This paper looks at interactions between foreign aid and the public sector in developing countries, especially those considered to be fragile or failing states. A model is proposed which employs actual budgetary appropriations and revenue estimates (rather than estimated target variables) and...

Purpose – This study investigates the principal determinants of women’s employment in the manufacturing sector of Bangladesh using a firm-level panel data from the World Bank’s ‘Enterprise Survey’ for the years 2007, 2011 and 2013. The paper sheds light on the demand-side factors,...

The declared objective of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) is to promote free trade between member states. Nonetheless, an exhaustive study of bilateral merchandise trade based on a large panel data set led Rose (2004) to conclude that...

Even in the face of a continuously changing economic environment, interest rates often remain unadjusted for long periods. When rates are moved, the norm is for a series of small unidirectional discrete basis-point changes. To explain these phenomena we suggest a two-equation system combining a...

We examine the dissent voting record of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) in its first decade. Probit estimates indicate the impact of career experience on dissent voting is negligible, whereas the impact of forecast inflation is pronounced. In addition to finding a role for...

This paper uses a natural field experiment to better understand why individuals tend to select items at the top of lists. After randomizing the order in which new economics research papers are presented in email alerts and measuring the subsequent downloads, we provide robust evidence of...

The government of Jamaica enacted a strategic master plan in 2010 to encourage the tourism sector’s inclusiveness by enhancing the participation of villas and other small lodging accommodations, increasing the use of locally grown produce, and encouraging commercial activity with formal and...

This paper analyses the association between the number of patenting manufacturing firms and the quantity and quality of relevant university research across UK postcode areas. We show that different measures of research `power' and `excellence' positively affect the patenting of small firms...

Wage inequality is a particular focus of attention not only in public debates over the need for social regulation to support equity, but those over the implications of social regulation for productive performance. The present paper employs panel techniques to examine the comparative historical...