Productivity Growth and Structural Reform in Bulgaria: Restarting the Convergence Engine

Cyril Pouvelle and Pritha Mitra

No 2012/131, IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund

Abstract: Labor productivity levels in Bulgaria lag well behind that in the EU, weighing on the convergence process. Stronger productivity growth would allow Bulgaria to close the income gap with the EU average more quickly and to alleviate the structural problems in its labor market, reflected in its high long–term and youth unemployment. Our analysis of the drivers of labor productivity suggest that for Bulgaria closing the gap with EU standards in the areas of institutional and infrastructure quality, goods market efficiency, higher education, and innovation would permanently boost productivity growth by a total of 1 percentage point a year. This would be enough to close the income gap with the EU average by 2040, compared to the status quo where it would take an additional 10 years.

Keywords: WP; Bulgaria; GDP; Economic Growth; Productivity; Cross-Country Convergence; Employment; Unemployment; Wages; productivity gain; convergence-low productivity nexus; productivity-enhancing technology; income convergence; productivity level; productivity driver; labor productivity growth; Labor productivity; Income; Job creation; Global; Europe (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 20
Date: 2012-05-01
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=25932 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2012/131

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/pubs/ord_info.htm

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMF Working Papers from International Monetary Fund International Monetary Fund, Washington, DC USA. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Akshay Modi ().