The surge in labour productivity growth in the United States in the late 1990s has prompted much speculation about the capacity of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to structurally increase growth. The simultaneous slowdown in productivity growth in the EU suggests the European...

Business cycle indexes are used to get a timely and frequent description of the state of the economy and its likely development in the near future. This paper discusses two methods for constructing business cycle indexes, the traditional NBER method and a recently developed dynamic factor model,...

In this paper we asses whether productivity growth differentials between the U.S. and Europe in the distributive trade sector are real or mainly a statistical myth. New estimates of retail trade productivity are constructed, taking into account purchase prices of goods sold. We also adjust U.S....

The industrial revolution is mostly seen as a supply side phenomenon. Ever since Gilboy stated that factors of demand may have been equally important, scholars have stressed the importance of investments and technological change. This paper re-considers Gilboy?s ideas, using the dataset of the...

This paper deals with international comparisons of the contribution of information and communication technology (ICT) to growth during the 1990s. It makes a distinction between ICT-producing industries and services on the one hand and industries and services that are intensive users of ICT on...

This paper looks at the changes in economic performance across the OECD area during the 1990s. More specifically it reviews the explanations for differences in growth and relative levels of productivity and per capita income. Firstly it looks at the performance of labour market indicators, such...

In this paper we reconstruct the non-residential capital stock of South Korea and Taiwan based on long-term series of investment in non-residential buildings and machinery and equipment. Secondly, we looked at the impact of capital input measures, using a stock as a well a flow measure of...

This paper provides a brief overview of the "state of the art" on research on the sources of long term economic growth. It is argued that, despite the enormous progress in development of the theory and empirics on long term economic growth, we are still not able to unambiguously distinguish...

In this paper we analyze the dynamics of Dutch economic growth for the period 1815-1997. By applying a simple econometric technique, important braking points in the timeseries are traced. It seems that three phases of growth can be discerned and that these phases are characterized by different...

Using a newly developed database for 8 transition economies, this paper examines whether reforms and political freedom are important for foreign bank entry. The paper provides strong evidence that foreign bank entry positively responds to reform measures. We also find some evidence for the...