Drawing on new empirical analysis of 30 years of structural reforms across the OECD, this paper sheds light on the impact of reforms over time, identifies the horizon over which their full effects materialise, and investigates whether such effects vary with prevailing economic conditions and...

China is well-placed to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap” and to continue to converge towards the more advanced economies, even though growth is likely to slow from near double-digit rates in the first decade of this millennium to around 7% at the 2020 horizon. However, in order to...

New Zealand ranks highly on most indicators of well-being, but incomes are below the OECD average due to low labour productivity. Low labour productivity is only partly explained by the industry composition of the NZ economy and is primarily a consequence of sustained low multi-factor...

Despite a deep recession in 2009 and weak growth in subsequent years, Hungary’s fiscal position compares favourably with many other OECD countries. Nonetheless, the underlying fiscal balance started deteriorating in 2010 and 2011. Recognising this, Hungary’s government launched an ambitious...

House prices have increased significantly in Canada over the past decade, driving household debt and residential construction activity to historical highs. Although macro-prudential tightening has slowed the pace of household borrowing in the last few years, house prices have continued to trend...

This paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the “resource curse” phenomenon, i.e. the negative impact of oil abundance on long-term economic growth, for a set of oil exporting countries. It distinguishes between two potential drivers of resource courses: oil dependence and oil price...

The mixed growth performance of emerging market economies has revived angst about a "middle-income trap". However, a forensic review of statistical evidence shows that middle-income countries “escape” to higher income levels more often than both poorer and richer countries. At the same time,...

The downturn in fixed investment among advanced economies from the onset of the global crisis was unusually severe, widespread and long-lasting relative to comparable episodes in the past. As a result, investment gaps are large in many countries, not only in relation to past norms but also...

Investments in both human and physical capital are key drivers of economic growth and productivity gains. The United Kingdom has had a turbulent recent history, being strongly affected by the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 and more recently voting to leave the European Union, its largest...

With a newly constructed firm-level dataset combining various survey- and registry data from Statistics Estonia, this paper sheds new light on the labour productivity premium from adopting digital technologies and boosting digital skill use. The productivity premium is decomposed into a direct...