As the number of independent countries increases and their economies become more integrated, we would expect to observe more multi-country currency :::union:::s. This paper explores the pros and cons for different countries to adopt as an anchor the US Dollar, the Euro or the Yen. In addition, it addresses the question of how co-movement of outputs and prices would respond to the formation of ...

As the chances of a successful conclusion to the Doha Round of trade liberalization under the WTO become increasingly problematic, so the pace of negotiating local free trade agreements (FTAs) is increasing. According to the WTO report, countries in the Asia-Pacific region are “consolidating their drive towards regionalism at an accelerated pace”. After the trade agreements between China an...

A strong private equity market is a cornerstone for commercialization and innovation in modern economies. However, substantial differences exist in the relative amounts raised and invested in private equity across European countries. We investigate the macro-determinants of private equity investment in Europe, focusing on the comparison between CEE and Western European countries. Our estimation...

We examine convergence in carbon dioxide emissions among 128 countries for the period 1960-2003 by means of a new methodology introduced by Phillips and Sul (Econometrica, 2007). Contrary to previous studies, our approach allows us to examine for evidence of club convergence, i.e. identify groups of countries that converge to different equilibria. Our results suggest convergence in per capita C...

We use a firm production function approach to generate estimates of total factor productivity (TFP) and labor productivity in the manufacturing sector for a group of Latin American countries. We exploit these estimates to study the relative position of countries within this sector and to explore the main correlates of firm productivity. We find that while the exact ranking of average TFP is sen...

This paper considers the Greenspan/Summers/IMF (GSI) argument that the Asian way of doing business was the deep cause of the Asian crisis. The IMF reform programme for the crisis-affected Asian countries suggested they should abandon the Asian business model and adopt the US corporate model. The main findings are: a) contrary to GSI doctrine, poor corporate governance and lack of competition ar...

Our analysis of 19 OECD countries over the period 1972-2006 provides evidence of convergence in per capita health care expenditures for 17 countries, while the US and (to a lesser degree) Norway follow a different path. A simple decomposition of per capita health expenditures reveals that the divergence of the US comes from the divergence of the ‘health care expenditure over GDP’ component, whi...

The World Bank recognized the role of concerted state strategies in driving growth in a number of successful East Asian countries (World Bank 1993). However, this qualified recognition was attended with the observation that the appropriate state capacities for productive interventions were missing in most other developing countries. In these countries, attempts to replicate East Asian strategie...

To study whether foreign aid fuels personal, regional and ethnic favoritism, we use satellite data on nighttime light for any region in any aid-recipient country, and we determine for each year and each country the region in which the current political leader was born. Having a panel with 22,850 regions in 91 aid recipient countries with yearly observations from 1992 to 2005, we compare the eff...

This paper examines the composition of trade between the United States and eight Asian Pacific economies from 1962 to 1992. Analysis of the time series pattern of individual commodities at the SITC four-digit level reveals economically significant changes in the pattern of trade, reflecting changing comparative advantage based on changing factor proportions, technology transfer and product cycl...