Economic development implies that the efficiency of firms in developing countries is approaching that of firms in advanced economies. We examine the extent of this convergence in the Czech Republic and Russia, economies that represent alternative models of implementing development policies,...

A well-developed financial intermediation industry increases domestic savings, efficiently allocates investment resources to the most productive uses in the economy and increases the rate of economic growth. In the Soviet economy the banking system served as a means of collecting household...

Economic development implies that the efficiency of firms in developing countries is approaching that of firms in advanced economies. We examine the extent of this convergence among all firms as well as a subset of firms near the efficiency frontier in two economies that represent alternative...

The first chapter demonstrates that although it is possible to design utility functions that behave like empirical well-being, the functional forms relying on income adaptation and social comparisons put forward in the happiness literature fail to receive empirical validation. Under the income...

Although the theoretical literature has identified various sizeable benefits from foreign direct investment inflows (FDI), the empirical literature has been unable to establish a positive and significant impact of FDI on the rates of economic growth of host countries. One reason for this...

Health progress, as measured by the decline in mortality rates and the increase in life expectancy, is usuallyconceived as related to economic growth, especially in the long run. In this investigation it is shown thateconomic growth is positively associated with health progress in Sweden...

In many Internet commerce applications buyers can easily achieve anonymity, limiting what a seller can learn about any buyer individually. However, because sellers need to keep a fixed web address, buyers can probe them repeatedly or pool their information about sellers with the information...

Capital markets perform two distinct functions: provision of capital and facilitation of good governance through information production and monitoring. I argue that the governance function has more impact on the efficiency with which resources are utilized within the firm. Based on industry...

Our main interest is the impact of the choice of the speed of economic reform on economic growth. We estimate a system of 3 equations where economic growth, economic reform and FDI are jointly determined. We find that new reforms affect economic growth negatively but attract FDI, whereas the...

Advocates of financial regulation, Arestis and Demetriades, argue that financial liberalisation does not impact on financial market efficiency and the allocation of investment. Results in this study find that Czech, Hungarian and Polish firms are subject to scrutiny when applying for credit. The...