We empirically investigate the relationship between a country's economic complexity and the diversity in the birthplaces of its immigrants. Our cross-country analysis suggests that birthplace diversity is strongly and positively associated with economic complexity. This holds particularly for...

Maximizing output without taking into consideration the negative externalities generated, including the harm to the mental and physical health of the population creates psychological stress. Focusing on the bellwether indicators of economic performance including working more, generating income,...

One of the core indicators in the field of scientometrics is the number of papers published by a unit within a given period. However, such indicators can only be assessed properly by considering the unit’s available resources. When evaluating the efficiency of institutions worldwide, the...

Does democracy promote economic development? This paper reviews recent attempts to address this question that exploited within-country variation. It shows that the answer is largely positive, but also depends on the details of democratic reforms. First, the sequence of economic vs political...

There has been much study of the consequences of economic freedom but, outside of the role of political institutions, there has been little study of the determinants of economic freedom. We investigate whether religion affects economic freedom. Our cross-sectional dataset includes 137 countries...

This paper empirically studies the impact of the quality of political institutions on the link between central bank independence and inflation. Making use of data on the evolution of central bank independence over time and controlling for possible nonlinearities, we employ interaction models to...

Following the collapse of planning, new small and medium-sized firms rapidly emerged in all transition economies. Using firm level data, we investigate the interaction between the widespread opportunities for new business activities such firms faced and their business environment. The business...