Women have contributed a great deal to Ireland's economic growth, including by joining the labour force in large numbers. The rise in female participation since 1990 has been amongst the strongest in the OECD, but from a low base. Female...

The oil price hike in 2007-08 underlined the vulnerability of Indonesia’s energy subsidy policy to oil price volatility. In addition to entailing significant economic and environmental costs, energy subsidies put pressure on the public budget and...

Long-term bond yields have been low in recent years both in nominal and real terms, and . especially in the United States - they have reacted differently to shifts in monetary and fiscal stances relative to previous cycles. This article examines...

Since 1990, Belgium has managed to bring down greenhouse gas emissions in most domains of economic activity. Road transport, as in many other countries, is a notable exception to this pattern: emissions have steadily increased, driven by an ever...

This paper provides an empirical investigation of the relationship between surges in capital inflows and the probability of subsequent banking, currency and balance-of-payment crises. Using a panel of developed and emerging economies from 1970 to...

This paper focuses on inequalities in learning opportunities for individuals coming from different socioeconomic backgrounds as a measure of (in) equality of opportunity in OECD countries and looks at the role played by policies and institutions in...

The United States faces challenging budgetary prospects, as do most other OECD countries. The federal budget deficit widened considerably during the recession, reaching about 10% of GDP in both 2009 and 2010, reflecting the operation of automatic...

This paper derives estimates of the efficiency of welfare spending in Slovenia and the other OECD countries from data envelopment analysis based on model specifications used in earlier OECD studies. Results suggest that Slovenia ranks about 25th...

The global recession is likely to results in higher structural unemployment for some time in many OECD countries. This paper assesses how the shock to aggregate unemployment as a result of the economic crisis may be transmitted to structural...

In 1994, the OECD published a set of recommendations -- known as the OECD Jobs Strategy -- to deal with high and persistent unemployment that affected many member countries. These recommendations are currently being reassessed by the OECD and this...

The Czech Republic faces one of the largest demographic challenges in the OECD area and making sure the public pension system is able to cope with rapid population ageing is important for long-term fiscal stability and social welfare. This paper...

This paper attempts to assess the impact of exchange rate movements on Russian import and nonfuel export performance, using an error correction model. The estimation of trade equations shows that long-run price elasticities for imports and non-fuel...

This paper uses options pricing techniques to estimate the value of the government’s tax claim on household or business incomes. It treats the annual tax claim as a European call option on taxable income (a European call is an option that can be...

In recent years, many tertiary graduates have had difficulties finding a job, while factories have been struggling to recruit workers. Notwithstanding rapidly increasing education attainment, graduates’ skills do not seem to match those demanded by...

Hungarian debt level has steadily increased since 2001, with the debt-to-GDP ratio reaching about 84% at end-2011. This high level combined with significant volatility of macroeconomic variable influencing potential future debt paths – GDP growth,...

Climate change is expected to have significant implications for the world economy and, more broadly, for many areas of human activity. The purpose of this review is twofold. First, it is to summarise current estimates of the impacts of climate change...

Frequent recourse to large one-off operations in a number of OECD countries has undermined the accuracy of cyclically adjusted fiscal balances as a measure of both the sustainability of public finance and the fiscal stance. This paper first provides...

This paper develops a differential game of tax avoidance by modelling the interactions between a taxpayer and the tax authority. This framework is particularly useful for explicitly modelling situations of conflict. The solution to the game is a...

In this paper we develop a simple analytical framework to analyze “good” and “bad equilibria” in public-debt and growth dynamics. The “bad equilibrium” is characterised by the simultaneous occurrence, and adverse feedbacks between, high and growing...

The Chinese economy has been undergoing fundamental structural changes since the start of reforms in 1978. An increasing number of farmers first got engaged in off-farm activities and then started to migrate to cities in the 1990s in search of jobs....