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5222. Economic Survey of Denmark, 2005
- Publication Date:
- 02-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- Denmark has been near the top of the OECD's income rankings for many years. It has the most equal income distribution among member countries, partly because of its comprehensive welfare state. Given an ageing population, the key economic challenge is to maintain growth in living standards while preserving the welfare system. To achieve this, Denmark will need to raise labour supply and productivity growth. If they do not improve from here, the growth rate of per capita GDP will be dragged down to just ½ per cent per annum within a couple of decades.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Denmark
5223. Economic Survey of Iceland, 2005
- Publication Date:
- 02-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- Iceland's impressive economic performance has continued to show the benefits of the refocusing of policies on financial stabilisation and market liberalisation in the 1990s. The most recent recovery, which began in 2003, has been much more vigorous than expected, as buoyant household demand has reinforced the stimulatory effect of the large-scale aluminium-related investment projects underway. Imbalances in the economy – specifically, the large current account deficit and inflation pressures – have mounted and – with GDP growth averaging over 5% in 2004-06 – they may well be similar in size to those seen in the last overheating episode in 2000-01, which resulted in a mild recession. Limiting instability over the next few years is a demanding task for macroeconomic policymakers, and efforts underway in this regard need to be strengthened. There are also challenges for structural policies, notably with respect to the proper assessment of future investment projects and in the environ-mental area. In a longer-term perspective, sustaining the faster productivity growth that structural reforms in the 1990s have brought about will require further action, especially in the education and competition policy fields.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe
5224. (Danish) Economic Survey Denmark 2005
- Publication Date:
- 02-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- Danmark har i mange år ligget nær toppen på OECD's rangliste over BNP pr. indbygger. Danmark har den mest lige indkomstfordeling blandt medlemslandene, delvist so m følge af dets vidtfavnende velfærdsstat. I lyset af befolkningsaldringen er den primære økonomiske udfordring at fastholde væksten i levestandarden og samtidig bevare velfærdssystemet. For at opnå dette er det nødvendigt at øge arbejdsudbuddet og væksten i produktiviteten. Uden forbedringer på disse to områder vil væksten i BNP pr. indbygger fa lde til blot ½ procent om året i løbet af et par årtier.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Europe and Denmark
5225. Economic Survey of Australia, 2004
- Publication Date:
- 01-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- Recent and prospective performance is good. The Australian economy is still benefiting from the programme of widespread and deep reforms that started in the 1980s and was especially intensive in the 1990s. These made it easier to set macro policies in a stability-oriented medium-term framework. The combination resulted in a thirteen year long economic expansion accompanied by low inflation, high resilience to external and domestic shocks, and very healthy public finances. The short term outlook is for continuing brisk low- inflationary growth.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Australia and Australia/Pacific
5226. Economic Survey of Japan, 2005
- Publication Date:
- 01-2005
- Content Type:
- Policy Brief
- Institution:
- The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
- Abstract:
- The strengthening of the economy has raised hopes that Japan is emerging from a decade of stagnation. Output has been increasing at a more than 2 per cent annual rate since 2002, reflecting strong external demand and the progress made in corporate restructuring and economic reform. However, Japan still faces a number of serious headwinds to sustained growth, notably entrenched deflation and continued declines in bank lending and land prices. Meanwhile, the government's financial position continues to deteriorate, raising concerns about fiscal sustainability at the same time that population ageing is increasing demands for public spending. Addressing these challenges requires a combination of well-designed macroeconomic policies and structural measures to boost the growth potential and ensure rising living standards in the face of rapid population ageing.
- Topic:
- Economics, Government, and International Trade and Finance
- Political Geography:
- Japan and Israel
5227. What Makes a Difference in Achieving Higher Labor Productivity? The Case of Low-Income Countries in Latin America
- Author:
- Osvaldo Nina
- Publication Date:
- 12-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Institute for Advanced Development Studies (INESAD)
- Abstract:
- This paper uses firm level surveys from Ecuador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua to estimate the determinants of labor productivity. This study started out with the hypothesis that the adverse external business conditions that firms in poor Latin American countries face, may be an important explication of the generally low levels of productivity. However, the empirical results, based on the survey of more than 1300 businesses, do not confirm this hypothesis. Compared to all the variables that are under the firms control, such as capital intensity, energy use, and worker skills, the external business environment (macroeconomic instability and labor regulations) has very little impact on productivity.
