of local industries. Diversity has a positive effect on...

We test leverage predictions of the trade-off and pecking order models using Swiss data. At an aggregate level, leverage of Swiss firms is comparatively low, but the results depend crucially on the exact definition of leverage. Confirming the pecking order model but contradicting the trade-off...

This paper presents an empirical assessment of the degree of competition within the Jamaican banking sector during the period 1998 to 2009. We employ a dynamic version of the Panzar — of banks that constitute over 90% of the banking market. Using the conventional statistical tests, we are...

Model uncertainty hampers consensus on the key determinants of economic growth. Some recent cross-country cross-sectional analyses have employed Bayesian model averaging to tackle the issue of model uncertainty. This paper extends that approach to panel data models with country-specific fixed...

We explore whether foreign aid affects developing countries' creditworthiness, as proxied by the Institutional Investor's measure of country credit risk. Based on a simple model of international borrowing and lending, we develop the hypothesis that current aid reduces the likelihood of future...

This paper uses recently developed methods for estimating dynamic heterogeneous cointegrated panel data models - which allows for heterogeneity in parameters and dynamics across agents - to study housing wealth effects in a dynamic model of the 50 US states and the District of Columbia from the...