The Netherlands has strongly benefited from globalisation, which boosted international trade, cross-border investment and economic growth over the latest decades.

In several OECD countries, ongoing fiscal consolidation might have a negative impact on the static income distribution. However, this conclusion should be treated only as an approximate first step in the analysis.

Despite the economic importance of the road transport sector, there is no systematic cross-country evidence on the sector’s efficiency.

In Slovakia, educational outcomes are below the OECD average and are too dependent on the socioeconomic background of students.

In this paper we examine whether past labour market reforms aiming at reducing the rate of unemployment have raised its long-run volatility.

Britain must continue to pursue pro-growth, as well as inequality-reducing structural reforms in order to recover from the nation’s deepest recession in nearly a century, according to a new OECD report.

Sweden is a very egalitarian country but inequalities have risen and some groups are poorly integrated into the labour market.

Australia’s productivity growth has decelerated markedly around the turn of the century. Part of the decline is probably temporary, but raising multifactor productivity is key to ensure that living standards continue to grow strongly, especially if the currently strong terms of trade weaken over time.

In this paper we include measures of school quality in regressions determining the labour market premiums to education level.

Extensive structural reforms since the early 1990s have strengthened the resilience of the Swedish economy to shocks.

This short paper analyses the decline of France’s trade balance over the past 15 years. While the loss in export market shares is comparable to that of the major OECD countries except Germany, it is one of the largest among the countries of the euro area.

This paper discusses the pros and cons of a single labour contract. After reviewing the current state of dualism in labour markets and the recent labour reforms in Europe, we discuss the various proposals to eliminate dualism.

This book deals with two issues. The first concerns the various measurement of fiscal decentralization in general and their usefulness for policy analysis. The second and more specific issue concerns the taxonomy of intergovernmental grants and the limits of the current classifications.

The gross borrowing needs of OECD governments are projected to increase slightly to around USD 10.9 trillion in 2013, up from the already high level of USD 10.8 trillion in 2012, according to a new OECD report.

Instead of resorting to trade measures such as export restrictions, Chile manages its minerals sector through a combination of balanced taxation, stable investment measures, good management of tax revenue, exchange rate policy and initiatives aimed at producing a multiplier effect of economy-wide development, according to this study.

A simple econometric framework is presented linking current account balances of euro area countries to intra and extra euro area competitiveness, cyclical positions, fiscal positions and the oil price.

Employment has risen by more and unemployment has risen less than expected, given the path of output. Nevertheless, long-term and youth unemployment and involuntary part-time work are high. A polarised labour market risks worsening income inequality, which is high by OECD standards, despite a recent and likely temporary decline.

Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. Income dispersion largely originates from the labour market, which is characterised by a still high unemployment rate, a pervasive informal sector and a wide wage dispersion reflecting a large education premium for those with higher education.

Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. While most of the inequality originates from the labour market, wealth – and thus capital income – is also highly concentrated and the tax and transfer system has little redistributive impact.

Informality has important implications for productivity, economic growth, and the inequality of income. In recent years, the extent of informal employment has increased in many of Mexico's states, though highly heterogeneously.

The Slovak Republic is one of the most dynamic economies in the euro area. The country has continued to converge rapidly towards the living standards of advanced OECD economies. However, the Slovak Republic should continue on its path of reform to achieve balanced, fair and sustainable growth, according to a new OECD report.

Austerity programmes to restore order to public finances can add to the woes of already struggling economies, leading to more job losses and social hardship. But there are ways for governments to put their fiscal houses in order, while supporting growth and reducing income inequality at the same time.

Today the OECD is publishing a report on Portugal's challenges as far as structural reform is concerned. The OECD is an outstanding reference for policy-makers all around the world and I wanted my country to benefit from your skills, experience, and insights, especially on the question of structural reform, said the Portuguese Prime Minister.

This paper uses panel regression techniques to assess the policy determinants of private sector innovative Activity – proxied by R&D expenditure and the number of new patents – across 19 OECD countries. The relationship between innovation indicators and multifactor productivity (MFP) growth is also examined with a particular focus on the role of public policies in influencing the returns to new knowledge.

Innovation-based growth, underpinned by investments in a broad range of knowledge-based capital (KBC), is central to raising long-term living standards.

Technological advances, less costly shipping and trade liberalisation have transformed the way in which companies make products and distribute them worldwide. Governments that become more open to trade and investment, and encourage innovation will help firms better integrate the global value chains that are driving growth in increasingly interconnected economies, according to new OECD research.

