Investment in network infrastructure – the energy, water, transport and telecommunication networks – which performs a vital role for the functioning of the economy, can contribute to raising growth and social welfare. But more is not always better. While the paper shows that investment in...

This paper takes a fresh look at the nature of financial and real business cycles in OECD countries using annual data series and shorter quarterly and monthly economic indicators. It first analyses the main characteristics of the cycle, including the length, amplitude, asymmetry and changes of...

What changes are needed to make counter-cyclical economic policy more effective in the aftermath of the recent crisis? An important lesson from the severity of the recent recession is that policy in various areas will have to be more prudent during upswings and to build in greater safety margins...

This paper investigates the impact of changes in the stringency of environmental policies on productivity growth in OECD countries. Using a new environmental policy stringency (EPS) index, it estimates a reduced-form model of multi-factor productivity growth, where the effect of countries'...

Environmental policies seek to address market failures related to the protection of the environment. However, they may also increase barriers to entry and distort competition. If stringent environmental policies can be designed in a way that minimises such economic burdens, they can facilitate...

Uncertainty is inherent to forecasting and assessing the uncertainty surrounding a point forecast is as important as the forecast itself. Following Cornec (2010), a method to assess the uncertainty around the indicator models used at OECD to forecast GDP growth of the six largest member...

Environmental policies address wellbeing and sustainability objectives, affecting firm and household behaviour. A newly developed, cross-country composite proxy of environmental policy stringency (EPS) shows that stringency has been increasing across OECD countries over the past two decades....

The economic effects of environmental policies are of central interest to policymakers. The traditional approach sees environmental policies as a burden on economic activity, at least in the short to medium term, as they raise costs without increasing output and restrict the set of production...

Economic growth is projected to be strengthening from mid-2011 onwards, but will be insufficient to restore the sustainability of public finances. The Belgian strategy to prefund ageing costs by generating fiscal surpluses to bring down public debt was derailed by the global crisis. Restoring...

Cross-country analysis of the economic effects of environmental policies is limited by the lack of reliable, comparable measures of the stringency of environmental policies. This paper attempts to fill this gap, by constructing new quantitative indexes of environmental policy stringency (EPS)....