We model ‘new ideas’ production in a panel of 17 emerging countries. Our results reveal: (i) ideas production is duplicative, (ii) externality associated with domestic knowledge stocks is of above unit factor proportionality, (iii) OECD countries raise the innovation-bar for emerging countries, (iv) there is no significant knowledge diffusion across emerging countries, and (v) growth in emergin...

Over the last 20 years, acute-care hospitals in most OECD countries have built up costly overcapacities. From the perspective of economic policy, it is desirable to know how hospitals of different ownership forms respond to changes in demand and are probably best suited to deal with existing overcapacities. This article examines ownership-specific differences in the responsiveness to changes in...

This paper provides an historical overview of aid flows to North Africa. It assesses the aid allocation process and argues that past aid flows to the region have been heavily influenced by donor political interests. This has reduced the effectiveness of aid which, with the exception of Tunisia, has not been associated with sustained economic growth. The Arab Spring provides an opportunity to re...

The relationship between decentralization and economic growth is generally studied from a perspective stressing universal or quasi-universal regularities across countries. That approach has generated many insights but seems to reach its limits. The paper explains why it allows contrasting positions with regard to the benefits of decentralization even among proponents of free and competitive mar...

It has long been argued that the legalization of same-sex marriage would have a negative impact on marriage. In this article, I examine how different-sex marriage in the Netherlands was affected by the enactment of two laws: a 1998 law that provided all couples with an institution almost identical to marriage (a "registered partnership") and a 2001 law that legalized same-sex marriage for the f...

This paper explores the empirical relationship between unemployment rate and product market competition in eighteen OECD countries through three sets of quantitative analyses. We find that the effect of competition on employment depends on the existing competition intensity and the relationship between the unemployment and competition appears to be inverted-N shape—in countries where existing c...

* The views expressed in this paper are solely those of the authors and are not in any way endorsed by the Federal Reserve or the OECD. The authors are also solely responsible for any errors or omissions.