This paper reviews the experience with financial reform in OECD countries. A general overview of the course of deregulation is provided and the economic rationale for financial regulation is discussed. The question of whether financial liberalisation has led to improved welfare is then...

This paper provides an in depth analysis of Russia’s recent growth, with a view to understanding the prospects for its continuation. It examines in detail the main drivers of growth, as well as the main developments and policies that have been underlying it. A key finding is that the role of...

This article uses “extreme-bound”-type analysis to revisit the determinants behind widely differing economic growth in Russian regions. Using data of 77 regions for 1993-2004, it separately examines the growth drivers for the phase of economic decline up to 1998, and for the period of strong...

Energy represents a major sustainable-development challenge for Canada. In the short term, labour shortages and infrastructure bottlenecks are likely to hinder energy developments and need to be addressed. In addition, provincial fiscal management could be improved by adopting prudent allocation...

This paper presents a progress report on the Economics and Statistics Department's applied general equilibrium model -- the WALRAS model. This model has been developed with the explicit objective of quantifying the economy-wide effects of agricultural policies in OECD countries. The common...

This paper reviews the influence of a variety of different monetary rules for the G3 economies on the comparative simulation properties of a recent version of the OECD INTERLINK model. The simulated shocks are typically of a "global" nature, with the main objective being to assess the relative...

This paper discusses growth performance in the OECD countries over the past two decades. Special attention is given to developments in labour productivity, allowing for human capital accumulation, and multifactor productivity (MFP), allowing for changes in the composition and quality of physical...

Since the Finnish unemployment rate has rocketed to a very high level in the beginning of the 1990's, it is worth to study to what extent the unemployment rate prevailing today is due to cyclical or to structural reasons. In this paper we try to estimate two different indicators that represent...

This paper assesses the consequences of immigration for natives' unemployment in OECD countries and investigates the role played by product and labour market policies in the economy's adjustment to immigration inflows. The estimations, combining a skill-level and an aggregate approach using data...

Labour market outcomes have improved markedly in the past years as the beneficial effects of the economic upswing were reinforced by important structural reforms.With the economy on the verge of a severe economic downturn, it is important to avoid alleviating measures that adversely affect the...