What macroeconomic and financial variables play key roles in the foreign direct investment decision of firms? This question is addressed in this paper using a large panel data set of cross-border Merger amp; Acquisition (Mamp;A) deals for the period 1990-1999. Various econometric specifications...

This paper explores the connection between interest rates in major industrial countries and annual real output growth in other countries. The results show that high large-country interest rates have a contractionary effect on annual real GDP growth in the domestic economy, but that this effect...

Over the last five decades a growing number of governments in developed and developing countries have implemented targeting policies to increase the R&D to GDP ratio. However, until now there have been few attempts either to evaluate the effectiveness of these policy efforts or to identify the...

The scanty economic literature has attributed to female voting part of the increase in government expenditure and social government expenditure over the XXth century. This finding results puzzling considering that the political science literature has documented that women tended to be more...

This paper analyzes empirically the relationship between innovation and productivity in the Chilean services sector. Consistent with recent evidence on developed countries, we find that services firms are as innovative as firms in the manufacturing industry. In the basic model, we also find that...

Both exports and innovation—in particular, research and development (R&D)—are key factors for the growth of firms and economies, but there has been little study of the combined impact of exports and innovation on growth of firms and economics, especially in developing countries. We use...

A recent theoretical literature has given relevance to the study of the relationship between product mix changes and firm productivity. In this paper, taking advantage of a rich dataset for manufacturing plants in Chile during the period 1996-2000, we use matching techniques and a difference in...

The discovery of new export opportunities has been an important trait of economic growth and development in Chile since the mid-1970s (Agosin, 1999; Meller, 1994; and Meller and Sáez, 1995). An additional aspect that makes Chile an interesting case study is that these opportunities have arisen almost...

Are natural resources a blessing or a curse? The authors present a model in which natural resources have a positive effect on the level of income and a negative effect on its growth rate. The positive and permanent effect on income implies a welfare gain. There is a growth effect stemming from a...