Adequate and well-functioning infrastructure is a key ingredient to growth and well-being. The benefits to activity of efficient spending in energy, water, transport and communication sectors go well beyond their contribution to capital accumulation. Good infrastructure facilitates trade,...

Delegation is a key feature of political decision making: Mayors or prime ministers delegate to subordinates, voters delegate to elected representatives. We analyze the effect of political delegation on public service provision and the choice between private or public providers when contracts...

After controlling for firm-level factor intensities and scale, and industry-level concentration, total factor productivity differentials between MNC (multinational corporation) joint ventures or SOEs (state-owned enterprises) and private firms were usually positive and statistically significant...

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...

Following the deep recession in the early 1990s growth has been strong, but the scope for economic catch-up remains considerable and cross-country empirical evidence suggests that enhancing competition is an important means of achieving this. Structural reforms to strengthen competition in the...