In contrast to cross-country studies, the paper investigates the relationships between trade and labour productivity for nine rapidly developing Asian countries in a time-series framework using a vector error-correction model. Independent tests on the long-run and short-run relationship between trade variables of exports and imports and productivity are conducted. The results suggest that trade has an important impact on productivity and output growth in the economy, however it is imports that provide the important ‘virtuous’ link between trade and output growth. The results indicate that exports and imports have qualitatively different impacts on labour productivity. The long-run result shows that there is no causal effect from exports to labour productivity growth for Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Taiwan and Thailand; thereby suggesting that there is no export-led productivity growth in these countries. However, significant causal effects were found from imports to productivity growth, suggesting import-led productivity growth in India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Taiwan. In addition, the results indicate that imports tend to have greater positive impact on productivity growth in the long run.

Just how important is physical location as a source of small-firm advantage? In this paper we consider this question by testing the predictive validity of three classic perspectives: central-place theory, spatial interaction theory and the principle of minimum differentiation. In addition, we identify and test two managergrounded hypotheses focusing on locational continuity and transactional convenience. We test these hypotheses on a sample of small U.S. retail hardware stores and find significant support for central-place theory and both manager-grounded hypotheses.

This study examines the impact of economic institutions on ecological footprint and their spatial spillover effects globally, covering the period from 2000 to 2021. We focus on economic institutions because institutions that espouse economic freedom are essential for safeguarding environmental quality. We hypothesize that the spatial influence of these institutions varies both globally and regionally. The Moran's I test reveals significant spatial associations among countries, while the Wald and likelihood tests identify the spatial Durbin model as the most appropriate approach. Furthermore, the Hausman test indicates that a fixed effects model best captures the coefficients. Globally, economic institutions demonstrate a direct reduction effect of 16.4% and a spillover reduction effect of 4.4% on ecological footprint. However, these effects show considerable regional variation. In North America, East Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and Central Asia, economic institutions effectively reduce ecological footprint, while their impact is negligible in other regions. These regional differences underscore the importance of addressing institutional deficiencies, encouraging policymakers in regions with limited effects to learn from best practices to enhance institutional effectiveness. These insights collectively advance the literature on economic institutions and environmental economics, emphasizing regional policy adaptation and the transboundary effects of institutional quality. The findings further reveal that economic institutions moderate GDP per capita to curb ecological footprint significantly. These conclusions hold even after addressing endogeneity using the generalized spatial two-stage least squares method. The study recommends that policies promoting economic freedom are essential to mitigate global environmental degradation.

We provide a simple model to illustrate that tax and redistributive considerations as well as increasing globalization may lead workers unexposed to the threat of unemployment to prefer government spending on active labour market programmes to passive spending, e.g., on unemployment benefits. In the empirical work, panel data for OECD countries are used to examine the relationship between active and passive labour market spending and various controls relevant for analysing the political economy of labour market policies. Overall, we find that domestic concerns, such as government indebtedness, are far more important determinants of labour market expenditures than global influences.