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Emerging countries are increasingly concerned with improving their competitiveness and productivity. This Element develops a robust econometric methodology, based on controlling for usual unobservable effects at the firm or plant level. By robust empirical results in total factor productivity (TFP), we mean estimating investment climate (IC) elasticities, or semi-elasticities, with equal signs and similar magnitudes for more than ten different competing TFP measures. The key to achieve similar empirical results for several TFP measures is to avoid having a problem omitted variables, achieved through imputation of large proportions of missing observations in relevant variables (i.e. the capital stock). Furthermore through the use of a new concept of aggregate TFP (tfpIC), that measures the associated IC effects on firm´s tfp, we are able to make meaningful cross-country firm´s level productivity comparisons, avoiding the usual problem of comparing 'apples with oranges' that would otherwise occur if we directly compare country's TFP measurements.

The main objective of this paper is to analyse the different sources of asymmetric price transmissions in the fuel market for France, Germany and Spain. During the last decades,the EU has carried out several common energy policies to achieve more efficient and competitive markets. However, given the specific characteristics of each country, the question we want to address is if fuel prices across EU members behave differently in response to different market structures. Oil operators have been targeted by competition authorities for conducting non-competitive practices. To figure out whether the common complaint that gasoline prices adjust differently to positive or negative input price changes, dynamic asymmetric models for the mean and variance are developed for each country. Several asymmetric specifications for the mean and variance are considered and the best specification combines double threshold error correction models (DT-ECM) for the mean with asymmetric EGARCH plus dummy variables for the conditional variance. We show that French gasoline prices behave more competitively, adjusting quicker to the long-run equilibrium and with higher price volatility. This outcome is consistent with the strong presence of hypermarkets following low-cost pricing strategies in France. ; Alvaro Escribano is grateful for the funding provided by Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad, Funder Id: 10.13039/501100003329, Grant Number: ECO2016-00105-001, MDM 2014- 0431 and Agencia Estatal de Investigación: 2019/00419/001. Comunidad de Madrid, Grant Number: MadEco-CM S2015/HUM-3444.

The Investment Climate surveys (ICSs) are valuable instruments which improve our understanding of the economic, social, political and institutional factors determining economic growth, particularly in emerging and transition economies. However, at the same time, they have to overcome some difficult issues related with the quality of the information provided; measurement errors, outlier observations and missing data are frequently found in this datasets. In this paper we discuss the applicability of recent procedures to deal with missing observations in IC surveys. In particular we present a simple replacement mechanism—for application in models with a large number of explanatory variables—, which we call the ICA method, which in turn is a proxy of two methods: multiple imputation and EM algorithm. We evaluate the performance of this ICA method in the context of TFP estimation in extended production functions using ICSs from four countries: India, South Africa, Tanzania and Turkey. We find that the ICA method is very robust and performs reasonably well even under different assumptions on the nature of the mechanism generating missing data.

Spain has recently experienced more than a decade of price stability and economic growth however now is showing one of the most significant slowdowns in economic activity of the EU economies. There is a general consensus that this slowdown in economic activity is particularly important in Spain due to the low level and low rates of growth experienced by total factor productivity (TFP) during more than a decade. Among the key policy elements that could enhance TFP of manufacturing firms in Spain we find those related to human capital, foreign direct investment, and process innovations. We evaluate the effect of recessions on the productivity growth of firms with different level of productivity. We present evidence on the dynamic of firm's TFP through the business cycle allowing for a differentiated behavior for technological leaders and followers. We observe lower persistence and faster convergence in TFP during recessions and, higher persistence and non convergence in TFP during expansions. These empirical findings are consistent with the predictions obtained from the technological diffusion literature and from the fact that firm's innovation is pro-cyclical. These conclusions are obtained from a microeconometric analysis of surveys of Spanish manufacturing firms (ESEE) from 1991 to year 2005.

This paper introduce a list of desirable efficiency properties that any a patent system should have in order to enhance innovation, trade competitiveness, employment mobility and economic growth. We briefly overview the literature on patents and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the present and recent proposals for the future of the European Union Patents System. In particular, we discuss the costinefficiencies observed in the current design of the EU Patent System based in a double structure layer divided in a central European Patent Office (EPO) and several nationalbased patent offices. This paper analyzes the likely backlashes of creating a third layer for a sub‐sample of EU countries. The paper suggests an alternative more efficient Patent System together with some policy implications.

This paper introduce a list of desirable efficiency properties that any a patent system should have in order to enhance innovation, trade competitiveness, employment mobility and economic growth. We briefly overview the literature on patents and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the present and recent proposals for the future of the European Union Patents System. In particular, we discuss the costinefficiencies observed in the current design of the EU Patent System based in a double structure layer divided in a central European Patent Office (EPO) and several nationalbased patent offices. This paper analyzes the likely backlashes of creating a third layer for a sub‐sample of EU countries. The paper suggests an alternative more efficient Patent System together with some policy implications.

Government policies and behavior exert a strong influence on the investment climate through their impact on costs, risks and barriers to competition. Key factors affecting the investment climate through their impact on costs are: corruption, taxes, the regulatory burden and extent of red tape in general, factor markets (labor, intermediate materials and capital), the quality of infrastructure, technological and innovation support, and the availability and cost of finance. While the investment climate surveys are quite useful in identifying major issues and bottlenecks as perceived by firms, the data collected is also meant to provide the basic information for an econometric assessment of the impact or contribution of the investment climate (IC) variables on productivity. We believe that improving the investment climate (IC) is a key policy instrument to promote economic growth and to mitigate the institutional, legal, economic and social factors that are constraining the convergence of per capita income and labor productivity of Turkey relative to more developed countries. For that, we need to identify the main investment climate variables that affect economic performance measures like total factor productivity, employment, wages, exports and foreign direct investment and this is the main goal of this paper. In turn, that quantified impact is used in the advocacy for, and design of, investment-climate reforms.