We conduct a systematic study of the impact of European Union (EU) regional policies on regional economic growth that controls for national policies and geographic characteristics. Special care is taken in distinguishing between the impact of EU policies and of national policies on economic growth. Our empirical study tries to answer two different questions. First, is there convergence across EU regions, and if so, do regions converge to a common European steady-state or to a national one? Second, how do European and national policies affect regional growth? We find evidence of regional convergence at the national level but not at the European level. In addition we find that trade openness at the national level is associated with regional convergence while European regional policies contribute, though weakly, to regional convergence. Our results suggest that policies that foster market integration -and convergence to a common steady-state -such as the promotion of labour and capital movements across countries and common regulatory policies are as important for European-wide regional convergence as regional structural funds.
Abstract.We compare the performance of Cape Verde and Mozambique concerning financial credibility as measured by Exchange Market Pressure, an institutional feature that has often been overlooked in the literature as a relevant institution for economies. Drawing on previous research by , we expand their analysis and, using several definitions of "financial credibility", all related to different angles on Exchange Market Pressure indices, we conclude that -against reasonable benchmarks in their respective regions -financial credibility has been very good for Cape Verde and fairly good for Mozambique.
July 2010This paper is part of the NBER project on African development successes described in Macedo and Pereira (2009). The authors thank NBER and the Center for Globalization and Governance at FEUNL for financial support and encouragement.
ABSTRACT. We assess the determinants of Chinese direct investment in Africa compared with those of global FDI. We find that economic size and macroeconomic stability are positively correlated with Chinese and global FDI in Africa. Institutional variables, such as accountability and rule of law, are not significant in either case and the same can be said about FDI-aid complementarities. The presence of oil is a determinant of Chinese FDI but not of global FDI into Africa. Conversely, the openness of the economy is a determinant for global FDI but not of Chinese FDI, which appears to favour closed economies possibly due to industrial organizational concerns. While these differences accord with intuition, we find no evidence for the claim that Chinese FDI in Africa is related to non-economic governance in a specific way that differs from global practice. More refined governance indicators should be used to verify whether Chinese and global FDI into Africa remain indistinguishable on this score: we plan to do this in future research.JEL Classification:
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