This paper analyzes the most important determinants of healthcare efficiency across OECD countries. As previously documented in the literature, we first provide evidence of significant differences in the cross-country level of efficiency in healthcare provision. We then investigate how improvements in efficiency can be achieved by considering alternative efficiency indices (parametric and non-parametric) and a novel dataset with information on the characteristics of healthcare systems across OECD countries. Our empirical findings suggest a positive correlation between policies such as increasing the regulation of prices billed by providers and reducing the degree of gate keeping and the efficiency of national healthcare systems.

No abstract

No abstract

Are private firms more efficient than public ones? Does privatisation improve performance? In order to answer these questions, it is necessary to disentangle the impact of ownership and competition upon business performance. This paper presents empirical evidence relating to the hypothesis that public ownership and competition are determinants of firms' productivity. It concludes that public ownership has a significant negative effect on productivity and also that privatisation has a positive impact on efficiency. Furthermore, increased competition is found to have a positive effect on productivity. These results are interpreted as confirming that privatisation is effective as a means of increasing firms' efficiency, at least in a non-regulated and relatively competitive sector, such as manufacturing. Copyright 2005 Blackwell Publishing Ltd..

and Pablo Herná ndez de Cos* Banco de EspañaCan divergent demographic trends account for differences in per capita output across countries? We address this question by offering evidence that the process of population ageing is positively and significantly related to cross-country economic performance. We define and estimate the effect of demographic change in two ways. First, a growing cohort of working age persons (15-64) as a share of the total population is found to have a large positive effect on GDP per capita. Second, an increase in the number of prime age persons (35-54) relative to the younger working age population (15-34) is found to have a positive but curvilinear effect with respect to per capita GDP. We find that changes in per capita GDP peak when the ratio of the prime-to-younger age population reaches an optimum of prime age workers for every younger aged worker. Beyond or below this optimal ratio, per capita output is lowered.