Despite progress in the past decade, financial markets in Colombia remain relatively small and shallow. In particular the banking system suffers high intermediation costs, which limit constrains access to finance by households and firms. This paper explores some of the causes behind these...

This paper presents the econometric analysis of lower secondary school performance carried out for the chapter on education of the 2019 OECD Economic Survey of Sweden. The dataset covers most Swedish schools providing education for 9th graders. Student socio-economic background has a...

This paper investigates the causal effect of public administration efficiency on firm-level productivity. To this purpose, we combine newly available data from Italy on public administration efficiency of subnational governments with geo-localised firm-level data for the years 2004-2014. Italy...

Fundamental reform of traditional Japanese labour market practices is essential to cope with rapid population ageing and the era of 100-year lives. A shift to more flexible employment and wage systems based on performance rather than age would enable Japan to better utilise its human capital....