The British Industrial Revolution triggered a reversal in the social order wherebythe landed elite was replaced by industrial capitalists rising from the middle classes as the economically dominant group. Many observers have linked this transformation to the contrast in values between a...

Using structural VARs, I find that external shocks are an important source of macroeconomic fluctuations in emerging markets. Furthermore, U.S. monetary policy shocks affect quickly and strongly interest rates and the exchange rate in a typical emerging market. The price level and real output in...

We decompose by origin the sources of the variation in real aggregate output and aggregate price level in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland. We find that a sizable fraction of the variation is attributable to external shocks, especially so for aggregate price level. We show that euroarea...

This paper analyzes optimal foreign aid policy in a neoclassical frameworkwith a conflict of interest between the donor and the recipient government.Aid conditionality is modelled as a limited enforceable contract. We defineconditional aid policy to be self-enforcing if, at any point in time,...

Does fractionalization change over time? If so, are there any substantial implications foreconomic performance? To answer such questions, we construct a new panel data set withfractionalization measures for 26 former communist countries covering the period from 1989to 2002...

The paper provides an outline of the concept of regional growth regimes andempirically illustrates the relevance of the concept. The empirical examples areentrepreneurship, entry and the performance of new businesses in East andWest Germany. The differences of the factors determining the...

Questioning the underlying assumptions of the process of creative destruction, weconceptualize an alternative process of creative construction that may characterizethe dynamics between entrants and incumbents. We discuss the underlyingmechanism of knowledge spillover strategic entrepreneurship...

This paper investigates whether the presence of ambitious entrepreneurs is a more important determinant of national economic growth than entrepreneurial activity in general. We use data from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor to test the extent to which high growth ambitions of entrepreneurs...

The study of predictors of entrepreneurial activity at the country level has been dominated by economic influences. However, the relative stability of differences in entrepreneurial activity across countries suggests that other forces such as institutional and/or cultural factors are at play....

Persistent differences in the level of business ownership across economically developed nations have attracted the attentiion of scientific as well as political debate. Cultural rather than economic influences are assumed to play a decisive role. This paper deals with the influence of cutlural...