This article presents some new estimates of the degree of returns to scale for European regional manufacturing, for the period 1986—2002. To obtain these estimates, the article makes use of a Verdoorn law framework, estimating both demand- and supply-side versions of the law. Estimation...

Abstract Verdoorn's law is estimated in a spatial econometric framework for individual manufacturing industries using EU regional data. Estimates of encompassing returns to scale are large, but other explanatory variables, including measures of industrial specialization and diversity, tend to be...

Recent theoretical advances have emphasised the importance of localised increasing returns to scale in understanding both the regional growth and agglomeration processes. However, considerable empirical controversy still exists over whether returns to scale are constant or increasing....

Using data envelopment analysis, we calculate indices of total factor productivity (TFP), efficiency and technological change for the manufacturing sectors of 68 European NUTS1 regions over the period 1986-2002. We subsequently examine these indices using exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA)...

In Cambridge, UK, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were some of the most distinguished post-war non-neoclassical economists, which included Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson and Piero Sraffa. The Cambridge capital theory controversies seemed to have been decisively settled in Cambridge,...

This valuable and engaging new book bears eloquent testimony to A.P. Thirlwall’s substantial contribution to economics over the last 40 years. The volume does not attempt to provide a comprehensive review of such a prolific figure, but rather demonstrates the considerable influence that his...

This authoritative and stimulating book represents a fundamental critique of the aggregate production function, a concept widely used in macroeconomics.

This enlightening and significant volume focuses on the nature, causes and features of economic growth across a wide range of countries and regions. Covering a variety of growth related topics – from theoretical analyses of economic growth in general to empirical analyses of growth in the...

The subprime crisis raised some fundamental questions about the usefulness of mainstream economics. This paper considers the shortcomings of the new neoclassical synthesis and the new macroeconomic consensus in analysing the causes and consequences of the crisis. It demonstrates that the major...

This paper considers from a methodological point of view why disputes in macroeconomics over its fundamental assumptions regularly occur. It analyses the problem first using Kuhn's concept of the paradigm and then draws on McCloskey's use of rhetorical analysis. It finds the latter of limited...