The health status of the Japanese is one of the best in the world. The healthcare system has no doubt contributed to this, though the current state of research in health economics does not permit the determination of the extent of such contribution. The Japanese system, based on social...

Based on 18 country reviews performed over the 2003-2005 period, this paper examines, the cross-country differences in policy approaches to product market competition and their consequences for product market rents. Against this background, the paper summarises OECD recommendations to further...

Industrial subsidies should ideally be measured in ways that permit comparisons across subsidy instruments and countries, and that facilitate subsequent economic analysis of the effects of subsidisation. This paper deals with a number of conceptual issues that arise from these requirements. It...

The strength of product market competition plays an important role in economic growth as it affects economic efficiency and the allocation of resources, and can also lead to improved labour market performance. This paper examines product market competition and economic performance in the...

This paper examines the main determinants of the decision to retire from the labour market in OECD countries, and in particular the role of social security systems in driving down the labour-force participation rate of older people in recent decades. It demonstrates that old-age pension systems...

This paper forms part of an OECD project which addressed the issue of the structure and change in the distribution systems of seven OECD countries. This paper gives an overview of the structure, policy and performance of the French distribution system for the period 1970-90. This analysis is...

In most OECD countries, public spending rose steadily as a share of GDP over the past decades to the mid-1990s, but this trend has since abated. The spending pressures stemming from the continued expansion of social programmes have been partly compensated by transient or one-off factors....

The degree of integration and openness of OECD economies has consistently increased throughout most of the past three decades. By limiting the influence of non-economic factors, and reducing heterogeneity in economic systems, increased integration and openness enhance the emergence of common...

This paper exploits an Italian microeconomic data set to study retirement behaviour of women and men using survival analysis techniques. After a brief introduction to the Italian pension system and to the Bank of Italy survey, different specifications of a Cox proportional hazard model are...

This paper describes the <I>de facto</I> economic integration taking place between China, Hong Kong and Taiwan -- the "Chinese Economic Area" -- and analyses basic factors underlying the process. Even in the face of weak economic performance in OECD countries the integration has helped underpin rapid...</i>