Recent social security reform has significantly improved the long-run sustainability of the pension system. However, the pension system continues to serve as an important barrier to a more rapid expansion of the formalsector economy in two ways. First, early-retirement incentives (including...

The Czech Republic faces one of the largest demographic challenges in the OECD area and making sure the public pension system is able to cope with rapid population ageing is important for long-term fiscal stability and social welfare. This paper assesses five proposals for pension reform made in...

The Czech Republic faces one of the largest demographic challenges in the OECD area and making sure the public pension system is able to cope with rapid population ageing is important for long-term fiscal stability and social welfare. This paper assesses five proposals for pension reform made in...

Recent social security reform has significantly improved the long-run sustainability of the pension system. However, the pension system continues to serve as an important barrier to a more rapid expansion of the formalsector economy in two ways. First, early-retirement incentives (including...

Industrial specialization has important implications for economic performance; therefore, understanding its determinants is of key policy relevance. This paper quantifies the relationship between factor endowments, policies and institutions and patterns of industrial specialisation in production...

Norwegian growth has been strong over the past decade. This development has been supported by the off-shore sector, but depleting oil reserves implies that growth will have to rely increasingly on the mainland economy. Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic...

This paper presents empirical evidence on the role that policy and institutional settings in both product and labour market play for productivity and firm dynamics. It exploits a new firm-level database for ten OECD countries and industry-level data for a broader set of countries, together with...

Health outcomes and the quality of health care in Iceland are very good by international comparison, while income-related health inequality appears to be smaller than in most other countries. However, the health-care system is costly and, according to OECD estimates, public expenditure on health...

The establishment of competitive markets has been one of the cornerstones Hungarian economic policy over the past decade, alongside a successful strategy of attracting foreign investment. Broad statistical measures show no signs of endemically weak domestic competition, though the country’s...

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken competition and has left a legacy of government...