Finance is a key ingredient of modern economies, but too much finance may hamper economic growth and worsen income inequality, according to new research from the OECD.

Excessive credit growth, poor risk assessment and lax lending standards in the run up to the 2008 global crisis led to unsustainable debt build-up in banks and related corporates.

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.

Innovation is key to boosting economic growth in the face of a rapidly ageing population. While Japan spends heavily on education and R&D, appropriate framework conditions are essential to increase the return on such investments by strengthening competition, both domestic and international, and improving resource allocation.

A strong commitment to reform and a business-friendly environment have helped Ireland return to robust economic expansion, offering the government an opportunity to heal the scars of the crisis, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Ireland.

The main reason for putting together the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was to prevent the Millennium Declaration from falling into oblivion. A declaration issued by a world summit has a shelf-life of about six months. Beyond that period, its life is reduced to a small world, usually the summit’s sponsoring agency.

Austria has a model of "separate gender roles" in work, family and life arrangements which persists despite efforts to better balance these roles.

This paper offers an overview of developments in household debt over the past decades across a large sample of OECD countries, highlighting both common trends and country specificities. It examines the vulnerabilities associated with high household debt for households, the financial system and the wider economy.

Achieving strong growth in the global economy remains elusive, with only a modest recovery in advanced economies and slower activity in emerging markets, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Outlook.

Policymakers need to deploy broad-based reform plans that incorporate monetary, fiscal, and structural policies to stimulate persistently weak demand, re-launch productivity growth, create jobs and build a more inclusive global economy, according to the OECD’s annual Going for Growth report.

Italy’s low employment rate is associated with adverse labour market dynamics characterised differently across different categories of people.

The global economy is stuck in a low-growth trap that will require more coordinated and comprehensive use of fiscal, monetary and structural policies to move to a higher growth path and ensure that promises are kept to both young and old, according to the OECD’s latest Global Economic Outlook.

To continue catching up with living standards in other OECD countries Poland needs to invest in higher skills.

This document presents the new 2013 set of the OECD Regulatory Impact (REGIMPACT) indicator. It measures the impact of regulatory barriers to competition in non-manufacturing sectors on all industries, through intermediate inputs.

The ECB, the Bank of Japan and five other central banks in Europe have applied negative interest rates on commercial banks’ reserves. This additional monetary policy stimulus, following large asset purchases by central banks in some of these areas, should boost the economy and thus raise inflation closer to target.

Governments should use tax policy to drive forward economic agendas that seek to boost growth while sharing the benefits more evenly within society, according to a new OECD report.

In the past two decades, the income level in Lithuania has steadily risen toward that of OECD countries. Between 1995 and 2013, GDP per capita rose from one third to two thirds of the OECD average. Productivity catch-up was critical to this process, aided by enhanced integration into the global economy which enabled the adoption of more advanced production technologies from abroad.

Canada’s productivity performance has lagged that of many other OECD countries, despite some improvement in recent years.

Productivity growth has been sluggish since the Great Recession and had been slowing before it.

The global financial crisis and its high economic and social costs have revived academic and policy interest in “early warning indicators” of crises. This paper aims to investigate the performance of vulnerability indicators as advance warning indicators of past severe GDP per capita recessions in Turkey.

Economic and social reforms undertaken over the past two decades have driven Peruvian efforts to achieve sustainable economic growth and important reductions in poverty. Against a context of weak global growth, Peru will need to diversify its economy, boost skills, reinforce productivity across the labour force and unleash the potential of all regions in order to spur more inclusive national growth.

With the global economy mired in low-growth and no signs of strong acceleration, a lot of attention has been paid to the meagre pace of productivity growth in OECD countries.

This paper firstly describes the role of models in producing OECD global macroeconomic forecasts; secondly, reviews the OECD's forecasting track record; and finally, considers the relationship between forecast performance and models.

The Danish financial sector is big and there is a high degree of inter-connectedness between banks, mortgage institutions and pension funds.

Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets.

Certain growth-promoting policies can have negative side-effects by increasing the vulnerability of economies to financial crises. Typical examples are greater openness to financial flows or more liberalised financial markets.

Expansionary fiscal initiatives and maintaining trade openness are needed to push the global economy out of today’s low-growth trap, according to the OECD’s latest Global Economic Outlook.

In the United States, the most watched indicator of productivity (nonfarm business productivity growth) decelerated about ¾ percentage point from 2009 to 2014 relative to the preceding 5-year period.

Malaysia’s success in alleviating poverty has been achieved despite the absence of an integrated and comprehensive social protection system.

Spending on public administration itself is relatively low and so are indicators of its performance.

Major global crises such as the 2008-09 episode are mercifully rare, but severe recessions have been quite frequent among OECD countries over the past four decades.

The Indian economy is expanding at a fast pace, boosting living standards and reducing poverty nationwide. Further reforms are now necessary to maintain strong growth and ensure that all Indians benefit from it, according to a new report from the OECD.

Promoting inclusive growth in India requires improving social and physical infrastructure.

Governments must deploy policy packages that take advantage of the synergies between labour, product and financial market reforms to escape the low-growth trap and ensure that benefits are broadly shared by the vast majority of citizens, according to the OECD’s annual Going for Growth report.

The paper describes revisions to the trend labour efficiency component of the production function underpinning long-term economic scenarios.

The Colombian economy has been more resilient than other Latin American countries to the recent fall in commodities prices, and remains among the strongest in the region.

The job market continues to improve in the OECD area, with the employment rate finally returning to pre-crisis levels. But people on low and middle incomes have seen their wages stagnate and the share of middle-skilled jobs has fallen, contributing to rising inequality, according to a new OECD report.

How has policy responded since the crisis: with re-regulation or continued liberalisation?

New Zealand enjoyed strong economic growth during 2016, driven by high net inward migration, solid construction activity, booming tourism and supportive monetary policy, although in per capita terms growth has been more in line with that in other advanced economies.

This paper contributes to the empirical literature investigating reasons for the fall in real interest rates in advanced economies.

OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.9% in May 2017

OECD GDP growth accelerates to 0.7% in second quarter of 2017

OECD annual inflation nudges up to 2.0% in July 2017

Composite leading indicators continue to point to stable growth momentum in the OECD area

OECD unemployment rate stable at 5.8% in July 2017

G20 GDP growth accelerates to 0.9% in second quarter of 2017

Financial globalisation has given international capital flows a central role in the functioning of the global economy and has therefore led to considerable economic research over the past 30 years.

The world economy has picked up momentum, as expanding investment, employment and trade support synchronised growth across most countries, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Outlook.

Pick-up in private consumption and investment drives higher OECD GDP growth in second quarter of 2017

celand has been experiencing a tourism boom. The number of tourists visiting annually quadrupled between 2010 and 2016 and shows continued strength. The tourism sector is now the major export earner and is also creating new jobs and supporting new businesses.