Welfare states have been subject to a host of conflicting pressures from high unemployment, rising income inequality, population aging, tax competition, rising budget deficits and debts, slow growth, and fears that economic dynamism was being stifled by excessive taxes and benefit levels....

A rapidly expanding empirical literature has addressed the widely accepted claim that employment-unfriendly labor market institutions explain the pattern of unemployment across countries. The main culprits are held to be protective institutions, namely unemployment benefit entitlements,...

Since the seminal work of Blanchard and Katz, it has been widely believed that interstate migration causes state-level employment rates in the United States to revert rapidly to normal following a regional employment shock. This paper identifies two sources of bias in conventional estimates of...

Inflexible labor markets are said to be the most important cause of economic stagnation and high unemployment rates. So certain are some advocates of this claim that casual observers might believe it is undisputed. These three economists show how flimsy the empirical support for such a claim...

The impact of profitability on capital accumulation, neglected in conventional accounts, is confirmed by a cross-sectional analysis of the postwar experience of manufacturing in OECD economies which is consistent with a body of time-series and firm-level studies. The effect of capital...

Over the last quarter century, public finances have been under pressure in most OECD countries as deficits and debts rose under the pressure of relatively slow growth and high interest rates. This, in turn, has affected the welfare state, since efforts at containing deficits have often been...

The assessment attempts to provide a broad explanation of the post-war pattern of real interest rates, drawing on the theoretical and empirical papers in this issue of the Oxford Review. It is argued that the concept of the "neutral" rate of interest, at which the economy grows at its productive...

The rise in unemployment in OECD economies is considered in the context of the changing patterns of labour demand and supply since 1973. The deteriorating position of the least qualified is highlighted with an index which combines both their employment and earnings experience; the importance of...

The economic objectives of recent governments of the Left were full employment, reducing inequality, and enhancing economic performance and democratic control by measures of planning and socialization. The economic inheritance was difficult--stagnant investment, high unemployment in a number of...