Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...

Why is GDP so much more volatile in poor countries than in rich ones? To answer this question, we propose a theory of technological diversification. Production makes use of different input varieties, which are subject to imperfectly correlated shocks. As in endogenous growth models,...

This paper investigates the main determinants of economic performance in the EU from a regional perspective, covering 253 regions over the period 2001-2008. In addition to the traditional determinants of economic performance, measured by GDP per capita, the analysis accounts for spatial effects...

We estimate the response of product-level retail prices to changes in the corporate tax rates paid by wholesale producers (pass-through). Under perfect competition in goods and factor markets, pass-through of corporate taxes should be zero, and their incidence mainly falls on factor prices. We...

This paper analyzes the link between monetary policy and capital misallocation in a New Keynesian model with heterogeneous firms and financial frictions. In the model, firms with a high return to capital increase their investment more strongly in response to a monetary policy expansion, thus...

This paper illustrates the main features of the Labour Module of the CompNet dataset which provides indicators of firm growth over the period 1995-2012 across 17 EU (13 euro area) countries and 9 macro-sectors. It also includes information on a large set of micro-aggregated characteristics of...

We study cross-country price differences in the European market for new passenger cars based on detailed pricing and technical data. Car prices in Europe converged until the year 2003, but not thereafter. Within the EU 15 countries the price range of the median model in 2004 was close to 20...

This paper studies the implications of perceived default risk for aggregate output and productivity. Using a model of credit contracts with moral hazard, we show that a firm's probability of default is a sufficient statistic for capital allocation. The theoretical framework suggests an aggregate...

We build on the imperfection of intellectual property rights as the central motivation for the organization of firms. There are several characteristics specific to a theory of the firm grounded on the absence of intellectual property rights: monetary incentive schemes arise naturally as a...

This paper discusses a wide range of indicators of the degree of integration of the euro area banking system. It is concerned with volume data, a less developed field of research compared with studies on prices/rates. We first set out a methodological framework, a mixture of elementary and more...