Growth and productivity in most developed economies have been trending down for a long time. It is not easy to assign relative weights to the different factors that might lie behind this slowdown, nor is it easy to determine if it will become a permanent feature of our economies for the foreseeable future. More...
How inheritances and gifts are taxed is set to become a major issue for French society in the coming years. Not only is the passing of the populous baby-boom generation going to lead to a considerable spike in inheritances, but over the past twenty years private wealth has increased at a much faster rate than income, with the well-o holding the largest share of the pie. More...
France Stratégie economists Haithem Ben Hassine and Claude Mathieu have carried out an assessment of France’s 71 business clusters, launched in 2004, and their impact on participating companies’ R&D activities. They found that the clusters began to reap the benefits of the policy early on, seeing an increase in total R&D spending by 2007 and in self-financed R&D by 2009. More...
Against a backdrop of sluggish growth in Europe and the rest of the world, the French economy is facing weakness on both the demand and supply sides. The risk today is this situation will become self-perpetuating, causing long-lasting damage to the French economy. More...
Despite historically low unemployment and a strong budget surplus, a large number of low-wage earners and a high relative poverty rate paint a mixed picture for Europe’s largest economy and point to an uncertain future. More...
The energy crisis of the 1970s and the subsequent stagflation and recession that hit Western economies at the end of the decade and in the early 1980s laid the Keynesian view low. Policy makers began to see government spending as ineffective and even counterproductive when it came to boosting flagging output. They maintained the solution lay in just the opposite – unfettered markets. In other words, they advocated limited government, privatization, deregulation of markets, free trade and fiscal austerity. More...
Information technology and the digital economy built on it have without a doubt improved our lives in many ways, saving time and sparing drudgery for many. On the surface, the online world represents a break from 20th century capitalism in that it has shaken up vested interests, democratized access to information and given more of a voice to many millions across the globe. More...
Perhaps the main preoccupation of governments the world over is ensuring their economies are up to speed and continue to grow, staying on top of technological change and ideally ahead of the curve in market developments. More...
Modern education in advanced capitalist democracies is intended to be the great leveller for the social classes. Indeed, it could be argued the most egalitarian and democratic countries are those where an individual who works hard enough at school can get ahead regardless of their background. More...
From time immemorial densely populated areas have provided their inhabitants with advantages over smaller, isolated settlements. By bringing people from different walks of life together, cities have been central to the spread of commerce and, perhaps more importantly, ideas. More...
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