Following the attempt by Alesina and Guiliano (2013) to measure global culture and to project these measurements onto real choropleth geographical world maps, we utilize the data from the World Values Survey (WVS) to arrive at robust measurement scales of global economic, political and social...

Starting from Professor Kornai's assertion about the necessity to focus on the long-term perspectives of the transformation process, we analyze in this paper the Lisbon performance of the countries of the European Union from such a long-term, structural perspective. We present in a simple form...

This constant-market-shares (CMS) analysis shows the development of competitiveness, market and product structure of the Austrian merchandise exports from 1990 to 2006. The traditional CMS application was transformed to a dynamic model, such that the static indicators have been replaced by time...

We review the past 25 years of time series research that has been published in journals managed by the International Institute of Forecasters (Journal of Forecasting 1982-1985; International Journal of Forecasting 1985-2005). During this period, over one third of all papers_new published in these...

To consider legal standards in empirical research designs, the qualitative information of the law needs to be transferred in a numerical variable. The challenge in creating such a variable consists in finding the right balance between high information density and transparency while keeping the...

In this paper we put to test the impact of the European Structural Funds on the economies of the 20 Italian administrative regions for the 1989-2006 period. The main elements of novelty are that the empirical analysis is carried out by considering separately four sectors (agriculture, energy and...

The economic integration process requires appropriate understanding of the degree of vulnerability of member states to various kinds of shocks as well as identification of appropriate measures to mitigate the impact of these shocks on macroeconomic performance. Consequently, this study seeks to...

This paper establishes eight stylized facts on the evolution of the localization of economic activity across industries and regions in the EU-15 since 1980. Localization, which nests concentration and specialization, is measured by a Theil index. The stylized facts reveal a broad aggregate trend...

This paper employs a multidimensional approach to gauge the degree of regional integration and analyze impact on growth, inequality, and poverty. It constructs a multidimensional regional integration index (MDRII) series that embodies six key facets of regional integration: (i) trade and...