The study of economic growth is concerned with long-run changes, and therefore, historical data should be especially influential in informing the development of new theories. In this review, we draw on the recent literature to highlight areas in which study of history has played a particularly prominent role in improving our understanding of growth dynamics. Research at the intersection of historical data, theory, and empirics has the potential to reframe how we think about economic growth in much the same way that historical perspectives helped to shape the first generation of endogenous growth theories.

This study analyzes the economic consequences of changes in the local bank presence. Using a unique data set of banks, firms and counties in Poland over the period 2009–14, it is shown that changes strengthening the relationship banking model are associated with local labour market improvements and easier small and medium-sized enterprise access to bank debt. However, only the appearance of new, more aggressive owners of large commercial banks stimulates new firm creation.

This paper explores how banks react to an exogenous shock caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, and how the structure of the banking system affects economic development following the shock. Independent banks based in the disaster areas increase their risk-based capital ratios after the hurricane, while those that are part of a bank holding company on average do not. The effect on independent banks mainly comes from the subgroup of highly capitalized banks. These independent and highly capitalized banks increase their holdings in government securities and reduce their total loan exposures to non-financial firms, while also increasing new lending to these firms. With regard to local economic development, affected counties with a relatively large share of independent banks and relatively high average bank capital ratios show higher economic growth than other affected counties following the catastrophic event.

The situation on the Korean Peninsula entered a new phase following the 2018 Winter Olympics, further evolving through the April 27 inter-Korean summit and June 12 Singapore summit between the U.S. and North Korea. Expectations are high for new exchanges and cooperation that would potentially lead to peace and prosperity on the Korean Peninsula. This would be a great chance to depart from hostility that has lasted over decades. However, it is expected to take some time until economic cooperation between the two Koreas resumes, as the negotiations for denuclearization still remain unresolved.

Understanding how banks react to unexpected events has become a very important economic and social question, especially since the financial crisis (Ivashina and Scharfstein, 2010; Puri et al., 2011). Whereas previous financial crises had largely stayed in the realm of finance, or very limited areas of the economy, the financial crisis of 2007-2008 demonstrated that unexpected financial shocks can have severe implications for the real economy in general, impacting the lives of a large cross-section of the population, for example through general reductions in employment (Chodorow- Reich, 2014; Popov and Rocholl, 2017). This new realization has led to an extensive literature on how banks react to unexpected events, especially if and how they transfer such shocks to firms and households. As a result, understanding exactly how shocks are transferred not only between banks (Popov and Udell, 2012; Schnabl, 2012), but also between banks and firms has become a crucial aspect of financial research (Peek and Rosengren, 2000; Gan, 2007; Ongena et al., 2015; Acharya et al., 2018; Gropp et al., 2018; Huber, 2018). It has returned into focus the idea that a functioning connection between banks and firms constitutes a crucial part of a well-functioning economy. This thesis aims to contribute to the understanding of how this bank-firm relationship functions and what pitfalls it might entail.

Point estimates and error bands for SVARs that are set identified are only justified if the researcher is persuaded that some parameter values are a priori more plausible than others. When such prior information exists, traditional approaches can be generalized to allow for doubts about the identifying assumptions. We use information about both structural coefficients and impacts of shocks and propose a new asymmetric t-distribution for incorporating information about signs in a nondogmatic way. We apply these methods to a three-variable macroeconomic model and conclude that monetary policy shocks are not the major driver of output, inflation, or interest rates.

We build a model of firm-level innovation, productivity growth, and reallocation featuring endogenous entry and exit. A new and central economic force is the selection between high- and low-type firms, which differ in terms of their innovative capacity. We estimate the parameters of the model using US Census microdata on firm-level output, R&D, and patenting. The model provides a good fit to the dynamics of firm entry and exit, output, and R&D. Taxing the continued operation of incumbents can lead to sizable gains (of the order of 1.4 percent improvement in welfare) by encouraging exit of less productive firms and freeing up skilled labor to be used for R&D by high-type incumbents. Subsidies to the R&D of incumbents do not achieve this objective because they encourage the survival and expansion of low-type firms.