Structural reforms in Europe: lessons from early experiences

It has long been argued that structural reforms constitute a remedy for getting countries out of the low-growth environment that Europe has experienced in the last decade. Many recent studies show long-term benefits of such reforms in cross-country settings, but ignore the heterogeneity across different country experiences. To address this gap in the context of the European Union, we focus on the largest early reforms that its four members (Denmark, France, Greece and Portugal) adopted in financial and labour markets. By using a Synthetic Control Method, we find that many of these early reform episodes do not seem to have been as fruitful as their advocates claimed at the time. Our results indicate a rather mixed relationship between reforms and several macro measures, including economic growth and inequality. Reforms, especially when introduced all at once as a big-bang, do not seem to always produce the intended results.