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This paper re-examines the relationship between exports and economic growth in OECD countries. We apply the multi-horizon causality method developed by Dufour et al. (J Econ 132(2):337-362, 2006) for the first time, taking into account the possibility of infrequent structural trend breaks. Econometric techniques that avoid the circular problem when testing for segmented trends and unit roots have been employed along with a hybrid estimator of break location. The empirical evidence indicates that there is a unidirectional causal relationship from exports to economic growth for Finland, Germany, and the United States in the short run horizon, and directly in the cases of Austria and Ireland. We verify a direct causal relation from economic growth to real exports in France, Luxembourg and Portugal in various continuous horizons. Bidirectional causal relations between exports and economic growth were detected in Greece and Norway. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Does foreign direct investment (FDI) lead to higher growth? What type of FDI really works? In this paper, we disaggregate FDIs based on their technological characteristics and investigate which kind of FDI leads to output growth. The results for the sample of OECD countries during the period 1985–2012 indicate that FDI inflows to Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) using and producing manufacturing and service sectors (ICT-based), non-ICT using and producing manufacturing and service sectors (non-ICT-based) and other sectors (non-ICT-other) play no role in contributing to economic growth. However, we provide evidence that absorptive capacities of host countries work through ICT-based FDI inflows. Only if the host countries have sufficient level of human capital, financial resources and technological infrastructure, ICT-based FDI will foster economic growth. The results are robust to controlling missing values, studying the subsample of emerging market economies and consideration of endogeneity. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Using data for 17 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries over 29 years for 28 industries, this paper estimates industry-wise research and development (R&D) spillovers from the largest R&D investors and the most R&D-intensive industries that contribute 80% of global R&D. In doing so, it tests several assumptions made in the literature, and data rejecting them, proposes a methodology on R&D return estimation devoid of these assumptions. Results show that R&D has substantial spillovers, justifying R&D support policy. Each dollar of R&D generates about 29 cents in spillovers domestically and 4 cents in foreign countries. However, both intra- and inter-industry spillovers vary by industries, implying that the policy of supporting each R&D dollar uniformly across industries is suboptimal. Contrary to industry heterogeneity, the R&D spillovers from an industry do not vary substantially across countries, suggesting that optimal R&D policy across OECD countries might be uniform. An industry-by-industry technology matrix shows that sometimes an idea generates a greater impact on other industries than where it is generated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study of the impact of economic freedom, regulatory quality and the relative burden of taxation on the level of per capita real income/GDP among OECD nations over the period 2003 to 2007 adopts a modified version of the overall economic freedom index computed by the Heritage Foundation (2013), one with the fiscal freedom and business freedom indices removed. This study then provides panel least squares fixed-effects estimates for five linear specifications/models. Each nation during this time frame can be regarded either as a nation per se or as a de facto ‘economic region’ within the OECD. The analysis first focuses upon all of the OECD nations and then, as a robustness test, subsequently focuses only on non-G8 OECD member nations. The estimations in this study all provide strong empirical support for the three central hypotheses proffered here, namely: (1) the higher the overall degree of economic freedom, the higher the per capita real income (GDP) level; (2) the higher the level of regulatory quality, the higher the level of per capita real income (GDP) and (3) the higher the overall tax burden, expressed as a per cent of GDP, the lower is the level of per capita real income (GDP). [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article distinguishes two sources of productivity increases, namely product/process innovations and trade innovations. An empirical analysis for 13 OECD countries shows that product/process innovations, represented by aggregated investments in Research and Development (R&D), are major determinants for productivity growth in large industrial countries, whereas trade innovations, represented by export intensity, seem to contribute most to productivity in trade-oriented economies. These trade innovations relate to the ability to reduce transaction costs so that these trading nations specialize in the organization of production in this era of globalization where the production chain is split up in more and more component parts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This empirical study investigates the impacts on economic growth of reduced fiscal freedom from both the taxing and spending sides. After controlling for nominal long term interest rates, net exports, federal government budget deficits, and other factors, panel two stage least squares estimations using a 4-year panel data set for the OECD nations as a group reveals that reduced fiscal freedom leads to a reduced rate of economic growth; furthermore, it is found that reduced freedom from excessive government size also leads to a reduced rate of economic growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]