In this paper, we review theory and evidence on the links between product market regulations that curb competitive pressures, the efficiency of resource allocation and productivity growth. We show that product market regulations differ across countries and industries and have evolved differently...

We examine the economic implications of infrastructure investment policies that try to improve economic conditions in Russia's peripheral regions. Our analysis of firm-level industrial data for 1989 and 2004 highlights a "death of distance" in industrial location, with increasing concentration...

This paper presents new estimates for 21 OECD countries covering the period 1960-2001, focusing on two questions: To what extent does the impact of public capital on output differ across countries? And to what extent does it differ over time? Using vector autoregressions (VARs), we find that in...

This paper provides an overview of both theoretical and empirical literature on the link between public investment (capital) and economic growth (national income). We first survey the channels through which public capital can conceivably affect growth. We then turn to reviewing the existing...

Ireland is the most successful EU economy in attracting export-platform foreign direct investment (FDI), and the increased FDI inflows of the 1990s are widely agreed to have been one of the most important factors in generating the remarkable boom that the country experienced over that decade....

This paper discusses the different functions that capital markets and banks have in economic development, and it reviews the debate about marketbased vs. bank-based financial systems. Using data for a sample of 40 countries over the period 1975-98, the paper then shows that variation in both...

A healthy and developing financial sector is a key support to balanced and sustainable economic growth. And as the countries of central Europe - the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia - approach EU membership and ultimately adoption of the euro, the litmus test for financial...

Today there are many questions about the nature and the future of the so-called 'new economy'. The term 'new economy' itself has acquired a variety of quite different connotations. For many commentators, it continues to refer primarily to the altered macroeconomic performance of the US economy...

After the communist regimes collapsed throughout Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, they were replaced (at least initially) by relatively wide-ranging democracy. Measured by the indices of political freedom and civil liberties published by the Freedom House (see the Technical Annex for...

Would you expect twins to reach different heights? The comparison is perhaps not so accurate, but in the early 1950s Abruzzo and Sicily were economically very similar. Both were 'full members' of the underdeveloped Mezzogiorno, with little industry, few natural resources, poor transport...