This paper discusses ways of strengthening the competitive environment in order to help boost productivity performance in various sectors of the Danish economy. It looks at a number of indicators of the strength of competition — including price levels, industrial concentration and product...

Empirical work shows that competition is important for promoting economic growth. However, in Japan the promotion of competition has long been compromised by ministerial guidance and exemptions from the competition law. Thus, the level and growth of productivity have been low in many...

Africa: A continent is waking up. Not through aid or wealth from the exploitation of natural resources, but through a technological revolution. The access to affordable mobile telecommunication. Inspired by deregulation and pioneered by local champions who have taken a lead in what is today's...

This discussion paper revisits the issue of state-funded activism in the UK and EU. It starts with the hypothesis that there has been a decline in taxpayers’ money given to political advocacy groups because (1) budget cuts under ‘austerity’ have made less money available to...

Dynamic panel data methods are used to estimate a growth model using data from 23 transition countries for the period 1990 to 2003. The estimating equation is augmented with country- and time-specific variables for methods of privatization and other factors potentially relevant to growth in...

The rapid growth after independence stopped in 2008 as the global crisis exposed important structural weaknesses. Large state involvement and rigid labour and product markets lowered productivity. Weak corporate governance and easy credit before the crisis led to high indebtedness and...

Economic growth requires factor reallocation across firms and continuous replacement of technologies. Labor market institutions influence economic dynamism by their impact on the supply of a key factor, skilled workers to new and expanding firms, and the shedding of workers from declining and...

Wide-ranging structural reforms are underway in Italy, aimed at addressing key bottlenecks in the product and labor markets. Our analysis, based on the IMF's Global Integrated Monetary and Fiscal model (GIMF), attempts to quantify the potential gains to the economy from a comprehensive package...

This paper provides Russia's financial system strategy with special emphasis on financial markets and investments in innovative growth. The post-crisis strategy in financial markets contains instruments on financial architecture modernization, proposals on domestic financial crisis monitoring...