The paper explores the linkages between political risk, institutions and foreign direct investment inflows. Using different econometric techniques for a data sample of 83 developing countries and the period 1984 to 2003, we identify those indicators that matter most for the activities of...

In this paper we find evidence that the new economic geography approach is able to describe and explain the spatial characteristics of an economy, in our case the German economy. Using German district data we estimate the structural parameters of a new economic geography model as developed by...

Can process conditionality really enhance poverty reduction in developing countries? This question is addressed in the framework of a politico-economic model considering political distortions both on the recipient and on the donor side. It turns out that process conditionality is a very useful...

This paper presents a critical assessment of the widely discussed concept of Islamic Economics. The two different interpretations of Islamic economics as the study of the functioning of an interest-free economy and the validity of moral values in the economy are discussed. It is shown that none...

Variations of bilateral aid flows are difficult to explain on the basis of official development objectives or recipient need. At the example of US aid to Pakistan, this paper suggests alternative political economic explanations, notably the relevance of ethnic lobbying and the relevance of US...

In almost all European countries there is a wide and growing gap between the goals of national immigration policy and its actual outcomes. The main reason for the failure of national migration policies is the loss of effective competence to control today's migration flows on a national level....

Border regions and border effects currently attract a lot of attention in political practice and economic research. Substantial interest in regions located along the frontiers of integrating countries is predominantly inspired by the presumption that their specific geographic position might...

German wind power development is a technological success story but has involved very high subsidies. Germany was a latecomer in wind power but specific political conditions in the late 1980s and early 1990s allowed the implementation of the feed in tariff regime which has characterised Germany...

The article is based on the idea that geographic proximity is an essential factor for international integration policies due to its impact on the intensity of bilateral foreign trade and growth rate. Development is analysed as a process of structural diversification, whereby the country in...

This paper takes a welfare-view on eastern enlargement of the EU, focusing on incumbent countries. Enlargement is decomposed into three elements: Single-market integration on commodity markets, budgetary costs from EU-expenditure policies, and single market- induced migration from new to present...