I think you are absolutely right that one cannot cherry pick institutions. Institutions work in concert and changing single parts of a country’s institutional framework can make a terrible mass even though the new institutions work fine in some other country’s environment.

Keep on the good work!

The Dangers of Undermining Patient Choice
Lessons from Europe and Canada

….
FEATURING:

SWEDEN
Fredrik Erixon, Chief Economist, Timbro

I wonder how many Swedes Timbro are convincing? They seem to be claiming to the Anglo-American press that they’ve convinced everyone who doesn’t vote SocDem in the current election. If only instinctively, I have to guess the picture is more complex than that.

That leaves you with employment/population ratio, but then you cannot pretend a higher one is better because 100% employment for 15-24 is obviously not a good thing, same for 55-64.

In practice the only measure I find reasonable for comparison is employment rate of men aged 25 to 54 (to remove women rate which is still tied to social conventions, although converging these days), when you look at that, there’s no huge difference if you also look at part-time workers.

YMMV.

I don’t understand how economists still use unemployment numbers for anything but water cooler jokes, this is real ideology.

(also posted at Beat The Press who analyzes about a NYT article.)