The presence of foreign multinational enterprises (MNEs) should benefit local economies. In particular if MNEs are particularly productive compared to domestic firms they may promote learning and catch-up of local firms. Such channel of spillovers from MNEs to local firms is known as the Veblen...

We assess the impact of cardiovascular disease (CVD) mortality on economic growth, using a dynamic panel growth regression framework taking into account potential endogeneity problems. We start from a worldwide sample of countries for which data was available and detect a non-linearity in the...

We find a significant export wage premium for higher-skilled workers and a significant export wage discount for lower-skilled workers, using a matched employer-employee data set for German manufacturing firms. Estimates suggest that up to one third of the overall skill premia is associated with...

In a recent meta study, Disdier and Head (2008) summarize 103 empirical studies that find that the (absolute value of the) distance coefficient in a gravity estimation of bilateral exports does not fall over time. Including zero-trade flows is suggested as a solution to this "distance-puzzle"...

This study distinguishes multinational firm (MNE) technology-spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, the model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from...

This paper explores theoretically and empirically the long run relation of the terms of trade (ratio of domestic and foreign prices of traded manufacturing goods) and economic growth of a pair of industrialized countries, one of which experiences a major catch-up process towards the other. It is...

This study discriminates FDI technology spillover from learning effects. Whenever learning takes time, our model predicts that foreign investors deduct the economic value of learning from wages of inexperienced workers and add it to experienced ones to prevent them from moving to local...