Life is quite good in the United States compared to other OECD countries, thanks to strong economic growth and technological progress having lifted average income to high levels. Nonetheless, there is evidence that the benefits from growth have not been sufficiently broad based.

Economists have traditionally been very cautious when studying the interaction between employment and health because of the two-way causal relationship between these two variables: health status influences the probability of being employed and, at the same time, working affects the health status.

This paper presents a productivity growth measure that explicitly accounts for natural capital as an input factor and for undesirable goods, or “bads”, as an output of the production process.

The EU Single Market remains fragmented by complex and heterogeneous rules at the EU and national levels affecting trade, capital, including foreign direct investment, and labour mobility.

This paper explores the role of managerial capital and business research and development (R&D) in fostering multifactor productivity (MFP) convergence in a panel of 42 countries.

Increasing productivity is critical to achieving strong, sustainable and inclusive growth and well-being. Technological change and innovation are the key drivers of increased productivity, along with better skills and organisational change.

Despite large and growing investments in knowledge and innovation, productivity growth in many countries has slowed in recent years. At the same time, the urgent need for more rapid innovation (including its uptake and diffusion) in several key areas, such as in environment. This joint OECD-NBER workshop on 25-26 September 2014 will bring together academic experts to consider these challenges.

Many studies on household energy efficiency investments suggest that a wide range of seemingly profitable investments are not taken up. This paper provides novel evidence on the main factors behind consumer choices using the OECD Survey on Household Environmental Behaviour and Attitudes.

This paper investigates whether OECD countries are facing secular stagnation. Secular stagnation is defined as a situation when policy interest rates bounded at zero fail to stimulate demand sufficiently, due to low or negative neutral real interest rates and low inflation, and when ensuing prolonged and subdued growth undermines potential growth via labour hysteresis and discouraged investment.

Fundamental reforms have helped put the Portuguese economy back on the right track, but a durable recovery will require additional measures to improve export competitiveness, create jobs and ensure social protection for those most in need, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Portugal.

This Working Paper studies ways to stimulate the private rental sector (PRS) of the housing market – and compares experiences with policies and reforms in Germany, the Netherlands, Finland and the Czech Republic.

Economic recovery is picking up in the Slovak Republic, but regional disparities and high unemployment must be addressed to ensure balanced inclusive growth over the long-term, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of the Slovak Republic.

Policy efforts to revitalise entrepreneurship and investment in Spain are key to generating growth and new jobs. The government has a substantial reform program to make it easier to do business in Spain, which should in some cases be deepened. Boosting economic growth requires a new generation of high-growth companies and that resources flow towards the most productive firms.

As environmental pressures continue to rise, governments throughout the OECD area have not been sitting back. If anything, the stringency of their policy measures has been increasing on the whole, not least to combat pollution and climate change. And as the evidence shows, stringent environmental policies can be introduced without hurting overall productivity.

Beyond usual determinants of trade such as GDP, distance, contiguity, free trade areas and language, this analysis mainly focuses on the role of product market regulation stringency and heterogeneity, and on the role of employment protection.

With India’s low life expectancy largely reflecting deaths from preventable diseases, the most significant gains in health would come from population-wide preventive measures.

The Secretary-General of the OECD was in Tallinn on 28 January to launch the Economic Survey of Estonia 2015.

The underlying strengths of the Estonian economy have helped it bounce back from the crisis, but some challenges remain to finding a steeper, more inclusive and more sustainable growth path, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Estonia.

The United Kingdom’s economy is projected to expand this year and next, but challenges remain to boost productivity and make future growth more inclusive, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey.

The Latvian economy is among the fastest-growing in the euro area, but continued reforms will promote a rapid and sustainable pace of convergence with upper-income countries while limiting the risk of repeated boom-and-bust cycles, according to the OECD Economic Survey of Latvia.

The labour market in Russia is very flexible. This results in a high and stable overall employment rate, but also high wage inequality, informality and labour turnover, which limits incentives for firms to invest in human capital and productivity improvements.

The Swedish economy has been among the most resilient in Europe, despite the slow global recovery and high uncertainty, but challenges remain if it is to maintain high growth and well-being and extend prosperity to all, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Sweden.

The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.

What are the economic effects of implicit bank debt guarantees and who ultimately benefits? This report sheds light on these questions

Russia faces very large challenges in modernising its large transport system. Promoting competition in the transport sector is essential, in particular by effectively opening the railway freight market to independent operators.

Improving the labour market performance of immigrants requires a two-fold strategy. First, policies specific to migrants need to be enhanced. Second, general reforms to improve the functioning of the economy, desirable in any case, could also have a significant positive impact on immigrants.

