Drawing on new empirical analysis of 30 years of structural reforms across the OECD, this paper sheds light on the impact of reforms over time, identifies the horizon over which their full effects materialise, and investigates whether such effects vary with prevailing economic conditions and...

Conventional studies on the impacts of economic shocks using global input-output tables (sensitivity analyses) assume stable production structures and thus, only reveal the marginal impacts of changes in final demand. However, when economic shocks occur, whether at home or abroad, economic...

After peaking in the first half of 2008, international imbalances declined sharply during the global crisis of 2008-09, in part reflecting cyclical factors such as large contractions in domestic demand on the back of bursting housing bubbles in a number of deficit countries, as well as large...

Economic growth is projected to be strengthening from mid-2011 onwards, but will be insufficient to restore the sustainability of public finances. The Belgian strategy to prefund ageing costs by generating fiscal surpluses to bring down public debt was derailed by the global crisis. Restoring...

This paper aims at identifying which countries and regions in the world might face structural overcapacities or capacity shortfalls in the automobile industry in the near future. It discusses the main forces that are likely to shape car demand over the next several years, including GDP growth,...

In the run-up to the financial crisis, indebtedness of households and non-financial businesses rose to historically high levels in many OECD countries; gross debt of financial companies rose dramatically relative to GDP. Much of the debt accumulation appears to have been based on excessive...

Since income is the return on wealth, the total wealth of any given country should be on the order of 20 times its GDP. Instead the average observed ratio from the balance sheet accounts of the System of National Accounts (SNA) is a factor of 2.6 to 6.6, depending on whether natural resource...

Extensive structural reforms since the early 1990s have strengthened the resilience of the Swedish economy to shocks. However, more needs to be done to better manage near-term risks and ensure that growth remains sustainable in the longer run. Reforming the housing market would reduce the risks...

The Finnish housing market is volatile. After declining significantly as the global financial crisis unfolded, housing prices and investment recovered to reach new peaks. This paper uses a small econometric model to assess the role of fundamentals in housing price and investment developments....

This paper uses household level data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) over the period 1991 to 2008 to analyse the driving factors of movements in the German household savings rate. Specifically, it analyses the impact of the precautionary savings motive and the impact of the 2002...