The German educational system finds itself being criticized by the OECD in its Programme for International Student Assessment. Family background would heavily influence children’s academic achievements. A child stemming from a high class family has a 3.1 times higher chance to go to...

This paper proposes a new index of sectoral labor distortion using employment and valueaddedshares. We show that this index is highly correlated with growth both crosssectionallyand over time. We also use it to compare the degree of distortion amongcountries and identify sectors where the...

Authors of the indexes of economic freedom argue that economic freedom is a key link to prosperity and growth. An outline of empirical and theoretical investigation into the relationships between economic performance and institutional environment shows that economic freedom is an important...

Corruption is notoriously hard to measure directly, and cross-country corruption indices thus often rely on indirect information such as country experts' or international businessmen's perceptions. Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index (CPI) is one such indicator that is often...

One of the most negative factors that characterize Italian economy and society is the pervasive and oppressive presence of organized crime, affecting many aspects of the daily live and every sector of business. The data unfortunately show how this phenomenon is increasingly growing and involves...