- Topic:
- Development, Economics, Labor Issues, Productivity, and Income
- Political Geography:
- Latin America, Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, and Ecuador
5228. Taxing Business-to-Consumer Interstate Remote Retail Sales: Economics v. Jurisprudence in the Battle Over Tax Jurisdiction
- Author:
- Jeptha Nafziger
- Publication Date:
- 05-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA), Princeton University
- Abstract:
- Retail sales and use taxes constitute a major component of state and local tax bases, providing critical funds for many public programs. The continued and increasing significance of nontaxed remote retail sales—interstate sales of goods by firms without sufficient presence in the destination jurisdiction—has put the long-term solvency of these tax bases and the public programs they fund in jeopardy. To a considerable extent, this problem is attributable to the oft-criticized “nexus” standard, a legal concept that limits a jurisdiction’s ability to tax remote transactions based on constitutional and stare decisis grounds. This paper offers a summary of the jurisprudence that has yielded the current nexus interpretation, an economic critique of its underlying principles, and several recommendations that could serve as policy alternatives to the status quo.
- Topic:
- Economics, Business, Tax Systems, Jurisdiction, Retail, Consumer Behavior, and Jurisprudence
- Political Geography:
- North America and United States of America
5229. Trends in Competitive Balance: Is there Evidence for Growing Imbalance in Professional Sport Leagues?
- Author:
- Arne Feddersen and Wolfgang Maennig
- Publication Date:
- 01-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Chair for Economic Policy, University of Hamburg
- Abstract:
- The concept of competitive balance is a central aspect in the literature of sports economics. A popular argumentation of sport functionaries is that dominance of one or a few teams could lead to unequal incomes for the clubs, restrictions in the clubs’ ability to improve sporting performance and ultimately to a loss of attractiveness and loss of income for the league. Following this line of reasoning and alleging a negative trend in competitive sports functionaries often try to implement regulations in team sport leagues. The aim of this paper is to analyze for eight different leagues if there is such a trend existing. For an empirical test for trends in competitive balance of four European soccer leagues (ENG, ESP, GER, ITA) and four US Major Leagues (MLB, NBA, NFL, NHL), OLS regressions with a constant were carried out. For the entire observation period from 1969/70 to 2003/2004, of 48 trends ascertained, only 12 could be observed as being significantly positive (i.e. growing imbalance) with 19 significantly negative (i.e. growing balance). The remaining 17 trends were insignificantly different from zero.
- Topic:
- Economics, Sports, Soccer, Competitive Balance, and Sports Leagues
- Political Geography:
- Europe, Global Focus, and United States of America
5230. Slow Passthrough Around the World: A New Import for Developing Countries?
- Author:
- Jeffrey Frankel, David Parsley, and Shang-Jin Wei
- Publication Date:
- 02-2005
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- The John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University
- Abstract:
- Developing countries traditionally experience passthrough of exchange rate changes that is greater and more rapid than high-income countries experience. This is true equally of the determination of prices of imported goods, prices of local competitors’ products, and the general CPI. But developing countries in the 1990s experienced a rapid downward trend in the degree of passthrough and speed of adjustment, more so than did high-income countries. As a consequence, slow and incomplete passthrough is no longer exclusively a luxury of industrial countries. Using a new data set -- prices of eight narrowly defined brand commodities, observed in 76 countries -- we find empirical support for some of the factors that have been hypothesized in the literature, but not for others. Significant determinants of the passthrough coefficient include per capita incomes, bilateral distance, tariffs, country size, wages, long-term inflation, and long-term exchange rate variability. Some of these factors changed during the 1990s. Part (and only part) of the downward trend in passthrough to imported goods prices, and in turn to competitors’ prices and the CPI, can be explained by changes in the monetary environment – including a fall in long-term inflation. Real wages work to reduce passthrough to competitors’ prices and the CPI, confirming the hypothesized role of distribution and retail costs in pricing to market. Rising distribution costs, due perhaps to the Balassa-Samuelson-Baumol effect, could contribute to the decline in the passthrough coefficient in some developing countries.
- Topic:
- Economics, Markets, Developing World, Tariffs, Exchange Rate Policy, and Inflation
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus