Corporatism,policies and growth

We investigate whether corporatist wage setting and policy making institutions negatively affect a) the slope of the growth path of the economy, by yielding decisions that resist the introduction of technological progress; b) the position of the growth path, through higher transaction costs involved in the policy decision making process. The estimates reveal: a) a negative partial correlation between corporatism and growth; b) a robust correlation between growth, union pervasiveness and other policy regressors; c) no significant correlation between corporatism and output level.Received: October 1999, Accepted: October 2002, JEL Classification: J51, P41We wish to thank Sebastiano Bavetta, Domenico da Empoli, Ernesto Felli, Massimo Finoia, Gianluigi Galeotti, Kevin B. Grier, Alenka Kajzer, Hannelore Weck-Hanneman, the participants to the 1999 Meeting of the European Public Choice Society and to the seminars of the Center for Research on Economics of Institutions, as well as three anonimous referees for comments on previous versions of this paper. Financial support from the Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche, grant n. 98.01482.CT10 is gratefully acknowledged. The usual caveat applies.