There are many apparent similarities between the current political and economic situations of France and Italy. The mainstream view is that at least part of the neo-liberal strategy could be a solution to the economic problems of both variants of the European model of capitalism. However, the...

This paper analyses the impact of product market regulation on the propensity to export at the industry level for 13 OECD countries and 13 industries over the 1977-2007 period. Recent economic policy and academic literature insists on the negative effects of product market regulation on...

A policy proposal is to abolish the distinction between regular open-end employment contracts and fixed-term contracts and substitute a unique labour contract with a degree of employment protection increasing with tenure. A question on the desirability of the "contrat unique" was included in the...

The aim of this article is to analyse the consequences of some structural reforms on the institutional coherence of OECD countries, particularly Continental Europe, and on their economic performance, particularly employment. Because institutions in developed political economies are interrelated...

In this paper, we highlight the link between the political demand and social policy outcome while taking into account the design of the party system. The political demand is measured by indivudual preferences and the design of the party system is defined as the extent of party fractionalization....

According to a recent literature, the positive effect of competition is supposed to be growing with the proximity to the technological frontier. Using a variety of indicators, the paper tests the effect of competition and regulation on innovative activity measured by patenting. The sample...

In this paper, we investigate the microeconomic effects of one major feature of the German Hartz Reforms (2003-2005), namely the reduction in compensation duration for older unemployed above 45 years of age. We look at two potential effects of this measure: on job take-up rates, but also on...

This paper analyses the French political crisis since the late 1970s by investigating the links between the social structure and the economic policy expectations of the electorate. To this end, data on post-electoral survey are used to estimate structural models of political support to political...

Several recent policy and academic contributions consider that liberalising product markets would foster innovation and growth. This paper analyses the innovation-productivity relationship at the industry-level for a sample of OECD manufacturing industries. We pay particular attention to the...