This paper argues that an important group of labor market policies are complementary in the sense that the effect of each policy is greater when implemented in conjunction with the other policies than in isolation. This may explain why the diverse, piecemeal labor market reforms in many European countries in recent years have had so little success in reducing unemployment. What is required instead is deeper labor market reforms across a broader range of complementary policies and institutions. To be politically feasible, these reforms must be combined with measures to address distributional issues.

While economists continue to debate whether particular economic policies, such as those referred to in Willliamson’s (1993) “Washington Consensus,” can spur growth in developing countries, this paper demonstrates that it is combinations of policies that are more critical for growth. Policy complementarity refers to the mutually reinforcing benefits of policies that create an environment that is conducive to investment and growth. Quantitative measures of policy complementarity are developed, and the study shows empirically, through both an outcomes-based probability framework and a standard regression analysis, that these complementarities are significant and robust in explaining growth outcomes over the period 1985–95.

This book aims to define comparative economics and to illustrate the breadth and depth of its contribution. It starts with an historiography of the field, arguing for a continued legacy of comparative economic systems, which compared socialism and capitalism, a field which some argued should have been replaced by institutional economics after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The process of transition to market capitalism is reviewed, and itself exemplifies a new combination of comparative analysis with a focus on institutional development. Going beyond, chapters broadening the application of comparative analysis and applying it to new issues and approaches, including the role and definition of institutions, subjective wellbeing, inequality, populism, demography, and novel methodologies. Overall, comparative economics has evolved in the past 30 years, and remains a powerful approach for analyzing important issues.

This important collection presents an authoritative selection of papers on "Institutional Conflicts and Complementarities" This publication is intent on building bridges between economics and the other social sciences. The focus is on the interaction between monetary policy and wage bargaining institutions in European Monetary Union (EMU). Institutional Conflicts and Complementarities is written by acknowledged experts in their field. The outcome is a broad analysis of the interactions of labour market actors and central banks. The volume addresses the recent changes in EMU. An important theoretical, empirical, and policy-relevant conclusion that emerges from Institutional Conflicts and Complementarities is that even perfectly credible monetary conservatism has long-term real effects, even in equilibrium models with fully rational expectations.

The authors study how the effect of trade openness on economic growth depends on complementary reforms that help a country take advantage of international competition. This issue is illustrated with a simple Harris-Todaro model where output gains after trade liberalization depend on the degree of labor market flexibility. In that model, trade protection may ameliorate the problem of underemployment (and underproduction) in sectors affected by labor market distortions. Hence, trade liberalization unambiguously increases per capita income only when labor markets are sufficiently flexible. The authors then present some panel evidence on how the growth effect of openness depends on a variety of structural characteristics. For this purpose, they use a non-linear growth regression specification that interacts a proxy of trade openness with proxies of educational investment, financial depth, inflation stabilization, public infrastructure, governance, labor-market flexibility, ease of firm entry, and ease of firm exit. They find that the growth effects of openness are positive and economically significant if certain complementary reforms are undertaken.