Using various methods, the size of the shadow economy in 76 developing, transition, and OECD countries is estimated. Average size varies from 12 percent of GDP for OECD countries, to 23 percent for transition countries and 39 percent for developing countries. Increasing taxation and social security contributions combined with rising state regulations are driving forces for the increase of the shadow economy, especially in OECD countries. According to some findings, corruption has a positive impact on the size of the shadow economy, and a growing shadow economy has a negative effect on official GDP growth.

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Shadow Economies: Size, Causes, and Consequences

While the study of psychology has offered little in the way of explaining the creative process, Koestler examines the idea that we are at our most creative when rational thought is suspended--for example, in dreams and trancelike states. All who read The Act of Creation will find it a compelling and illuminating book.

The Act of Creation

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 521 82347 1 hardback ISBN 0 521 53032 6 paperback Contents List of tables page vii Preface to the second edition ix Preface to the first edition xii 1 Why a global language? 1 What is a global language? 3 What makes a global language? 7 Why do we need a global language? 11 What are the dangers of a global language? 14 Could anything stop a global language? 25 A critical era 27 2 Why English? The historical context 29 Origins 30 America 31 Canada 36 The Caribbean 39 Australia and New Zealand 40 South Africa 43 South Asia 46 Former colonial Africa 49 Southeast Asia and the South Pacific 54 A world view 59 v Contents

English as a global language

Instrumental variables was first used in the 1920s to estimate supply and demand elasticities and later to correct for measurement error in single equation models. Recently, instrumental variables have been widely used to reduce bias from omitted variables in estimates of causal relationships. Intuitively, instrumental variables methods use only a portion of the variability in key variables to estimate the relationships of interest; if the instruments are valid, that portion is unrelated to the omitted variables. We discuss the mechanics of instrumental variables and the qualities that make for a good instrument, devoting particular attention to instruments derived from "natural experiments."

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Instrumental Variables and the Search for Identification: From Supply and Demand to Natural Experiments

We survey and assess the literature on the positive and negative effects of ethnic diversity on economic policies and outcomes. Our focus is on both focus both cities in developed countries (the US) and villages in developing countries. We also consider the endogenous formation of political jurisdictions and we highlight several open issues in need of further research.

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Ethnic Diversity and Economic Performance

Over the last 30 or 40 years a substantial literature has grown up in which the tools of economic theory and analysis have been applied to problems in the arts and culture. Economists who have surveyed the field generally locate the origins of contemporary cultural economics as being in 1966, the year of publication of the first major work in modern times dedicated specifically to the economics of the arts. It was a book by Baumol and Bowen which showed that economic analysis could illuminate the supply of and demand for artistic services, the contribution of the arts sector to the economy, and the role of public policy. Following the appearance of the Baumol and Bowen work, interest in the economics of the arts grew steadily, embracing areas such as demand for the arts, the economic functions of artists, the role of the nonprofit sector, and other areas. Cultural economics also expanded to include the cultural or entertainment industries (the media, movies, the publishing industry, popular music), as well as heritage and museum management, property right questions (in particular copyright) and the role of new communication technologies such as the internet. The field is therefore located at the crossroads of several disciplines: economics and management, but also art history, art philosophy, sociology and law. The Handbook is placed firmly in economics, but it also builds bridges across these various disciplines and will thus be of interest to researchers in all these different fields, as well as to those who are engaged in cultural policy issues and the role of culture in the development of our societies.

Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture

The so-called Principle of Minimum Differentiation, stated by Hotelling, has been challenged by many authors. This paper restores the Principle by showing that n firms locate at the center of the market and charge prices higher than the marginal cost of production when heterogeneity in consumers' tastes is "large enough."

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The Principle of Minimum Differentiation Holds Under Sufficient Heterogeneity

General equilibrium and AGE modeling are both active fields of research Yet the applied model builder often finds the style of theoretical papers inaccessible, while the theoretician hardly recognizes the concepts used in the equations of applied models The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium Models bridges that gap through a comprehensive analysis of the theoretical underpinnings of the applied models

The structure of applied general equilibrium models

Competitive equilibrium optimal production and consumption allocations applied general equilibrium international trade taxes, tariffs and quotas price rigidities finite-horizon dynamics infinite-horizon dynamics externalities nonconvexities imperfect competition money and incomplete asset markets. Appendices: mathematical background a GAMS application assumptions.

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The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium Models

The role of experts is dramatically increasing in our societies, where sorting information about quality is becoming more and more difficult. This paper looks at expertise in the arts (movies, novels and musical interpretation) and shows that expert opinion given shortly after the work has been produced (Oscars, prizes, rankings in musical competitions) may influence success, though it does not always recognize talent and does often not survive the "test of time," considered by many art philosophers, since Hume, as one of the possible measures of fundamental aesthetic quality.

Victor Ginsburgh

Papers

Handbook of the Economics of Art and Culture

The Principle of Minimum Differentiation Holds Under Sufficient Heterogeneity

The structure of applied general equilibrium models

The Structure of Applied General Equilibrium Models

Awards, Success and Aesthetic Quality in the Arts