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Cet article décrit les principales tendances qui se dégagent en termes de croissance et de convergence entre les régions de l’OCDE. Il discute ensuite les facteurs de croissance au niveau régional et les principaux changements en termes de politique territoriale mise en œuvre dans les pays de l’OCDE. Il termine par une discussion sur l’utilisation des politiques régionales pour un objectif élargi de bien-être.

This paper investigates the impact of complementarity reforms on growth and how it depends on GDP per capita. Based on reform data for six policy areas compiled from various sources during the period 1994–2006 for over 100 countries, we compute composite indicators of reform level and complementarity. We provide qualitative justification for the existence of pair-wise complementarities among policy areas. We then use cross-section and panel data estimates to test the effect of reform level and complementarity on GDP per capita growth. We found reforms to be positively related and their dispersion (or the inverse of complementarity) negatively related to growth, controlling for initial conditions, monetary stability and other structural and institutional variables, as well as endogeneity of reform level and complementarity. We show that the effect of policy complementarity is a stronger condition for sustainable growth in developing than in advanced countries, to conclude that complementary reforms are not a ‘luxury’ for developing countries.

International audience; This paper analyses the impact of health, pension systems and longevity on savings. It uses a simple life-cycle model embodying social transfers (health care and pension expenditures) and changes in longevity to determine the level of household savings. From this model, we derived an econometric specification, augmented with the effects of public budget balances. The model is estimated for a panel of 22 OECD countries for the period 1970-2009. Our principal result is that, from the point of view of incentive to save, health transfers have a similar impact as pension replacement rates. Therefore, welfare reforms that reduce replacement rates without reforming health system may not have all the expected impact on household savings. In line with life-cycle theory, we found that longevity increases saving ratios.

This paper examines the spatial patterns in service sector activities and links them to the overall trends in the service sector among OECD countries. We find that services have a strong spatial dimension linked to non-tradable activities which depend on local conditions. In particular we observe a decrease in the geographic concentration of service sector activities among all OECD regions but an increase in concentration among regions within countries making service sector activities more heterogeneous in space over time. Financial and business services are particularly concentrated amongst service subsectors. Specialisation in financial and business services appears to be higher in capital regions or regions with large cities, and have particularly increased among OECD regions. Within countries, regions have specialised more in public administration and in social services. This latter trend is important given that productivity in public administration and social services and in wholesale and retail trade has a strong growth potential due to forces of convergence.

This collection of articles hinges on two central themes. The first relates to product differentiation, to the methodological problems raised by the estimates of trade equations and their implications on the analysis of international competition. The estimates of price elasticities of trade flows underlie a first series of papers? The second theme focuses on market structure heterogeneity, types of competition and their effect on relative wages, mark-up ratios and trade specialisation. How can a market structure taxonomy help explain the nature of specialisation et sectoral dispersion of relative wages and mark-up ratios? Another group of papers addresses these issues. A literature review introduces each section. The contribution of each paper is then analysed, as well as the methods used.; Ce recueil d'articles s'articule autour de deux thèmes centraux. Le premier porte sur la différenciation des produits, sur les problèmes méthodologiques que pose l'estimation des fonctions de demande du commerce extérieur et leurs implications pour l'analyse de la concurrence internationales. L'évolution des élasticités prix du commerce extérieur fournit ainsi la motivation d'une première série de travaux. Le deuxième thème porte sur l'hétérogénéité des structures de marché, les modalités de la concurrence qui s'y exercent et les conséquences au niveau des salaires relatifs, taux de marge et spécialisations commerciales. L'introduction d'une taxonomie de structures de marché permet-elle de mieux comprendre la nature de ces spécialisations et d'expliquer les variations sectorielles des salaires relatifs et des taux de marge ? Une autre série de travaux cherche à répondre à ces questions. Chacune de ces deux parties est précédée d'un résumé de l'état de la littérature. L'apport des travaux présentés et les méthodes utilisées sont ensuite analysés.