The equity premium puzzle holds that the coefficient of relative risk aversion estimated from the consumption based CAPM under power utility is excessively high. Moreover, estimates in the literature vary considerably across countries. We gauge the uncertainty pertaining to the country risk...

This paper investigates the productivity effects of inward and outward foreign direct investment using industry and country level data for 17 OECD countries over the period 1973 to 2001. Controlling for national and international knowledge spillovers we argue that effects of FDI work through...

It is often feared that tax competition might lead to a "race to the bottom". The consequence of a decline of tax rates on capital income would be shrinking capital income tax revenues and difficulties for national governments to perform their usual tasks. The paper analyzes what happened to tax...

NGOs play an important role in international development cooperation, but the allocation of NGO aid has rarely been mapped, let alone explained. Based on a representative dataset for 61 important NGOs from various OECD countries, we analyze the targeting of NGO aid across a large number of...

Bringing in the Americans is the first task for the UN-COP-15 for the Danish government along with its EU partners. The key contents of the EU's climate leadership towards the climate conference are assessed, such as the -20% by 2020 reduction target, the effort sharing agreement and reforms of...

High and persistent unemployment is a key policy issue in many OECD countries, particularly in Europe. Many initiatives have been taken to reduce this problem. In 1994, the OECD launched the OECD Jobs Study, which contained both a thorough analysis of the issue and a comprehensive set of policy...

When compared to other technological breakthroughs, information and communication technologies (ICT) appear to have at least two unique features. One is the long, unremitting technological improvement that has taken place in these technologies during the post-war period. A second unique feature...

This paper presents new estimates for 21 OECD countries covering the period 1960-2001, focusing on two questions: To what extent does the impact of public capital on output differ across countries? And to what extent does it differ over time? Using vector autoregressions (VARs), we find that in...

This paper examines the long-run relationship between energy consumption and real GDP, including energy prices, for 25 OECD countries from 1981 to 2007. The distinction between common factors and idiosyncratic components using principal component analysis allows to distinguish between...