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Using data from a survey of 1,097 small and medium-sized non-listed Dutch firms we investigate the relation between growth of the firm and uncertainty. We focus on the impact of sales uncertainty on various types of investment. We find that sales uncertainty, measured by the conditional variance, has a mixed impact on various investment decisions. We include an analysis of the relevance of financial structure and firm size on the growth-uncertainty relation. Copyright Springer 2005firm size, uncertainty,

In this paper we analyse the impact of organizing major sporting events on economic growth. We present ex-post-crosscountry event results for the Summer Olympic Games and the FIFA World Cup. Both descriptive statistics of the relation between the timing of events and economic growth and estimation results of a panel growth model that incorporates both regular growth determinants and the timing of major sports events are presented. We observe that the Summer Olympic Games stimulate per capita GDP (gross domestic product)-growth, while the FIFA World Cup does not.

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Do societal norms help to explain cross-country differences in financial development? We analyze whether societal norms, in addition to legal institutions, have an impact on financial development. In particular, we address the implications of the inclusion of societal norms on the analysis of the impact of financial development on economic growth. Our first conclusion is that societal norms indeed are important in explaining stock market capitalization, while this is not the case for the supply of bank credit. Secondly, the value added of including societal norms in models that explain financial development or, indirectly, economic growth largely coincides with the inclusion of formal institutions, like legal variables.