This paper presents in summary form the findings that emerge from a study of 20 structural reform episodes in 10 OECD countries. The study’s principal messages may be summarised as follows. First, it pays to have an electoral mandate for reform. Secondly, major reforms should be accompanied by...

Bedevilling the ongoing debate about changes in real-incomes in late-medieval western Europe, especially during the so-called 'Golden Age of the Labourer', is the very troubling issue of 'wage-stickiness'. The standard and long-traditional explanation for this supposed 'Golden Age' of rising...

The traditional and almost universal method of expressing real wages is by index numbers, according to the formula: RWI = NWI/CPI: i.e., the real wage is the quotient of the nominal (money) wage index divided by the consumer price index, all employing a common base period (here: 1451-75 = 100)....

Standard economic analysis holds that labor market rigidities are harmful for job creation and typically increase unemployment. But many orthodox reforms of the labor market have proved difficult to implement because of political opposition. For these reasons it is important to explain why we...

Standard economic analysis holds that labor market rigidities are harmful for job creation and typically increase unemployment. But many orthodox reforms of the labor market have proved difficult to implement because of political opposition. For these reasons it is important to explain why we...

The present paper is part of unpublished book divided into three interrelated manuscripts that analyze the collapse of the Sudan. The theory introduced here is that the regime was built on kleptocratic framework. That enhanced a rapid transformation of the values' system of the country and...

The present paper analyzes the impacts of the Southern Sudan secession. It is concluded that the feasible and eminent secession of Southern Sudan, triggered similar process in Darfur region and feasibly other parts of the country. The two newly formed nations can get into a form of Union:...

Social partners, trade unions and employer associations have been involved in most changes to the corporatist welfare state of Germany. In 2001, the government enacted a pension reform to replace the generous but - due to demographic constraints - unsustainable pay-as-you-go public pension...

An expanding state has to decide how to tax the newly conquered lands, most likely taxed under a different regime. It can either preserve the prevailing system of taxation or change it to conform to its own system. The choice depends on the relative efficiency of the two systems, political...