Economic Development and Growth

Economic Development & Growth

What makes countries’ economies grow towards a developed status is a subject of much debate, with competing approaches vying to assert their superiority. Free markets or state-led? National champions or free enterprise? Diversification or competitive advantage? This EconPol topic area cuts through dogmas and philosophies to find which factors actually drive economic growth, under what circumstances, and which ones make it sustainable.  It looks at strategies, policies, and initiatives aimed at enhancing productivity, promoting innovation, and creating favorable conditions for economic progress, and examines the role of various drivers of economic development, such as investment, entrepreneurship, technological advances, human capital development, and institutional frameworks. It also explores the challenges and opportunities associated with economic growth, including income inequality, environmental sustainability, and the distribution of resources.

Related articles

Cover of EconPol Policy Report 40

Minimum Income Support Systems as Elements of Crisis Resilience in Europe

Werner Eichhorst, Holger Bonin, Annabelle Krause-Pilatus, Paul Marx, Mathias Dolls, Max Lay

The new Policy Report analyses the role of social policies in different European welfare states regarding minimum income protection and active inclusion. It finds consistent differences in terms of crisis resilience across countries and welfare state types. In general, Nordic and Continental European welfare states with strong upstream systems and minimum income support (MIS) show better outcomes in core socio-economic outcomes such as poverty and exclusion risks. However, labour market integration shows some dualisms in Continental Europe. The study shows that MIS holds particular importance if there are gaps in upstream systems or cases of severe and lasting crises.

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Skilled Workers

Higher Wages May Help Overcome the Shortage of Skilled Workers!

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Expert Opinion
There is currently intense debate in many countries about a shortage of skilled workers. For instance in Germany, despite record employment figures, according to surveys by the ifo Institute, close to 50 percent of companies say they are constrained by a shortage of skilled workers – also an all-time high. From an economic perspective, there is a simple answer to shortages: higher prices.
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Forum Icon ECONOMIC POLICY AND ITS IMPACT

Do School Curricula Matter to Students in the Long Run?

ECONOMIC POLICY AND ITS IMPACT

Benjamin W. Arold

Greater exposure to evolution teaching not only improves students’ knowledge of evolution by the time they graduate from high school, but it also enhances their belief in evolution in adulthood. What is more, the reforms affect high-stakes life decisions, namely the probability of choosing a career in life sciences.

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Cover of EconPol Policy Brief 47

The Interplay of Interest Rates and Debt-Financed Government Spending

Bev Dahlby and Ergete Ferede

Persistently low interest rates on government debt over past decades have prompted some economists to question the wisdom of fiscal policies that restrict the use of deficits to finance government spending. In the new EconPol Policy Brief Bev Dahlby and Ergete Ferede argue that the widely held view that there is no, or only a low, fiscal cost from debt-financed increases in program spending can be misleading.

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Forum Icon BIG-DATA-BASED ECONOMIC INSIGHTS

How Do Taxation and Regulation Affect the Real Estate Market?

BIG-DATA-BASED ECONOMIC INSIGHTS

Mathias Dolls, David Gstrein, Carla Krolage, Florian Neumeier

The following article provides an overview of four projects that assess the effects of regulation and taxation as well as the pandemic’s impact on the German real estate market, using large-scale property price as well as survey data. The projects aim to provide answers to the following questions: Do subsidies make housing purchases more affordable? How do real estate transfer taxes affect house prices? How does rent regulation such as the Berlin rent cap affect the real estate market? And, which future trends in the housing market can be expected given the pandemic’s potentially long-lasting impacts on residential preferences?

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