What Does 'Structural Reform' Even Mean?

Emmanuel Macron is the next French president, and as much as Europe is relieved, the task ahead for Macron is daunting: revive Europe, revive the German-French European engine, reform France, bring back jobs and growth, and reform the eurozone, all in five years, please. By this benchmark, Macron is all but certain to fail.

If we look at reforming the French economy, there may be scope for success though. If it is done right. But what kinds of reforms should he be looking at? What do we generally mean by 'structural reform'? I have myself written on the subject, but there are smarter people to read, for example Dani Rodrik. In this text, medium length, he looks at the experience with reforms by the IMF and Wold Bank over the last three decades, what we can learn from them, and why, in Europe, it seems we have not. 

He goes through what he calls 'growth accelerations', or periods in which growth took off, but says that according to his research, there was no big liberalizing 'smoking gun'. Not in India, not in China, not in Mauritius, examples that he discusses briefly. So what triggered such economic takeoffs? The answer is: small, well-targeted reforms that remove a binding constraint on growth. This insight is more powerful than it might seem at first glance, so do have a look at this text. Short but powerful.