What Drives the Historical Formation and Persistent Development of Territorial States?

The importance of the length of state history for understanding variations in income levels and growth rates across countries has received a lot of attention in the recent literature on long‐run comparative development. The literature, however, is silent about its origins. This paper explores the determinants of statehood by considering the potential roles of an early transition to fully‐fledged agricultural production, the adoption of state‐of‐the‐art military innovations, and the opportunity for economic interaction with the regional economic leader. The results demonstrate that only the association between economic interaction and the rise and development of the state is statistically robust.     

The Innovative Performance Of The World'S Largest Firms: Some New Evidence ‡

Data on R & D expenditures and US patenting in the world's 660 largest, technologically active firms both show a linear relation between firm size and the volume of innovative activities, despite some inconsistencies between the two measures. Technological diversity increases with firm size, but relatively weakly, especially in R & D-intensive sectors. Sectoral variations in the comparative technological advantage of large firms based in Japan, the USA and W. Europe are better explained by variations in rivalry in their home market than by variations in their size.     

REGIONAL GDP IN BRITAIN, 1871–1911: SOME ESTIMATES

The paper builds on a method proposed by Geary and Stark for estimating regional incomes in Victorian Britain. This is modified by using tax data to allocate non‐wage income across regions. The results suggest that the coefficient of variation of regional GDP per head was rising rapidly prior to World War I in similar fashion to the late 20th century such that its level in 1901 and 2001 was about the same. In both episodes of globalization there were big winners and big losers among British regions.     

从"10+3"看东亚区域经济合作的方式

东亚区域合作面临许多难题，贯穿“东盟方式”的“10 3”合作是东亚目前的主导形式，但这一合作的诸多缺憾使东亚区域合作很难沿这一方向深入下去。2002年初，小泉纯一郎在新加坡描述了一个称为“东亚共同体”的设想，实际是鼓吹以双边自由贸易协定网而非区域经济一体化的方式来实现东亚的区域合作。的确，双边自由贸易协定网的方式不但符合东盟强调自立的合作原则，也迎合了外部特别是美国在这一地区的利益，易为各方接受，却从根本上堵住了东亚通往更具机制化合作的道路。笔者认为东亚区域合作的必然选择是大国协调为基础的区域经济一体化，这虽然需要一个艰难的调整过程，但却是在全球化条件下保障东亚各国利益的惟一选择。     

DOES MONOPOLISTIC COMPETITION EXIST IN THE MENA REGION? EVIDENCE FROM THE BANKING SECTOR

The goal of this paper is to empirically assess the level of banking competition in selected Middle East and Northern African (MENA) countries. The analysis employs the estimation of a non‐structural indicator (H‐statistic) introduced by Panzar and Rosse and draws upon a panel dataset of eight MENA countries (Algeria, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and United Arab Emirates) over the period 1997–2012. The empirical findings are robust towards three different panel data econometric techniques (Ordinary Least Squares, Pooled Generalized Least Squares with Fixed Effects, and Generalized Method of Moments) and consistent with other similar studies, providing sufficient evidence in favour of a banking monopolistic competition regime. Furthermore, the estimation of three other alternative measures of competition (Lerner index, adjusted Lerner index, and conduct parameter) provides similar results, revealing that the banking sector in the MENA region is characterized by a low level of Significant Market Power (SMP). Overall, the analysis shows that, despite similarities in the process of financial regulatory reforms undertaken in the eight MENA countries, the observed competition levels of banks vary substantially, with Algeria and Morocco consistently outperforming the rest of the region.     

Lifestyles of the rich and polygynous in Cote d’Ivoire

This paper investigates whether the sources of income, not just the levels, determine whether an individual is monogamous. Our results support the idea that polygyny stunts development by allowing wealthy men to acquire wives rather than investing in child quality.     

Evidence disclosure and verifiability

We explore the notion of “verifiability” by analyzing a simple model of evidence production in contractual relationships with complete information. We characterize implementability in terms of the existence and form of “hard evidence.” We provide results on maximal and minimal evidence production that are, respectively, necessary and sufficient for implementation. We briefly discuss the relevance of our results to actual legal institutions.