The welfare state was created after 1950 with counterproductive mechanisms and this caused high inflation and high unemployment and stagnating growth by 1970, called stagflation. Since 1970 governments redressed the welfare state but did not succeed in finding workable mechanisms. They rather...

(1) The basic problem in OECD countries is the tax void. (2) A tax system with an exemption is more transparant than a system with a tax credit. (3) Exemption should be at the level of the net minimum wage so that such workers can work at net = gross. (4) A tax credit is a sufficient but not a...

This work attempts to shed light on the “information technology productivity paradox”. Employing a large data set of Italian manufacturing firms we compute ICT marginal productivity across different cluster of firms and the impact of information and communication technology (ICT) on output...

The Malmquist productivity index has many attractive features. One is that it decomposes into a technical efficiency change index and a technical change index. Under constant returns to scale, its technical efficiency change index has been decomposed into a "pure" technical efficiency change...

Examines the productivity performance of the wholesale and retail trade sectors in light of their significant contribution to Australia’s record productivity performance in the 1990s. Fundamental changes in the nature and operations of wholesale trade, in particular, have brought marked...

We describe the relation between welfare growth and productivity growth. We argue that differences in productivity and productivity growth between sectors or countries are irrelevant from a policy perspective. Specialisation is based on the comparative advantages of countries. Since, by nature,...

A model of national price levels is developed to lay bare implicit assumptions behind the conventional view on the effect of productivity differentials and net foreign assets. The effect of productivity on national price levels is determined by the interaction of several countervailing channels,...

The relations between the riches of nations and the riches of Productive Knowledge (Technology) gains increasing acknowledgment among economists. Classical economists had assumed that the key to progress was the accumulation of homogenous capital goods. But, as P. Romer, among others, claims we...

This paper aims at analysing the relation between competitiveness and economic growth for the period 1995-2000 (2002 for some variables). To this aim we analyse the evolution of the unit labour cost by sector (‘traded’ and ‘non-traded’ sector) and decomposition between the unit labour...

„h This paper presents the results of an exploratory analysis of industry change designed to shed light on the adjustment processes of Australian firms, and the impact of these adjustments on firm and industry labour productivity. The analysis is based on data for 1994-95 to 1997-98 for a...