The purpose of this paper is to discuss major factors behind failures and successes in structural adjustment. The analysis includes the experience of four major European countries: France, Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. These countries are known for diverging performances. Germany...

What would a feasible system of social security in Germany have looked like in the year of 1995 and beyond? In order to find an answer we describe three base systems: ( l ) a purely funded system of social security, (2) a fully mandatory funded system of social security, and (3) a partially...

In this paper we revisit three hypotheses, which we had proposed before, in an attempt to explain the long-run pattern of Argentine real GDP growth: (i) distributional conflicts (between the government and the private sector, and between entrepreneurs and trade unions), (ii) a permissive...

Argentine economic development from 1864 to 1983 can be roughly devided into a period of economic progress (1864 - 1930) and into one of economic decline (1930 - 1983). Of the many issues that could potentially explain such an unprecedented development of a basically resource-rich country, this...