This paper investigates the vulnerabilities of health care systems in OECD and BRIICS countries to adverse secular trends and large macroeconomic shocks. It identifies policies that can ally vulnerabilities considering the institutional setting of health care systems, such as the public-private...

Boosting investment is key to supporting the nascent recovery and reviving stagnant productivity. Aggregate investment has declined markedly since the start of the global financial crisis, especially in services. Italy’s investment is so low that the capital stock is now declining, hurting...

In the latest 30 years, Costa Rica's real GDP per capita has more than doubled, driven by increasing labour utilisation. Labour productivity has instead stagnated at around 30% of the more advanced OECD countries. Productivity growth has been lacklustre despite the opening up of markets to...

Indonesia.s infrastructure is in poor shape, having suffered from protracted under-investment since the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, and constraints growth potential. This paper focuses on the current state of the regulatory framework and discusses different options for improvement...

This paper analyzes the interaction between credit constraints and trading behavior, decomposing trade in extensive and intensive margins. I construct a unique dataset containing firm-level trade transaction data, balance sheets and credit scores from an independent credit insurance company for...

When regulated firms are offered compensation to prevent them from relocating, efficiency requires that payments be distributed across firms so as to equalize marginal relocation probabilities, weighted by the damage caused by relocation. We formalize this fundamental economic logic and apply it...

This paper provides new evidence on the relationship between management practices and firm performance. We interviewed managers of 190 randomly selected manufacturing plants in the UK and matched their responses with official business microdata. We find that climate friendly management practices...

The EU Emissions Trading Scheme continues to exempt industries deemed at risk of carbon leakage from permit auctions. Carbon leakage risk is established based on the carbon intensity and trade exposure of each 4-digit industry. Using a novel measure of carbon leakage risk obtained in interviews...

This timely Handbook reviews many key issues in the economics of energy and climate change, raising new questions and offering solutions that might help to minimize the threat of energy-induced climate change.