Income inequality and relative poverty in the United States are among the highest in the OECD and have substantially increased over the past decades. These developments have been associated with a number of other worrying statistics, including low intergenerational social mobility and weak real income growth for many households.

South Africa has achieved remarkable progress in educational attainment relative to other emerging countries, but the quality of basic education for a large fraction of the Black African population is still very low.

In this paper we assess the determinants of secondary school outcomes in South Africa. We use Bayesian Averaging Model techniques to account for uncertainty in the set of underlying factors that are chosen among a very large pool of explanatory variables in order to minimize the risk of omitted variable bias.

This paper proposes a new set of public health and long-term care expenditure projections until 2060, seven years after a first set of projections was published by the OECD. It disentangles health from long-term care expenditure, as well as the demographic from the non-demographic drivers, and refines the previous methodology, in particular by extending the country coverage.

This paper provides new projections of public spending on health and long-term care for OECD countries and the BRIICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, Indonesia, China and South Africa). Despite the inevitable uncertainty surrounding projections, they suggest a rapidly rising trend over the next 50 years.

OECD indicators of structural policy show that policy changes in Italy since 1998 should have improved the environment for entrepreneurship significantly, but in the same period its economic performance has deteriorated noticeably.

Belgium has a good record in delivering accessible care, but adaptation to population ageing will be complicated by the fragmentation of responsibilities in the healthcare system and a strong reliance on government regulations.

This study proposes a structured approach to selecting instruments of fiscal consolidation that are consistent with growth, equity and global-rebalancing objectives, which is then illustrated with a particular application.

Labour market reform to improve growth prospects and reduce inequality is a top priority in the face of rapid population ageing and a dualistic labour market. Sustaining output growth requires policies to mitigate the impact of rapid population ageing by increasing labour inputs from under-employed segments of the population.

Using a panel of OECD countries, this study assesses the linkages between structural policies and macroeconomic stability. Business cycle and time-series characteristics of GDP and its components are employed to define various measures for economic instability and for the persistence of adverse shocks.

As its workforce ages and major economies shift towards producing higher value-added goods and services, New Zealand will face increasing challenges to remain globally competitive and maintain high living standards. Future growth will need to come increasingly from productivity gains, and resources will have to shift towards activities that rely more on skills, technology and intangible assets.

In the wake of the Great Recession, a massive monetary policy stimulus was provided in the main OECD economies. It helped to stabilise financial markets and avoid deflation. Nonetheless, GDP growth has been sluggish and in some countries lower than expected given the measures taken, and estimated economic slack remains large.

How far to go – and to remain – in the direction of highly expansionary monetary policy hinges on the balance of marginal benefits and costs of additional monetary easing and its expected evolution over time. This paper sketches a framework for assessing this balance and applies it to four OECD economic areas: the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United States.

This report presents an update of OECD policy advice in areas that are critical to China’s long-term economic performance and social development. They include food security, social safety nets, health reform, green growth, climate change and urbanisation.

This paper examines the heavily supported Swiss food and agriculture sector. It reviews some of the key features and trends in the sector and reveals its low relative labour productivity in international comparison.

Credible and consistent carbon pricing must be the cornerstone of government actions to tackle climate change, according to a new OECD report.

Brazil has moved up the ranks of the world’s largest economies while making economic growth ever more inclusive.

This paper reviews the empirical evidence on the link between environmental policy stringency and productivity growth, and the various channels through which such effects can take place.

This paper looks at a vast array of policy recommendations by the OECD that promote long-term growth – contained in Going for Growth and the Economic Outlook – and attempts to establish whether they underpin macroeconomic stability or whether there is a trade-off.

Israel’s economy is in good shape, but further efforts are needed to fight poverty and close the gap in living standards with other leading nations, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Israel.

This paper presents the new OECD competition law and policies (CLP) indicators which measure the strength and scope of competition regimes in 49 jurisdictions (OECD and non-OECD). The indicators cover areas for which there is a broad consensus among member countries on what constitutes 'good' practice for competition regimes.

The OECD has appointed a former Portuguese economy minister and a high-level German government official to top leadership posts in the Economics Department, reinforcing its commitment to identifying and promoting policies that improve countries’ long-term economic performance.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría strongly supports President François Hollande’s recently announced measures to revitalise the French economy and set it on a path towards stronger growth.

Over the next 50 years, the world economic landscape will be shaped, among other things, by demographic developments, continuing trade and investment integration, a shift of gravity towards emerging economies, the rising role of knowledge-based capital, global environmental pressures and the correction of fiscal and current account imbalances.