Using plant-level data from the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) for the fiscal years from 1998-99 through 2007-08, this study provides plant-level cross-state/time-series evidence of the impact of employment protection legislation (EPL) on total factor productivity (TFP) and labour...

This paper presents a framework to assess the impact of a wide range of structural policy reforms on GDP per capita at various horizons by linking together previous empirical studies mostly carried out by the OECD. The simple accounting framework consists of reduced-form equations and offers a...

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reforms that will help it to break away from three decades of slow growth and low productivity. Major structural measures have been legislated to improve competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure and the tax...

This paper examines how import penetration affects firms' productivity growth taking into account the heterogeneity in firms' distance to the efficiency frontier and country differences in product market regulation. Using firm-level data for a large number of OECD countries, the analysis reveals...

Informality has important implications for productivity, economic growth, and the inequality of income. In recent years, the extent of informal employment has increased in many of Mexico's states, though highly heterogeneously. The substantial differences across states in terms of informal...

Legal systems provide the basic institutions for firms and markets to operate. Their quality can have important consequences on the size distribution of firms, who rely on them for contract enforcement. This paper uses the variation in legal system quality across states in Mexico to examine the...

Taken together, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia and South Africa – the “BIICS” – have been an important engine for world growth, and they account for a growing share of global output. However, further reforms will be needed to ensure catch-up to OECD GDP per capita levels over the long...

The provision of high-quality education and health care to all of the population is considered a core element of public policy in most countries. In India, the government is active in both education and health but the private sector also plays an important role, notably for heath, and to a...

Over the past decade, labour market outcomes have improved in India, with net employment rising markedly for the economy as a whole. However, these gains have arisen primarily in the unorganized and informal sectors of the economy, where productivity and wages are generally much lower than in...

This paper assesses the progress of China’s transition toward a market economy by examining the structure of ownership, productivity, and profitability, as well as the concentration of production across firms, industries and regions. It does this by analyzing a database of firm microdata of...