Documents Hoeller, Peter 14 results

"Reforms that boost growth by enhancing economic flexibility often meet strong opposition related to concerns that they may imply adverse consequences for categories of workers. This study investigates how making product or labour market regulation more flexible changes workers' risks of moving out of employment and jobless people's chances of becoming employed. To do so, it employs specially harmonised micro-level data covering individual workers in 26 OECD countries. The micro-econometric regressions reveal that labour market reforms do not uniformly influence transitions in and out of employment but that their effects vary depending on institutions and other policy settings. For instance, making employment protection of regular contracts more flexible is associated with more transitions into employment in countries that have above-average activation programmes. As for product market reforms, they are found to boost transitions into employment, especially for women, and to have no systematic effect on exits, so that overall they tend to boost aggregate employment, in line with earlier evidence. The micro-data show that workers with low earnings potential, who, already before reforms, experience much higher transition rates in and out of employment than other groups, face particularly strong increases in employment churn when product market regulations become more flexible. Additional micro-econometric analysis focusing on sectors subject to specific product market regulation (energy, transport, communication) reveals that workers employed in tightly regulated sectors typically earn more than their peers with similar characteristics working elsewhere. Taken together, the findings can help enhance reform design, in particular by highlighting the benefits of (a) policy packages drawing on complementarities between product and labour market reforms, (b) active labour market programmes that effectively support more vulnerable workers and (c) broad reforms over narrow compensation schemes."

"Policy reforms aimed at boosting long-run growth often have side effects – positive or negative – on an economy's vulnerability to shocks and their propagation. Macroeconomic shocks as severe and protracted as those since 2007 warrant a reconsideration of the role growth-promoting policies play in shaping the vulnerability and resilience of an economy to macroeconomic shocks. Against this background, this paper looks at a vast array of policy recommendations by the OECD that promote longterm growth – contained in Going for Growth and the Economic Outlook – and attempts to establish whether they underpin macroeconomic stability or whether there is a trade-off."

"The sharp rise in debt experienced by most OECD countries raises questions about debt indicators and the prudent government debt level countries should target. It also raises questions about the fiscal frameworks needed to reach the prudent debt level and to accommodate cyclical fluctuations along the convergence path towards a prudent debt target. The objective of this paper is to define long-run prudent debt targets for OECD countries and country-specific fiscal rules. The paper presents a comprehensive analysis of government liabilities and assets and formulates recommendations for debt indicators. It also reviews the different linkages between government debt and the economic activity. The lessons from these analyses are combined with an assessment of the uncertainties surrounding the development of macroeconomic variables to define a prudent debt target. Different fiscal rules are compared with regard their impact on fiscal discipline and the risk of recession for country-specific fiscal rules recommendations."

"Finance is a vital ingredient for economic growth, but there can also be too much of it. This study investigates what fifty years of data for OECD countries have to say about the role of the financial sector for economic growth and income inequality and draws policy implications. Over the past fifty years, credit by banks and other intermediaries to households and businesses has grown three times as fast as economic activity. In most OECD countries, further expansion is likely to slow rather than boost growth. The composition of finance matters for growth. More credit to the private sector slows growth in most OECD countries, but more stock market financing boosts growth. Credit is a stronger drag on growth when it goes to households rather than businesses. Financial expansion fuels greater income inequality because higher income people can benefit more from the greater availability of credit and because the sector pays high wages. Higher income people can and do borrow more, so that they can gain more than others from the investment opportunities that they identify. The financial sector pays wages which are above what employees with similar profiles earn in the rest of the economy. This premium is particularly large for top income earners. There is no trade-off between financial reform, growth and income equality in the long term. In the short term, measures to avoid accumulating too much credit can, however, restrain growth temporarily. A healthy contribution of the financial sector to inclusive growth requires strong capital buffers, measures to reduce explicit and implicit subsidies to toobig- to-fail financial institutions and tax reforms to promote neutrality between debt and equity financing."

"Economic policies shape how much people earn but also how stable their income and jobs are. The level of earnings and the degree of economic stability both matter for well-being. Micro-level data indicate that, across OECD countries, economic instability is much greater at the level of individuals than at the aggregate level. The present study investigates the effects on micro-level stability of policies that boost growth. Movement from less to more productive processes and firms is at the heart of economic growth, which suggests possible trade-offs between growth and micro-level stability. The analysis indeed finds policy changes that boost growth but increase micro-level instability: reducing the progressivity or size of social transfers (including unemployment benefits) as well as moving from very to moderately tight restrictions on the competition for goods and services and on the dismissal of regular workers. However, the analysis also uncovers that moving to highly competitive policies generally reduces micro-level instability."

"Social institutions face many challenges. The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test as it has left a legacy of high unemployment and high government debt in many countries. It also lowered potential output and thus the revenue base for social protection schemes. At the same time, ageing and other secular trends raise long-term sustainability issues. The design of social institutions determines their capacity to deal with shocks and trend changes and the way risks are shared between the institutions and their stakeholders. They also circumscribe the scope for automatic or discretionary adjustments, when trade-offs between sustainability, adequacy and efficiency arise. This report examines the sustainability of social institutions and their ability to absorb and cope with short-term shocks and longer-term trends by providing risk sharing and expenditure smoothing, focusing on pension, health care and unemployment insurance schemes."

"Policy reforms aimed at boosting long-run growth often have side effects – positive or negative – on an economy's vulnerability to shocks and their propagation. Macroeconomic shocks as severe and protracted as those since 2007 warrant a reconsideration of the role growth-promoting policies play in shaping the vulnerability and resilience of an economy to macroeconomic shocks. Against this background, this paper looks at a vast array of policy recommendations by the OECD that promote longterm growth – contained in Going for Growth and the Economic Outlook – and attempts to establish whether they underpin macroeconomic stability or whether there is a trade-off."

"Debt levels have surged since the mid-1990s and have reached historic highs across the OECD. High debt levels can create vulnerabilities, which amplify and transmit macroeconomic and asset price shocks. Furthermore, high debt levels hinder the ability of households and enterprises to smooth consumption and investment and of governments to cushion adverse shocks. The empirical evidence suggests that when private sector debt levels, particularly for households, rise above trend the likelihood of recession increases. Measures of financial leverage give less warning and typically only deteriorate once the economy begins to slow and asset prices are falling. Government debt typically rises after the onset of a recession, suggesting that there is a migration of debt across balance sheets. Some policies, such as robust micro prudential regulation and frameworks to deal with debt overhangs and maintain public debt at prudent levels, can help economies withstand adverse shocks. Other policy options, such as addressing biases in tax codes that favour debt financing and targeted macro-prudential policies, will help bring down debt levels and address future run ups in debt."

"Countries differ widely with respect to the level of labour income inequality among individuals of working age. Labour income inequality is shaped by differences in wage rates, hours worked and inactivity rates. Individual labour income inequality is the main driver of household market income inequality, with family formation as well as self-employment and capital income dispersion playing a smaller role. Household disposable income dispersion is lower in all OECD countries than household market income inequality, due to the redistributive effect of tax and transfer systems, but redistribution differs widely across countries. This paper maps income inequality for all OECD countries across various inequality dimensions and summarises them in inequality outcome diamonds. It also provides a cluster analysis that identifies groups of countries that share similar inequality patterns."