This paper examines both the determinants and the effects of changes in the rigidity of labor market legislation across countries over time. Recent research identifies the origin of the legal system as being a major determinant of the cross-country variation in the rigidity of employment...

Crises beget reforms is a powerful hypothesis. But which type of crises - economic or political - are the main drivers of structural reforms? To answer this question, we construct measures of labour market and trade liberalisation and the two types of crises for a panel of about 100...

Although in theory the long-run effect of uncertainty on investment is ambiguous, available econometric evidence widely supports a negative association between aggregate investment and political instability. A shortcoming of this body of evidence is that it has failed to investigate the...

Recent research convincingly shows that crises beget reform. Although the consensus is that economic crises foster macroeconomic stabilization, it is silent on which types of crises cause which types of reform. Is it economic or political crises that are the most important drivers of structural...