Unleashing growth: The decline of innovation-blocking institutions
Innovation is the beating heart of modern growth. This column argues that innovation-blocking institutions weaken when markets expand and competition intensifies. The rise and decline of medieval Italian crafts guilds offer valuable insights into this process. Policies that promote greater market integration and stronger competition are key steps in lowering the barriers to innovation.
Cuddly or not, the design of worker insurance is critically important
Do economies’ social policies affect their innovative outcomes? This column uses the case of venture capital investors to argue that it may. Countries that protect workers rather than jobs – and thus avoid employment-protection laws – developed stronger venture-capital markets over 1999-2008, especially in highly volatile sectors like computers or energy.
Views among economists: Are economists really so divided?
Remedying a global crisis such as this requires concerted, consensual, coordinated effort. But we’re told economists are divided on what to do next. Is this true? Are we divided? This column praises efforts such as the Economic Experts Panel from the Chicago Booth School of Business. It’s from panels like this – which comprise top economists with differing political views – that we can get a sense of consensus or disagreement on major economic issues.
Why reforms fail: Political-economy forces and agriculture in Africa
Increasing agricultural productivity and expanding the agribusiness industry in sub-Saharan Africa is critical for poverty reduction, food security and economic growth. Numerous recent national, regional and G20-level programmes have been initiated to that effect. This column discusses new research showing that political economy forces have a major bearing on the success or failure of agricultural reform programmes. To be successful, policymakers must bear in mind the extent to which existing elites are affected by the redistribution associated with increasing returns for rural producers.
Can FTAs support ‘Factory Asia’?
Are free trade agreements good for ‘Factory Asia’? This column argues that rather than supporting ‘Factory Asia’, it is more likely that fragmentation trade has prospered despite the noodle bowl of overlapping FTAs in the region. Inter-regional FTAs, on the other hand, may have been able to indirectly support the growth of production networks among existing members, if they led to increased demand for the final goods that the networks produce.
Other Recent Articles:
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- A pro-growth economic plan
- Banking crises and political survival over the long run
- France’s weak economic performance: Sick of taxation?
- The cat in the tree and further observations: Rethinking macroeconomic policy
- Rethinking macroeconomic policy
- Preventing the next catastrophe: Where do we stand?
- The lessons of the North Atlantic crisis for economic theory and policy
- Physical activity and health
- Rapid current-account rebalancing in the southern Eurozone
- Policy preferences of central bankers and the design of a monetary-policy committee
- Finance and growth in China and India: Have firms benefited from the capital-market expansion?
- The stalemate at the negotiations on environmental goods: Can it be broken?
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- Four changes to trade rules to facilitate climate change action
- Fiscal consolidation: At what speed?
Most Read
- Distilling the macroeconomic news flowBeber, Brandt, Luisi
- Fiscal consolidation: At what speed?Blanchard, Leigh
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- Escaping liquidity traps: Lessons from the UK’s 1930s escapeCrafts
- The lessons of the North Atlantic crisis for economic theory and policyStiglitz
- A tale of two depressions: What do the new data tell us? February 2010 updateEichengreen, O’Rourke
- Educated in America: College graduates and high school dropoutsHeckman, LaFontaine
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- Debt, deleveraging, and the liquidity trap: A new modelKrugman
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Vox Talks
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Rethinking macroeconomic policy
Blanchard
Fiscal consolidation: At what speed?
Blanchard, Leigh
Is inflation targeting dead? Central Banking After the Crisis
Reichlin, Baldwin
CEPR Policy Research
- Political Credit Cycles: The Case of the Euro ZoneFernández-Villaverde, Garicano, Santos
- Winning by Losing: Incentive Incompatibility in Multiple QualifiersDagaev, Sonin
- Income and schoolingBrückner, Gradstein
- Monetary Policy and Rational Asset Price BubblesGalí
- Does Supporting Passenger Railways Reduce Road Traffic Externalities?Lalive, Luechinger, Schmutzler
- How the EZ crisis is permanently changing EU institutionsMicossi
- WTO 2.0: Global governance of supply-chain tradeBaldwin
- Is US economic growth over? Faltering innovation confronts the six headwindsGordon
- The economic crisis: How to stimulate economies without increasing public debtWood
- Austerity: Too Much of a Good Thing?Corsetti
Events
- Global Spillovers and Economic Cycles30 - 31 May 2013 / Paris / Banque de France
- Understanding banks in emerging markets5 - 6 September 2013 / EBRD, London / European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and Tilburg University
