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This paper evaluates the relationship between public policy reforms and productivity, investment, employment and per capita income for OECD and non-OECD countries. More competition-friendly product market regulations are associated with improved economic outcomes: lower barriers to foreign trade and investment go in tandem with greater multi-factor productivity (MFP), and lower barriers to entry and less pervasive state control over the business sector with larger capital stock and increased employment rate. More flexible labour market regulations are found to go hand in hand with higher employment rates whereas no robust link between labour market regulations and MFP and capital deepening can be established. Thefindings also suggest that the quality of institutions is fundamental for economic outcomes. Finally, the paper shows that countries at different levels of economic development face different policy effects and that some policy reforms interact with each other by attenuating and amplifying each others economic impacts.

This article investigates the drivers of investment growth in emerging market and developing economies with a focus on the most recent slowdown over the 2010–2015 period. Using panel regression techniques, we find that the recent investment slowdown in emerging market and developing economies is associated with a range of obstacles: weak economic activity, negative terms-of-trade shocks, declining foreign direct investment inflows, elevated private debt burdens, and heightened political risk. This stands in contrast with advanced economies, where weak economic activity is the most important factor. We briefly discuss policy implications of our findings.

The EU Green Deal and its impact on economic transformation provoked a slightly forgotten free market vs. market regulation discussion, but in the light of a new context—economic and environmental performance development. The economic shock caused by COVID-19, which transformed economies and societies, intensified this discussion. This article analyses the impact of economic freedom on economic performance and environmental performance in European countries. The article contributes to a gap in the literature, because, to date, research has examined the effects of economic freedom, or some of its components, on economic or environmental measures in groups of nations with a lacking sustainable development context. In addition, the mixed results obtained led to confusion in perceptions and knowledge about the influence and usefulness of economic freedom for economic and environmental performance. We also found mixed results regarding the influence of economic freedom on economic and environmental performance, but the introduction of a new concept—the optimal level of economic freedom—organized the different results into a coherent logical sequence. The paper provides original empirical evidence and specifies the targets of structural reforms. The results are thus useful for policymakers to develop more appropriate and efficient economic freedom.

In modern conditions of global instability and increasing challenges, most countries are increasingly aware that effective counteraction to systemic threats requires not only internal reforms but also coordinated collective actions at the supranational level. A successful example of implementing a collective framework for ensuring the resilience of national economies in crisis conditions is the European initiative «Recovery and Resilience Facility» (RRF), introduced to mitigate the economic and social consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic. The funding approach within the RRF involves an uneven distribution of funds among the EU Member States, which has led to the hypothesis that RRF funding is aimed at strengthening the economic resilience of less successful countries compared to more developed European economies. The confirmation of this hypothesis will indicate the presence of a macroeconomic stabilization effect and the substantiation for the disproportionate allocation of RRF funds in favor of economically vulnerable EU countries. Based on the multiple regression model, the hypothesis regarding the disproportionality in the distribution of RRF funding in favor of less affluent EU countries has been confirmed, with the aim of supporting their economic resilience in the post-COVID crisis period. Statistical confirmation of the hypothesis was achieved by assessing the relationship between the volume of funds as a percentage of the countries’ GDP and socioeconomic indicators on which the volume of RRF financing was determined. The results of the parameter calculations of the multiple regression and subsequent optimization of the model by removing statistically insignificant variables confirmed the significant influence on the volume of financial support from such socioeconomic indicators as GDP per capita and the unemployment rate. The direction of the influence of independent variables on the outcome (both reverse and direct) confirms that funding under the RRF initiative is characterized by asymmetry and is primarily aimed at financially supporting the less economically successful countries of the European Union. The asymmetric approach to funding allows us to regard the RRF as an instrument for macroeconomic stabilization, aimed at supporting the vulnerable EU Member States and a successful example of implementing a collective format for ensuring the resilience of national economies.

This paper deals with the ideas underpinning the EU’s socio-economic governance by focusing on the notion of structural reforms in the framework of the European Semester. It asks which policy ideas are constitutive of the notion of structural reforms in the EU and whether said meaning has changed over time to tackle slow growth and rising inequalities. Our demonstration is mainly grounded on a content analysis of all European Semester documents since 2011 (including Annual Growth Surveys, Alert Mechanism Reports, Euro Area Recommendations, and Country-Specific Recommendations) and completed by a short series of interviews with European and national officials involved in the European Semester. We find that, despite floating meaning, the notion of structural reforms exhibits a persisting core consisting of typically neoliberal policy recipes such as the liberalisation of products and services markets, the deregulation of labour markets, and public administration reform. At the same time, structural reforms have covered eclectic—if not contradictory—policy ideas, thus accompanying a discursive turn towards more fiscal flexibility and (social) investment. Rather than a constructive dynamic towards a renewed agenda, such ambiguity, we argue, reflects a fundamental, asymmetric ongoing battle of ideas within the EU.

