There is a wide agreement on the fact that a large informal economy leaves many individuals without social protection and reduces government's tax revenue and social security contributions. However, it remains an open question what really drives informality, namely whether workers are simply...

Somewhat surprisingly, cross-country empirical evidence (at least in the cross section) does not seem to support the predictions of standard models that economies with stricter regulations on hiring and firing should have a lower pace of job reallocation. One problem in exploring these issues...

We test whether the growth experience of a sample of 21 OECD countries over the past three decades is more consistent with the augmented Solow model or the Uzawa-Lucas model, by exploiting the different non-linear restrictions implied by them as regards the relationship between factor shares and...

This paper provides a critical review of the recent empirical evidence on the links between regulations affecting the hiring and firing of workers, labour reallocation and productivity growth. It also reviews how workers affected by labour mobility fare and discusses policy options to support...

The economic performance of some OECD countries over the past decade, most notably the United States, has renewed the interest of analysts and policy makers on economic growth and on how policy can eventually support it. This report sheds some light on this issue by relying on harmonised macro...

Using firm-level data for a sample of European countries, we focus on the effects that product-market regulations have on firm-level TFP growth. We proxy regulatory burdens using the OECD indicators of sectoral non-manufacturing regulations. These allow accounting for both the direct effects of...

Laws on hiring and firing are intended to protect workers from unfair behavior by employers, to counter imperfections in financial markets that limit workers’ ability to insure themselves against job loss, and to preserve firm-specific human capital. But by imposing costs on firms’...

In this paper we present an overview of GDP and productivity growth patterns in OECD countries over the past decade, on the basis of harmonized data. Our evidence suggests that fast-growing countries generally shared three characteristics: improvements in labour utilization; a generalized...

The authors present empirical evidence on the determinants of industry-level multifactor productivity growth. They focus on"traditional factors,"including the process of technological catch up, human capital, and research and development (R&D), as well as institutional factors affecting labor...

This paper reviews the process of job creation and destruction across a sample of 16 industrial and emerging economies over the past decade. It exploits a harmonized firm-level data set drawn from business registers and enterprise census data. The paper assesses the importance of technological...