This article analyses the role of economic diplomacy on the export market entry decisions of Dutch firms. We show that the presence of government support offices in middle-income countries and government trade missions stimulate Dutch firms to enter export markets in these countries. These...

International policy heterogeneity creates trade and investment costs for service firms doing business in other countries. Service providers have to comply with different rules in each foreign market where they operate. Complying with these regulations causes fixed market-entry costs, specific...

A Single Market for Services in the European Union is not yet a reality. The European Commission launched proposals that would remove some negative trade impacts caused by national regulation differences. We apply a general equilibrium model (WorldScan) to assess what economic benefits the...

This document focuses on innovation, human capital, technology transfers and competition as potential sources of productivity growth for firms. It integrates the views of existing literature such as the two faces of R&D, the convergence debate and the existence of firm-level heterogeneity in...

This book analyzes growth at the total economy and industry level from an international perspective, providing unique cross-country comparisons. The authors focus on the EU-25 countries but also include the US, Japan and Korea. The chapters explore growth patterns from a long-run perspective,...

This paper investigates the determinants of directed technical change at the Firm level in the electricity generation sector. We use firm-level data on patents filed in renewable (REN) and fossil fuel (FF) technologies by 5,261 european firms over the period 1978-2006. We investigate how energy...