This paper studies the impact of trade liberalization in terms of tariff cuts within the Eastern European enlargement on German and Austrian firm productivity. Unique matching of data from 1994 to 2003 suggests that tariff reductions raise parent firm productivity significantly. A ten percentage point decrease in tariff rates can lead to total factor productivity gains of up to 2 percent. The d...

By Choice and by Necessity: Entrepreneurship and Self-Employment in the Developing World Over half of all workers in the developing world are self-employed. Although some selfemployment is chosen by entrepreneurs with well-defined projects and ambitions, roughly two thirds results from individuals having no better alternatives. The importance of selfemployment in the overall distribution of job...

We construct a dynamic general equilibrium model to analyze the effects of large energy subsidies in a small open economy. The model includes domestic energy production and consumption, trade in energy at world market prices, as well as private and public sector production. The model is calibrated to Egypt and used to study reforms such as reductions in energy subsidies with corresponding reduc...

The share of manufacturing in output follows an inverted U shape over the course of development. However, both the timing and the magnitude of structural change differ substantially across countries. I show a simple open economy model of structural change can explain why countries with lower aggregate productivity industrialize more slowly and start de-industrialization at a lower share of manu...

Agricultural industries, as well other are experiencing profound changes a result of Industry 4.0. A key enabler technology that is becoming increasingly incorporated into agricultural equipment combination cyber-physical systems, machine learning, the Internet things, robots, artificial intelligence, cloud, and cognitive computing, which all technologies allow sector to achieve this transforma...

Energy costs are included in the rent for many US apartments, giving tenants little incentive to conserve. This apparent market failure has two explanations: the tenants value the utility-included rental contracts more than they value the extra energy they consume, or the landlords value the contracts more than the cost of that extra energy. We use the Residential Energy Consumption Survey and ...

One important determinant of the speed and success of transition will be the efficiency of transformation and development of the infrastructure sectors. A great deal of attention has been paid to issues such as privatisation, restructuring, user prices, and terms of access in these sectors, regarding both developed and developing countries. Some issues regarding vertical restructuring are notab...

Regionalization is a part of globalization and a dynamic process of marching towards globalization. The so-called NADEs (Northeast Asia’s Dynamic Economies) including Japan, Korea and China are expected to lead economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region. This paper analyzes the trade and investment relationships among the three countries, points out the necessity for their technological coopera...

One important determinant of the speed and success of transition will be the efficiency of transformation and development of the infrastructure sectors. A great deal of attention has been paid to issues such as privatisation, restructuring, user prices, and terms of access in these sectors, regarding both developed and developing countries. Some issues regarding vertical restructuring are notab...

This paper builds a model of growth through industrialization, where machines replace workers in a growing number of tasks. This enables the economy to experience long-run growth, as machines become servants of humans, and as their number grows unboundedly. The mechanism that drives growth is feedback between industrialization and wages. High wages provide incentives to use machines, while indu...