The European Union and its Member States have been engaged in product market reforms over a long period with notable reforms including the Single Market Program and the Lisbon Agenda launched in March 2000. Product market reforms are seen as exerting both a direct and an indirect impact on...

There is a secret paradox at the heart of social contract theories. Such theories assume that, because personal security and private property are at risk in a state of nature, subjects will agree to grant Leviathan a monopoly of violence. But what is to prevent Leviathan from turning on his...

An attempt to quantify possible negative effects of external crises in emerging market economies is made in this paper. The direct and indirect effects of the external crises, here sudden stops in capital flows and currency crises, are estimated and compounded into composite overall effects. In...

In this paper we outline (i) why ó-convergence may not accompany â- convergence, (ii)cite evidence of â-convergence in the U.S., (iii) and use USA county-level data containing over 3,000 cross-sectional observations to demonstrate that ó-convergence does not hold across the U.S., or within...

We use county data with 3,058 observations to study growth and convergence in the US. We assess the effect of 40 conditioning variables on the counties’ balanced growth paths. Using OLS and 3SLS-IV, the later yielding consistent estimates, we report estimates for the full sample and for metro,...

We use U.S. county data (3,058 observations) and 41 conditioning variables to study growth and convergence. Using OLS and 3SLS-IV we report on the full sample and metro, non-metro, and 5 regional samples: (1) OLS yields convergence rates around 2 percent; 3SLS yields 6–8 percent; (2)...

The study of the stylized facts of economic growth has allowed an advance of this field of economic analysis in its empirical and theorical works. Today, Health Economics is faced with new requirements of society, i.e. better care at a sustainable cost. Furthermore, since the problems linked...

Views of the future China vary widely. While some believe that the collapse of China is inevitable, others see the emergence of a new superpower that increasingly poses a threat to the U.S. This paper examines the economic growth prospects of China over the next two decades. Extrapolating past...

This paper proposes a “before-and-after” approach to empirical examination of the relationship between democracy and growth. Rather than the commonly used cross-country regression method, this paper compares the economic performances of forty countries before and after they became...

Views of the future China vary widely. While some believe that the collapse of China is inevitable, others see the emergence of a new superpower that increasingly poses a threat to the U.S. This paper examines the economic growth prospects of China over the next two decades. Extrapolating past...