This paper examines the state of the Russian banking sector in 2004 and assesses the most important reform initiatives of the last two years, including deposit insurance legislation, a major reform of the framework for prudential supervision, steps...

Since the early 1990s, when France's general government deficit reached a disturbing 6 per cent of GDP, the country's public finances have progressed substantially, even though significantly further improvement is required. This paper examines the...

Depuis le début des années 90, lorsque le déficit des administrations publiques de la France avait atteint le niveau inquiétant de 6 pour cent du PIB, les finances publiques du pays se sont nettement redressées, même si de nouvelles améliorations...

This article investigates issues related to industrial restructuring in Russia. Based on extensive sectoral data it examines, more particularly, levels and changes in labour productivity, unit labour costs and revealed comparative advantages for a...

Key indicators show Germany belonging to the countries in the OECD with strong innovation activity even though some weakening in Germany’s position relative to other OECD countries has occurred recently. While the redirection of resources towards...

This paper provides, for all OECD countries, an estimate of the net tax cost per currency unit of contribution to a tax-favoured retirement savings plan, using a present-value methodology. The latter takes into account the future flows of revenues...

An ambitious reform to increase efficiency of the Portuguese health care system was launched in 2002. In contrast to previous attempts of gradual reforms, which were never fully implemented, the strategy has been to create a big bang in the health...

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...

Russia in 2003 embarked on the restructuring of its electricity sector. The reform is intended to introduce competition into electricity production and supply, leaving dispatch, transmission and distribution as regulated natural monopolies with...

The gas industry is perhaps Russia’s least reformed major sector. Prices are regulated, exports are monopolised and the domestic market is dominated by a state-controlled, vertically integrated monopolist, OAO Gazprom. Gazprom combines commercial and...

In recent years the euro area has shown less resilience to the negative and largely OECD-wide common shocks than the English-speaking countries, but most of the smaller euro area countries have fared better than the large ones. This paper reviews...

After the launch of the single currency the euro exchange rate fell and interest rates had converged towards the (low) German level. These shocks have worked out differently for the small and large countries. Housing markets have acted as an...

Maintaining rapid economic growth depends increasingly on productivity gains, particularly in the service sector. Competition has an important role to play in achieving such gains. However, Korea’s development strategy has tended to weaken...

Regulatory reform efforts in a broad range of industries have resulted in increased importance of competitive forces as a means to allocate resources and improve economic efficiency. A number of indicators suggest that such forces have been stronger...

This paper examines the extent to which fiscal policy actions may be offset by simultaneous, anticipatory changes in private saving, as well as the determinants of that offset. The conditions under which private agents will engage in forward-looking...

This paper analyses the impact of exchange rate regimes on real exchange rates, as defined by the relative price of nontradables to tradables in Argentina, Brazil, Chile (ABC) and Mexico from 1990 to 2002. The real exchange rate is determined in the...

The paper set out four types of market structure clusters (based on an OECD benchmark) to assess different entry barriers, both endogenous and policy-induced that may affect the ability of enterprises in emerging countries to penetrate international...

The paper examines the linkages between housing markets and the business cycle in OECD countries, focusing on how differences in the degree of resilience to economic shocks can be affected by the structural characteristics of housing and mortgage...

This paper provides estimates of the implicit fiscal assets as well as of the evolution over time of fiscal costs and revenues related to tax-favoured retirement saving regimes in 17 OECD countries, taking into account current and future...

After nearly fifteen years of transition, the countries of Central Europe have entered the European Union on 1 May 2004. For the four countries that are members of the OECD (Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovak Republic), accession follows...