This paper seeks to estimate the effect on multifactor productivity (MFP) of air pollution in 7 ASEAN economies (Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam) and China, valuing pollution through shadow price estimates for CO2, SOx, NOx and PM10 derived from an...

Now that pollution is reaching worrisome levels in some countries and at the global level, there is a growing consensus that it needs to be explicitly considered as a by-product of the production process and incorporated in economic decisions. But this is not easy in the absence of markets and...

Multifactor productivity (MFP) is increasingly used in economic policy, not least to compute potential output. Most measures are based on a standard production function combining labour and capital, but do not incorporate the negative by-products of the production process such as air pollution...

À l’origine, ce document a été élaboré à l’intention du Groupe de travail n° 1 de l’OCDE, sous l’autorité du Comité de politique économique de l’OCDE. Jens Høj et Giuseppe Nicoletti travaillent pour le Département des affaires économiques de l’OCDE en qualité...

This paper was originally prepared for the OECD Working Party No. 1 under the authority of the OECD’s Economic Policy Committee. Jens Høj and Giuseppe Nicoletti work for the OECD Economics Department as a senior economist in the Country Studies Branch and as Head of the Structural Policy...

This paper provides new projections on the fiscal impact of age-related spending for OECD countries over the next half century. These results are based on national models using an agreed upon set of assumptions about macroeconomic and demographic developments for all countries. Recent reforms to...

In an empirical investigation, the paper identifies the main political economy drivers of structural policy changes in OECD countries' labour and product markets over the 1985-2003 and 1973-2003 periods respectively. Some of the drivers are beyond the control of governments (i.e., that are...

This working paper presents evidence on changes in income distribution and poverty in thirteen OECD countries over the two decades up to the first half of the 1990s. While country experience has been variable, income and poverty rose in most countries. Both earnings and capital and self...

This study examines the dynamics of poverty for four OECD countries (Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States). It provides information on patterns of poverty, which groups stay in poverty the longest, and household/individual characteristics and life-course events which appear...

This paper presents in summary form the findings that emerge from a study of 20 structural reform episodes in 10 OECD countries. The study’s principal messages may be summarised as follows. First, it pays to have an electoral mandate for reform. Secondly, major reforms should be accompanied by...