abstract research and development (r&d;) spending plays a major role in innovation, raising productivity and increasing economic growth. the purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of r&d; spending on growth and total factor productivity (tfp) in iran's agricultural sector. we estimate growth and productivity models using auto-regressive distributed lag (ardl) approach and data over ...

Over the last three decades, ambient concentrations of sulfur dioxide (SO2) air pollution have declined by approximately 80%. This paper tests whether the 1970 Clean Air Act and its subsequent amendments caused this decline. The centerpiece of this legislation is the annual assignment of all counties to SO2 nonattainment or attainment categories. Polluters face stricter regulations in nonattain...

Attention to the quality of human capital in different countries naturally leads to concerns about how school policies relate to student performance. The data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) provide a way of comparing performance in different schooling systems. The results of analyses of educational production functions within a range of developed and developi...

We seek to explain why countries have adopted national Old-Age Insurance and Health Insurance programs. Theoretical work has posited several factors that could lead to this adoption: the strain from expanding capitalism; the need for political legitimacy; the desire to transfer to similar people; increased wealth; and the outcome of leviathan government. We relate the probability of a country’s...

Shadow Economies and Corruption All Over the World: What Do We Really Know? Estimations of the size and development of the shadow economy for 145 countries, including developing, transition and highly developed OECD economies over the period 1999 to 2003 are presented. The average size of the shadow economy (as a percent of “official” GDP) in 2002/03 in 96 developing countries is 38.7%, in 25 t...

The Politicians’ Wage Gap: Insights from German Members of Parliament Using a unique dataset of German members of parliament with information on total earnings including outside income, this paper analyzes the politicians’ wage gap (PWG). After controlling for observable characteristics as well as accounting for selection into politics, we find a positive PWG which is statistically and economic...

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between the shadow economy and corruption as determinants of public debt in the Spanish Autonomous Communities. In addition, we construct a Corruption Perception Index for those regions. Our data constitute panel data for the period 2000–2012. The results show that the volume of the shadow economy has a significant and positive impact on region...

This paper inverts the usual logic of applied optimal income taxation. It starts from the observed distribution of income before and after redistribution and corresponding marginal tax rates. Under a set of simplifying assumptions, it is then possible to recover the social welfare function that would make the observed marginal tax rate schedule optimal. In this framework, the issue of the optim...

This paper analyses the efficiency of centralized public goods provision in a model of incomplete contracts. Politicians determine the level of provision through wasteful yet publicly unobservable lobbying efforts. Thereby a threat of dismissal from office caused by regional expectations in terms of reservation utility induces politicians to push for influence of their region’s taste. In a stat...

Article history: Received 14 November 2014 Received in revised form 20 May 2015 Accepted 21 May 2015 Available online 29 May 2015 This paper investigates the relationship between political instability and labour market institutions. We develop a theoretical model in which political instability creates incentives for a government to introduce labour market regulation in the economy. The distorti...