In this paper we study how differences in the quality of countries' institutions affect the impact of natural hazards in these countries. To do so, we first build a new data set that allows us to adequately control for countries' development and geological characteristics and, importantly,...

This paper brings to the forefront the assumptions that we make when focusing on a particular type of explanation for bank profitability. We evaluate a broad field of research by introducing a general framework for a profit maximizing bank and demonstrate how different types of models can be...

This paper investigates the forces driving output change in a panel of EU manufacturing industries. A flexible modeling strategy is adopted that accounts for (i) inefficient use of resources, and (ii) differences in the production technology across industries. With our model we are able to...

In this paper, we compare standard approaches used to handle losses in logarithmic stochastic profit frontier models with a simple novel approach. We discuss discriminatory power, rank stability and precision of profit efficiency scores. Our new method enhances rank stability and discriminatory...

This paper examines to what extent gazelles are the drivers of the growth of industries and structural change. To this purpose we analyze gazelles over a 12 year period (annually from 1997 until 2008) in the Netherlands, and relate them to the dynamics in employment per industry. We use a panel...

This paper presents a model of the life cycle that drives and is driven by R&D. In the model, firms have the option to improve their quality or to invest R&D resources in efficiency gains. Faced with this tradeoff, young firms opt for quality instead of efficiency improvements, whereas more...

This paper investigates whether technology spills over across national borders and technology regimes. We advocate a modeling strategy where changes in technical efficiency capture technology spillovers as industries absorb and implement the best-practice (frontier) technology. Recently...

We examine the reallocation of profits in the European and US banking sectors in the period of 1995 to 2004. Specifically, we ask whether the restructuring of both industries has contributed to an efficient reallocation of assets. Using a revised decomposition framework, we find that US banks...

In this paper we seek to contribute to the literature on competition and innovation by focusing on individual firms within the U.S. banking industry in the period 1984-2004. We measure innovation by estimating technology gaps and find evidence of an inverted-U relationship between competition...