We analyse the interaction between legal origins and ethnic heterogeneity and their combined impact on national efficiency. We hypothesise that in the presence of high ethnic heterogeneity common-law system performs worse than civil-law one in terms of economic efficiency. Our empirical tests on...

Spillovers have usually been undertaken at the country level, the spillover effects can be more definitive only if the analysis is conducted at the industry-level. This paper therefore attempts to identify spillovers by disentangling technological innovations into intra- and inter-national...

Income distribution is seen as instrumental to human development and to a number of development outcomes through a variety of channels. It is also considered important in itself, as testified by its inclusion in the Sustainable Development Goals. Yet existing research on income inequality in...

We develop a horizontal R&D growth model that allows us to investigate the different channels through which financial reforms affect R&D investment and patent activity. First, a "micro" reformthat abolishes barriers to entry in the banking sector produces a straightforward result: a decrease in...

Empirical evidence suggests that real exchange rates (RER) behave differently in developed and developing countries. We develop an overlapping generations two-sector exogenous growth model in which RER determination may depend on the country's capacity to borrow from international capital...

We revisit the debate on the sustainability of the current account dynamics in the US. Using the concept of sustainability as the ability to meet the long run intertemporal budget constraint, we test for unit roots in the US current account for the 1960-2004 period. We argue that there are...

In this paper we propose Granger (non-)causality tests based on a VAR model allowing for time-varying coefficients. The functional form of the time-varying coefficients is a Logistic Smooth Transition Autoregressive (LSTAR) model using time as the transition variable. The model allows for...

We look at syndication in the venture capital industry. Investments conducted by syndicates are believed to have better chances of being successful, measured by the survival probability of portfolio companies or by successful exits. Using a novel and large dataset, covering several countries,...

Using a novel methodology, we offer new evidence that a threshold relationship exists for Okun's law. We use a logistic smoothed transition regression (LSTR) model where possible threshold endogeneity is addressed based on copula theory. We also suggest a new test of the linearity hypothesis...

We look at syndication in the venture capital industry. Investments conducted by syndicates are believed to have better chances of being successful, measured by the survival probability of portfolio companies or by successful exits. Using a novel and large dataset, covering several countries,...