Economists recommend to partly redistribute gains to losers from a structural reform, which in many cases may be required for making the reform politically viable. However, taxation is distortionary. Then, it is unclear that compensatory transfers can support a Pareto-improving reform. This...

This paper summarises earlier OECD work aimed at quantifying the impact of structural reforms on economic outcomes. It overviews i.) insights obtained for the linear relationships linking policies and economic outcomes (including multi-factor productivity, capital deepening and employment) for...

The paper considers whether structural reforms have a different impact on adjusted household disposable income (AHDI) compared to GDP, particularly given that while the latter is currently used as the basis for the OECD Economics Department’s framework for evaluating the effect of structural...

Low international competitiveness of a set of euro area countries, which have become evident by large current account deficits and rising risk premiums on government bonds, is one of the most challenging economic policy issues for Europe. We analyse the role of private restructuring and public...

We investigate whether a cut in unemployment benefit payout periods affected older workers’ labor market transitions. We apply rich administrative data and exploit a difference-indifferences approach. We compare the reference group of 40-44 year olds with constant benefit payout periods to...

We develop a two-period model of redistributive politics in which two politicians compete in an election in each period. In the first period, the politicians propose both whether to experiment with an efficient reform with uncertain benefits and choose the amount of public debt. Politicians also...

We examine how structural reforms relate to income inequality. We employ many indicators of structural reforms and use data for market and net income inequality. The dataset includes up to 135 countries since 1960. The results do not suggest that market-oriented structural reforms were...

This paper examines the progress of state-owned enterprise (SOE) reform in the People’s Republic of China. After defining SOEs and considering their scope of operation within the PRC economy, the focus of the paper is on the major reform waves that followed the deterioration of SOE...

This paper analyzes economic-social interaction in China in connection with the country's change of economic system. I define an economic system in terms of a multidimensional vector of broad institutional characteristics, and I emphasize that important features of the social development are...