This paper attempts to enhance empirical understanding of the effects of structural-change variables on economic outcomes. The relationships between sectoral shares and (1) the speed of structural change and (2) economic growth were examined for a large panel of 111 economies over the period of...

In economic development, structural change among the three main sectors of an economy accompanies with aggregate economic growth. Nevertheless the question whether economic growth causes structural change or change in the economic structure causes aggregate growth is still unanswered. To shed...

A consensus in the growth literature is that scale effects of R&D are non-existent across mature industrialized economies. However, the scrutiny across emerging economies is lacklustre at best. The empirical studies of scale effects also leave the issues of unbalanced regression (non-standard...

Nighttime lights data are a measure of economic activity whose measurement error is plausibly independent of the errors of most conventional indicators. Therefore, we can use nighttime lights as an independent benchmark to assess existing measures of economic activity (Pinkovskiy and...

Using cross-sectional time series data, we examine the effects of income, institutions and social capital on literacy and life expectancy. An improvement in institutions has positive influence on literacy but does not seem to affect life expectancy. In addition, countries with high income may...

We investigate the relationship between diversity and productivity in Europe using an original dataset covering the NUTS 3 regions of 12 countries of the EU15 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, former Western Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United...

Unified growth theory predicts that the timing of the fertility transition is a key determinant of contemporary comparative development, as it marks the onset of the take-off to sustained growth. Neoclassical growth theory presupposes a take-off, and explains comparative development by...

We investigate the relationship between diversity and productivity in Europe using an original dataset covering the NUTS 3 regions of 12 countries of the EU15 (Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, former Western Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden and the United...

This paper provides a new data set of regional income inequalities within countries based on satellite nighttime light data. We first empirically study the relationship between luminosity data and regional incomes for those countries where regional income data are available. We subsequently use...