Focusing in particular on upper secondary education, this paper examines whether the relatively high level of expenditure on education in the Nordic countries is matched by high output from the educational sector, both in terms of student enrolment and indicators of output quality in the form of...

In this paper, we estimate the potential tax burden in a panel data set comprising OECD countries over the period 2000-2021. To this end, we use non-parametric and parametric techniques: Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA). In this way, it will be possible for...

Do minimum wages reduce in-work-poverty and wage inequality? Or can alternative policies do better? We evaluate theses issues for the exemplary case of Germany that suffers from high unemployment among low-skilled workers and rising wage dispersion at the bottom of the wage distribution. We...

In this study, I will look at the spending role of government and the outcomes of government activity in Europe and Asia. Public spending and performance patterns differ hugely across countries. Asian "tigers" and some advanced countries show low public spending coupled with strong performance...

We study whether cultural attitudes towards gender, the young, and leisure are significant determinants of the evolution over time of the employment rates of women and of the young, and of hours worked in OECD countries. Beyond controlling for a larger menu of policies, institutions and...

Cross-country evidence on student achievement might be hampered by omitted country characteristics such as language or legal differences. This paper uses cross-state variation in Germany, whose sixteen states share the same language and legal system, but pursue different education policies. The...

Almost all OECD countries operate comprehensive minimum-income programmes for working-age individuals, either as last-resort safety nets alongside primary income replacement benefits, or as the principal instrument for delivering social protection. Such safety-net benefits aim primarily at...