PurposeOver the last decade, African rail sectors have applied hybrid reform models to catch up with the sub-region’s lagging rail performance compared to other regions. With this in mind, this paper aims to study the effect of deregulation on rail transport demand. Following an abundant literature on deregulation in Europe and Asia, this study focuses on structural and regulatory reforms.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation methodology is in line with the investigations of Mizutani (2019) and Smith, Benedetto, and Nash (2018). This paper uses a seemingly unrelated model (SURE) for general estimation and a random effect least square model for regional block estimation on a panel of 26 countries for 15 years between 2000 and 2015.FindingsThe main results show that structural reforms positively affect passenger transport demand, but negatively affect freight transport demand. The level of competition stimulates demand for freight transport. Privatization of operators positively affects freight transport demand, but has no significant effect on passenger transport demand. The introduction of a regulatory authority has a positive effect on demand for passenger transport, and in certain regional blocs, it affects demand for freight transport, with the existence of corridors shared between several countries.Originality/valueThis study is carried out in the sub-Saharan African sub-region. Indeed, the importance of the rail sector and the dilapidated state of many of its infrastructures should prompt a more abundant literature on the subject of the effectiveness of deregulation movements. We also evaluate the effect of vertical or horizontal separation and the introduction of an independent regulator in the rail sector on overall demand for transport service.

This volume combines the analyses of leading experts on the various elements affecting economic growth and the policies required to spur that growth. Ascent after Decline: Regrowing Global Economies after the Great Recession identifies the main challenges to the economic recovery, such as rising debt levels, reduced trade prospects, and global imbalances, as well as the obstacles to growth posed by fiscal conundrums and lagging infrastructure. It also examines the way forward, beginning with the role of the state and then covering labor markets, information technology, and innovation. The common thread throughout the book is the view that economic re-growth will depend in large measure on smart policy choices and that the role of government has never been more crucial than at any time since the great depression. As members of the World Bank community, these issues are of particular importance to us, since without a resurrection of strong economic growth in major economies, the likelihood of rapid economic development in poorer developing countries is dampened. This is troubling because we have seen progress in many parts of the globe in the past decade, including in Africa, and these gains will be arrested as long as the global economy is in disarray. Donors will withdraw, investment will retrench, and prospects will dim. This immiserizing welfare outcome is to be avoided. The volume is intended to shed light on those areas of policy that reduce the prospects of a prolonged period of stress and decline by 'regrowing growth.'

The number and range of school types in England is increasing rapidly in response to a neoliberal policy agenda aiming to expand choice of provision as a mechanism for raising educational standards. In this paper, I seek to undertake a mapping of these school types in order to describe and explain what is happening. I capture this busy terrain from different perspectives: legal status; curricular specialism; pupil selection; types of academy; and school groupings. The mapping highlights the intersections between the current reform agenda and the historical diversity within the English school system to show the dialogue between past and present. Borrowing the geological metaphors of faulting and folding, I argue that long-established school types are not buried under sedimentary layers of reform, but are thrust into the present where they are discursively re-imagined through neoliberalism. Finally, I conceptualise the landscape holistically through the lenses of locus of legitimacy and branding, where I argue that current structural diversification policies enable the enactment of interests other than educational through transferring responsibility for education and related assets away from public and towards corporatised or religious actors and institutions.

This article shows the relevance of implicit conditionality in the eurozone crisis, that is, conditionality based on an implicit understanding of the stakes and sanctions involved, underlain by some measure of power asymmetry. The concept of implicit conditionality is applied to the reconstruction of Italy’s sovereign debt crisis, and the structural – pension and labour market – reforms introduced by the Monti government, following requests from the European Union (EU). Actual or potential access to EU financial support – carried out through purchase of Italy’s bonds to alleviate market tensions on its debt – was the carrot. The threat of having to enter formalized, explicit conditional lending programmes with the International Monetary Fund in order to avoid default was the stick. Market discipline was the operating mechanism that made implicit conditionality effective, and the role of monitoring by the EU was pervasive. Developments described in this article seem to support a revitalization of the fusion hypothesis between EU and member states – at least in the eurozone.

The European Union (EU) is a unique economic integration organization with standard policies that seek common goals among members, such as convergence and sustainable development. It aims to become a climate neutral economy by 2050. With structural reform implementation, each EU member country can work towards these set goals in accordance with their own welfare. However, a trade-off between the individual welfare goals of a country and the common goals of the EU should be reached. This article analyzes the impact of structural reforms on sustainable development performance in European countries. The article contributes to a gap in the literature because, to date, previous research has examined the effects of structural reforms on economic or environmental measures in groups of nations but has often lacked an adequate sustainable development context. In addition, the clustering of European Union countries according to different social policy regimes requires clarification of the perceptions and knowledge about the influence and usefulness of structural reforms for sustainable development performance. The research uses the panel data of the Heritage Index of Economic Freedom and Sustainable Development Goals agenda from the Eurostat database. The data cover 27 countries of the European Union for a period of 11 years (2010–2020). The research panel includes 297 observations. We found different results regarding the influence of structural reforms on sustainable development performance under different social policy regimes and the regulatory trap for homogeneous sustainable development in the European Union. The paper provides original empirical evidence and specifies the targets of structural reforms in relation to sustainable development. The results provide guidance for policymakers to develop more appropriate and efficient sustainable development policies.