The Japanese economy is on a path to stronger growth, but fundamental structural reforms are urgently needed to promote a more robust recovery, address high levels of government debt and reverse a trend toward declining living standards, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Japan.

This paper explores the link between skill and qualification mismatch and labour productivity using cross-country industry data for 19 OECD countries.

The share of the tertiary sector in China’s value added has increased steadily, overtaking the share of the secondary sector in 2013. With increasing incomes, the share of services is expected to grow further as at higher incomes a larger share of income is spent on services.

China has made impressive strides in education in recent decades, even though the accumulation of human capital has lagged behind that of physical capital. Going forward, access to and quality of education will be key to sustain economic convergence with the most advanced economies and to offset the drag exerted by population ageing.

This paper first decomposes labour productivity growth over 2000-11 into a within-industry, a shift and a cross effect in a number of countries and compares China with other countries over this period. This shift-share analysis also allows a comparison of within-sector productivity gains across a large number of sectors and countries.

Global growth will gradually strengthen towards its pre-crisis trend rate by late 2016 as activity becomes more evenly shared across the major economies and overall external imbalances are less marked than in the run-up to 2007, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.

The slowdown in productivity growth over the past decade underscores the idea that as economies converge toward the global technological frontier, the ability to capitalise on new innovations developed at frontier becomes more important.

Luis Videgaray, Mexico’s Minister of Finance and Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General will co-host this event in Mexico City on 6-7 July 2015, with a welcoming by the President of Mexico. Participants will share their views on the key factors that will influence future productivity growth and the creation of an OECD Productivity Network.

The slowdown in productivity over the past decade has added to concerns about the long-term economic outlook. But new OECD research shows that policy reforms can revive the diffusion of innovation and make better use of human talent to clear the path for higher and more inclusive productivity growth.

The United Kingdom (UK) has spent less on infrastructure compared to other OECD countries over the past three decades. The perceived quality of UK infrastructure assets is close to the OECD average but lower than in other G7 countries.

This paper examines the use of two forms of non-standard work contracts in Russia with data from an enterprise survey for the years 2009 to 2011. Non-standard work contracts are less costly and more flexible for employers. Internal adjustment in form of wage cuts or unpaid leave is not covered by the Labour Code and earlier practices to impose such measures are less tolerated.

Much of the convergence of the Latvian economy needs to come from productivity increases. To achieve this, policy makers should do more to facilitate the integration of the economy into global trade and promote competitive business environment.

This paper provides empirical evidence on links between the productivity of Portuguese firms and a number of policy variables in Portugal. The analysis is based on a census of Portuguese manufacturing companies, covering more than 40,000 firms between 2006 and 2011.

This survey highlights the key results of the empirical literature concerning the costs of flexibility-enhancing reforms in product and labour markets.

In order to promote productivity, and thus boost living standards in the long run, public policies need to focus on improving incentives, capabilities and flexibility within an economy.

This paper analyses the characteristics of firms that operate at the global productivity frontier and their relationship with other firms in the economy, focusing on the diffusion of global productivity gains and the policies that faciliate it.

A long period of economic expansion in Chile has raised living standards and dramatically reduced poverty, but more needs to be done now to ensure that the country is in a position to move to a stronger, more inclusive and sustainable growth path, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Chile.

Switzerland’s recent economic performance has been impressive, but with growth now slowing new reforms will be necessary to maintain high levels of prosperity and ensure future well-being, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Switzerland.

Where does the productive capacity of firms come from? What are the barriers that prevent resources to flow to the firms with the greatest potential? Why is it that not all people that possess entrepreneurial talent choose to start firms?

Israel’s economy has strong fundamentals, but the country needs to address productivity, inequality and poverty if it wants to improve well-being and reduce socio-economic divides, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Israel.

Using a gravity model of bilateral trade in manufacturing industries for selected OECD and BRIICS countries over 1990s-2000s, this paper studies how exports are related to national environmental policies.

Countries that implement stringent environmental policies do not lose export competitiveness when compared against countries with more moderate regulations, according to a new OECD study that examines trade in manufactured goods between advanced and emerging economies.

Lithuania has made remarkable economic and social progress, but further policy reforms will be necessary to ensure a more productive and inclusive economy, according to the first-ever OECD Economic Assessment of Lithuania.

Polish economic growth remains solid and unemployment is decreasing, but further investments in infrastructure and skills will be essential to sustain a continuing improvement in living standards, environmental quality and well-being, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Poland.