Distribution dynamics: stratification, polarization, and convergence among OECD economies, 1870-1992

Using a distribution dynamics approach, the growth experience of 17 OECD economies is investigated. After explaining the distribution dynamics approach, the empirical analysis examines both the observed period dynamics and the unique long-run equilibrium associated with three periods. This study suggests persistence and stratification, not convergence, characterized the pre-1914 regime, whereas convergence was the key feature of the post-war regime. However, a larger sample of OECD economies in the post-war period indicates that convergence was primarily a feature of the Golden Age and in the post-Golden Age period separation, polarization, and divergence came to the fore.     

Does insurance activity promote economic growth? Further evidence based on bootstrap panel Granger causality test

This study applies the bootstrap panel Granger causality test to test whether insurance activity promotes economic growth, using data from 10 OECD countries over the period of 1979–2006. Empirical results indicate that one-way Granger causality running from all insurance activities to economic growth for France, Japan, Netherlands, Switzerland, and the UK, and economic growth Granger causes insurance activities in Canada (for life insurance), Italy (for total and life insurance) and the USA (for total and non-life insurance). There is a two-way Granger causality between life insurance activity and economic growth in the USA, while no causality between insurance activities and economic growth is found in Belgium (for all insurance), Canada (for total and non-life insurance), Italy (for non-life insurance) and Sweden (for life insurance). Our results also confirm the finding of Ward and Zurbruegg [Does insurance promote economic growth? Evidence from OECD economies. Journal of Risk and Insurance 67, no. 4: 489–506] showing that the insurance–growth nexus varies across countries, since their paper have previously demonstrated heterogeneity in this vein. In an analysis of a broader, though overlapping 17-country sample and taking into account banking activities, the results suggest the importance of including banking activities when investigating the insurance–growth relationship.     

How useful is the PSE in determining agricultural support?

The support of the agricultural sector in developed countries plays a major role in the international policy agenda. The producer support estimate (PSE) is one of the best known measures which has been developed by OECD and is used all over the globe. In the PSE all types of support are aggregated and one of the main components (70% at OECD level) is the market price support (MPS). Here we show by means of characteristic examples that the MPS has no clear relation to basic economic measures determining support for producers as a consequence of policy intervention. The MPS overestimates the consequences of tariffs and export subsidies and underestimates the consequences of quota systems in determining producer support. Misperception of the size and directions of support may affect policy decision-making wrongly. The paper indicates that weighted average producer prices, corrected for quantity restrictions, may be more useful than the reference prices and quantities used by OECD.     

OECD国家的农村发展政策调整及其对我国新农村建设的启示

随着建设社会主义新农村重大历史任务的提出，我国现有的农村发展政策调整已被提上日程。OECD许多成员国为了适应国内及国际经济形势的变化，“都进行了农村政策的调整，这对同样是市场经济体制的我国而言具有借鉴作用。文章归纳了OECD国家农村发展政策调整的经验，并介绍了较有代表性的加拿大和瑞典农村建设的实例，最后结合我国国情，对正在进行的社会主义新农村建设提出一些建议。     

公共研究的治理:OECD国家经验与启示

我国在公共研究治理方面的体制还不健全，从而阻碍了公共研究的进一步发展。本文首先分析了OECD国家在公共研究中优先领域的设置、项目资助的内部机制等方面的优势．概括总结了OECD国家在公共研究治理方面的可借鉴之处，最后对我国公共研究政策提出了建议。     

From Causes to Reasons: The Human Dimension of Agricultural Sustainability

The point of departure of this paper is the familiar instrumental perspective that focuses on causes and effects and on actions to do something about them. This perspective is appealing and familiar and exemplified here by the Pressure, State, Response (PSR) Model used by the OECD to analyse environmental issues. After presenting the details of this approach, the paper then presents the other side of the coin: an approach based not on causes but on human reasons. In trying to explain sustainability, it does not look for causes and effects in the physical world, but for human reasons in terms of people's ‘gets’, ‘wants’, ‘knowing’ and ‘doing’. This translates as an exercise in interpreting the perfectly valid instrumental discourse about agricultural sustainability into a totally different discourse based on cognition and learning. This translation seems to add something that is worth taking into account. The ‘pressure’ in OECD's PSR model takes on a new appearance. After providing examples on how the new perspective can be applied, the paper draws implications for the combination of the domains of knowledge we need to look at agricultural sustainability. It concludes with an example based on research of a social learning approach in a Dutch water catchment.     

Ideology and redistribution through public spending

For a panel of OECD economies (1980–2013) we analyse the scope of government ideology to shape patterns of public expenditures. To address if public expenditures are used to channel redistributive outcomes, we adopt a flexible panel error correction model and proceed in two steps: Firstly, we analyse if ideological positions matter for the sizing of the public sector. Secondly, we address the actual impact of government ideology on two disjoint categories of public expenditure that are characterized by distinguished redistributive effects. Under both, left-wing and right-wing governments, public spending shows progressively redistributive effects which are indirectly channelled through their policy response to changing macroeconomic, fiscal and demographic fundamentals. While right-wing governments act progressively redistributive under favourable socio-economic conditions, their left-wing counterparts do so under unfavourable conditions. Comparing the two effects in terms of their explanatory content, we find that the latter is stronger than the former.     

Are OECD policy recommendations for public sector reform biased against welfare states? Evidence from a new database

Policy advice by the OECD has long been at the heart of academic debates on welfare state reform, with frequent claims questioning the ideological orientation of recommendations. This paper constructs an indicator of perceived reform need for 24 countries, quantifying the policy advice contained in the OECD Economic Surveys around 1985, 1995, and 2005. These recommendations describe a policy consensus that is based on competition, work incentives, monetary reform, fiscal discipline, and labor market reform. Empirically, perceived need for reform is well explained by preceding levels of economic freedom. In particular, countries with more government intervention, lower property rights protection, and more regulation are perceived to have a bigger reform need. In turn, perceived reform need has no explanatory power for subsequent changes in social expenditure and welfare state entitlements. Only in countries with right wing governments, perceived reform need might be followed by marginal reductions in welfare state entitlements, but definitely not in social expenditure.     

Testing explosive behavior of public debt in OECD countries

This paper examines the beginning and end of potentially speculative explosive public debt patterns occurring in 29 major OECD countries. The method we use is most appropriate for practical implementation with a time series and delivers a consistent date-stamping strategy for the origination and termination of multiple explosive behaviors. Our results also test that most OECD countries, except for Israel, Luxembourg, and Turkey, have experienced periods of explosive public debt. The stationarity of public debt varies by country. Approximately two-thirds of the explosive periods occurred prior to 2012. Based on the scale, structure, and safety of government debt for dynamic monitoring and evaluation, governments can improve risk management measures.