Universities in developing countries have rarely been able to subscribe to academic journals in the past. The "Online Access to Research in the Environment" initiative (OARE) provides institutions in developing countries with free online access to more than 5,700 environmental science journals....

Does data disclosure have an impact on citations? Four leading economics journals introduced a data disclosure policy between 2004 and 2006. We use panel data consisting of 17,135 article citing-year observations from 1996 to 2015 for articles published in these journals. Empirical articles that...

This paper investigates price differences between online and offline retail channels in the EU Digital Single Market. Using price and sales data for ten household appliances product categories sold both offline and online in 21 EU countries in 2009, and correcting for product characteristics, we...

Many modern firms compete globally. However, research into whether foreignness is an asset or a liability in competition with domestic firms is inconclusive. We argue that foreign MNC subsidiaries are not per se advantaged or disadvantaged. We suggest that the distinction originates from the...

This paper investigates patterns in product market regulation across 34 OECD and 21 non-OECD countries, using an updated and revised version of the OECD’s indicators of product market regulation (PMR). The analysis shows that liberalisation of product markets has further slowed over the past...

This paper examines how import penetration affects firms' productivity growth taking into account the heterogeneity in firms' distance to the efficiency frontier and country differences in product market regulation. Using firm-level data for a large number of OECD countries, the analysis reveals...

This paper provides new evidence on the main characteristics of laggard firms - firms in the bottom 40% of the productivity distribution - and their potential for productivity growth. It finds that laggards are on average younger and smaller than more productive firms, and matter for aggregate...

Business registration is crucial for ensuring accountable, transparent and viable business environments. By bringing businesses into the formal economy, governments are able to provide more strategic and targeted policies for businesses and consumers. The objective of this working paper is to...

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reforms that will help it to break away from three decades of slow growth and low productivity. Major structural measures have been legislated to improve competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure and the tax...

Canada’s productivity performance has lagged that of many other OECD countries, despite some improvement in recent years. One measure to enhance overall efficiency would be to strengthen competition on the domestic market to drive future multi-factor productivity improvements. The potential...