Improving public sector efficiency can help to meet two conflicting objectives: ensuring fiscal consolidation and maintaining room for growth-friendly spending. However, the public sector lags on the application of e-government and e-procurement, insufficiently prioritizes spending, and suffers...

The labour market in Russia is very flexible. Firms adjust to economic shocks through wage cuts, working hour reductions and minimisation of non-wage labour costs. Workers react by changing jobs. This results in a high and stable overall employment rate, but also high wage inequality,...

The increase of emerging market economies in international trade and rapid rise in global trade intensity over the past three decades has been accompanied by growing, regionally concentrated, discontent with trade in advanced OECD countries. One of the main concerns is the negative effects of...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the “resource curse” phenomenon, i.e. the negative impact of oil abundance on long-term economic growth, for a set of oil exporting countries. It distinguishes between two potential drivers of resource courses: oil dependence and oil price...

In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection. We simulate alternative scenarios for reforming the unemployment benefit and cash social...

Un environnement économique favorable est crucial pour stimuler la productivité en Belgique et l’inclusivité, et est le principal moteur de la prospérité économique à long terme. Ce document analyse l’impact de l’environnement économique sur la performance de productivité. La...

A highly educated and skilled workforce has been an important driver of productivity performance and prosperity in Belgium. This paper examines skills policies that could help improve productivity and inclusiveness. An increased focus on lifelong learning, improved and more flexible working...

This article contributes to the literature on competition and innovation. It tests the impact of market regulation on innovation conditional to the closeness to the technological frontier with a panel of 15 industries for 17 OECD countries over the period 1979–2003. One of the main conclusions...

Using a cross-country firm level panel dataset from 1995 to 2015, this paper revisits the finance–productivity nexus by looking at the role of intangible assets. It argues that due to their specific characteristics, such as valuation uncertainty and lower pledgeability, financing the purchase...

Investment in intangible assets has become an increasingly important driver of productivity growth in OECD countries. Facing stronger informational asymmetries and harder to value collateral, intangible investment is subject to more severe financial constraints and relies more on internal rather...