OECD indicators of structural policy show that policy changes in Italy since 1998 should have improved the environment for entrepreneurship significantly, but in the same period its economic performance has deteriorated noticeably. This may be partly because there is a difference between policy...

Economic growth is below what would be needed to resume rapid convergence to average OECD living standards. On-going efforts to improve the business climate are laudable, but need to be widened and strengthened. Much progress has been achieved in reducing red tape, but it is only recently that...

Raising productivity growth is central to closing the gap with the incomes and well-being enjoyed in many OECD countries. Croatia has internationally competitive firms, and a dynamic economy with many young and potentially productive firms. However, overall performance has been limited by the...

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...

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...

Chile’s regulatory framework is working reasonably well. The country’s structural reforms since the 1980s, with the privatisation of utilities and deregulation of product and labour markets, have improved resource allocation and increased the population’s access to basic services, while...

As a result of reforms and financial sector development, the People’s Bank of China (PBoC) now exerts significant control over money market interest rates. With money market conditions increasingly influencing effective commercial lending rates, the PBoC is also able to affect the cost of...

The aim of this paper is to construct indicators that measure the strength of policies aimed at preserving and promoting market competition by empowering antitrust and sectoral authorities. The indicators, which cover both general and sector-specific competition policies, extend previous OECD...

This paper provides an assessment of the impact of a package of structural reforms in the European Union and the United States on long-run trade and output gains accruing to OECD countries. The package includes reforms that reduce competition-restraining regulations, cut tariff barriers and ease...

This paper presents a database on indicators of product market regulations and employment protection legislation for most of the OECD countries and illustrates a methodology for aggregating these detailed indicators into summary indicators of the strictness of regulations. The summary indicators...