This study aims at exploring how recent developments in the retail sector affect trade in consumer goods. It focuses on three areas of development: i) internationalisation; ii) market structure; and iii) the growing market share of retailers? private labels. It distinguishes between food and...

This paper reviews recent studies on the links between competition, innovation and productivity growth in the long run. From a long-run perspective, one can see that gains from competition-enhancing regulatory reform are likely to exceed static gains observed in the short run since firms will...

This paper investigates the link between trade flows and relative wages on a cross-section of 22 sectors in 12 OECD countries. Industries are classified according to stylised facts about market structure (fragmentation, segmentation and degree of product differentiation). Next, the import...

The Russian government is pursuing a strategy of very high economic growth, and as part of that strategy, has embarked on a highly ambitious programme of electricity reform. This book focuses on key aspects of the proposed reforms including creation of market structures, rules and a regulatory...

Property rights are important for economic exchange, but many governments don't protect them. Private market organizations can fill this gap by providing an institutional structure to enforce agreements, but with this power comes the ability to extort group members. Under what circumstances,...

The birth and death of firms is one of the main features of the business cycle. Yet mainstream DGSE macroeconomic models mostly ignore this phenomenon, thereby excluding any potential impact of economic policy on the probability of the birth and death of firms. Those DGSE models that do allow...

This paper analyses the factors influencing the price of oil and its likely evolution over the next quarter century. It begins by investigating the fundamental forces shaping long-term oil price developments, highlighting the importance of growth-led demand for oil, particularly that emanating...

Using new cross-country data on industry-specific product market regulations, this paper investigates the relationship between wage premia and some of the policy determinants of product market rents. Hourly wage premia in 2-digit manufacturing and non-manufacturing industries are estimated from...