China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

Indonesia’s business environment is discouraging entrepreneurship and holding back private-sector growth and development. Weaknesses in the regulatory framework, infrastructure bottlenecks and poor governance continue to weigh down on investment. Policies have been put in place to address...

This paper assesses the implications of past and ongoing reforms in OECD product markets for the labour productivity gap, a key component of cross-country differences in GDP per capita. After a brief review of the theoretical literature, we bring together the results obtained in some of our...

Since 2001, OECD corporate net lending has risen sharply. This paper examines the main forces at play behind this run-up and provides some insight into whether and how they might possibly unwind in the future, a process that may already be underway. It shows in particular that, the increase is...

The global financial crisis of 2007-09 and the ensuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe provide evidence that portfolio rebalancing of financial investors can contribute to spread financial turmoil across countries. Rebalancing of portfolios, in turn, may be driven by the need to meet liquidity...

The global crisis of 2008-09 went in hand with sharp fluctuations in capital flows. To some extent, these fluctuations may have been attributable to uncertainty-averse investors indiscriminately selling assets about which they had poor information, including those in geographically distant...

The global financial and economic crisis has struck Iceland with extreme force. Iceland’s three main banks, accounting for almost all of the banking system, failed in October 2008. They were unable to resist the deterioration in global financial markets following the failure of Lehman...

Drawing on new empirical analysis of 30 years of structural reforms across the OECD, this paper sheds light on the impact of reforms over time, identifies the horizon over which their full effects materialise, and investigates whether such effects vary with prevailing economic conditions and...

The downturn in fixed investment among advanced economies from the onset of the global crisis was unusually severe, widespread and long-lasting relative to comparable episodes in the past. As a result, investment gaps are large in many countries, not only in relation to past norms but also...

Using empirical evidence from panel analysis of current account dynamics and of bilateral trade balances, the paper argues that the large German current account surplus during the 2000s can be explained by an increasing gap between productivity growth in manufacturing vis-à-vis services. Such a...