What factors determine the environmental and quality of life conditions that exist in different regions of the world? What factors can explain how these conditions evolve through time? This paper empirically examines the answers to these questions, focusing on the link between economic freedom, its impact on institutional formation, and environmental quality. Compiling a new panel data set that...

We study the impact of unobservable stochastic replacements for the long-run player in the classical reputation model with a long-run player and a series of short-run players. We provide explicit lower bounds on the Nash equilibrium payoffs of a long-run player, both ex-ante and following any positive probability history. Under general conditions on the convergence rates of the discount factor ...

This paper explores the role of imports as a mechanism of transmission of international technological spillovers and the significance of these for the growth and economic convergence of the OECD countries. For this purpose a growth model is estimated that includes amongst its determinants a measure of the stock of technological knowledge. The results reveal first that international technologica...

This paper compares the characteristics of M&A in 1991-2005 across five countries: Japan, France, Germany, the UK and USA. We ask what factors explain the growth of M&A markets across these countries, and what similarities and differences exist in the ways the M&A market operates. We find that the growth of M&A reflects a rather similar combination of sectoral, international, and financial fact...

The paper describes the current competition policy framework in Hong Kong: how it came into existence, what business practices are prohibited, and how the enforcement system works. Recent cases in the telecommunications industry are used to illustrate the sectoral approach, the unique feature of Hong Kong’s competition policy. The paper argues that a sectoral approach faces two fundamental draw...

A chronic wound is a wound that does not heal in an orderly set of stages and in a predictable amount of time or wounds that do not heal within three months are often considered chronic. Chronic wounds often remain in the inflammatory stage for too long and may never heal or may take years. Chronic wound patients often report pain as dominant in their lives. Persistent pain is the main problem ...