We address the issue of whether financial structure influences economic growth. Three competing views of financial structure exist in the literature: the bank-based, the market-based and the financial services view. Recent empirical studies examine their relevance by utilizing panel and...

Recent empirical work on financial structure and economic growth analyzes multi-country dataset in panel and/or cross-section frameworks and concludes that financial structure is irrelevant. We highlight their shortcomings and re-examine this issue utilizing a time series and a Dynamic...

Alternative models of productivity predict a range of its determinants besides that of research and development (R&D). We investigate the robustness of R&D vis-à-vis a dozen productivity determinants in a panel of 16 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries through panel...

The stringent deficit criterion followed by the EMU is motivated by the belief that a sustainable fiscal arrangement is a must for a viable monetary union. In this paper we provide an empirical analysis of the issue of deficit convergence in the Euro area and compare and contrast the Euro-zone...

Equity prices have been falling since March 2000. How far can they fall before they reach bottom? The current bear market differs from the mid-1970s plunge in equity prices in terms of the causes and, consequently, the factors that should be monitored to test its progress. In the 1970s, the bear...

Analyzing a novel dataset we find significantly positive effects of basic, and applied and experimental knowledge stocks on domestic output and productivity for a panel of 10 OECD countries. This letter updates the work of, among others, Mansfield (1980), Griliches (1986) and Adams (1990), at an...