This paper assesses the heterogeneous effects of immigration on economic growth depending on both the origin and the destination countries. Following the development of a simple growth model augmented by the embodied human capital of immigrants, we estimate the growth equation using both a gravity-style instrument variable approach and the dynamic system-GMM estimator. We find that immigration from developed economies positively affects the economic growth of the host countries. Furthermore, the growth-enhancing effect of immigration is significantly larger when immigration flows from developed to developing economies than when it does to those that include both developed and developing economies. We interpret these results as evidence of immigrants from developed countries bringing with them -upon entry -their advanced knowledge on technology and institutions into the developing countries that host them. JEL classification codes: F22, O15, O41, O43

In this paper, we trace the survival status of more than 110,000 Russian firms from 2007-2015 and examine the relationship between legal forms of incorporation and firm survivability across industries and different periods of economic crisis and growth. Applying the Cox proportional hazards model, we find an optimal legal form that maximizes the probability of firm survival: closed joint-stock companies and those adopting limited liability survive longer than open joint-stock companies, partnerships, or cooperatives. This relationship is robust across periods of boom and recession and across industries.

We measure the informal economy and shortages of consumer goods in the Soviet republics from 1965 to 1989 to estimate the relationships of these two variables. We use fixed-effect model and instrument variable approach and find that the informal economy and shortages reinforce each other. Results indicate that the Soviet central planning system is difficult to sustain in the long run. A substantial heterogeneity across the Soviet republics exists not only in the extent of the informal economy and shortages, but also in the associations of the two variables.

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