This study reviews the existing literature on the link between economic policies and economic stability at the firm and household level. Based on firm-level and household-level data for a wide range of OECD countries, it also provides preliminary results on sources and patterns of microeconomic volatility.

The paper discusses a number of policies that could help to make the Chilean labour market more inclusive and broaden the benefits of growth. These include expanding childcare, promoting a more flexible labour market and strengthening education and skills policies, among others.

Significant labour market mismatches and insufficient mobility penalise employment and productivity. Mismatches have above all a skills dimension, with an excess of low-skilled workers and a possible lack of skilled workers in certain domains.

Over the past decade, the growth potential of the Hungarian economy has declined substantially. Trend productivity has ceased to increase, and investment has fallen to historically low levels.

Poor labour market outcomes remain one of Poland’s major structural weaknesses, impeding firms’ competitiveness and the nation’s potential output. Boosting employment prospects is also critical, as the country will soon be ageing at a fast pace.

Canada has experienced solid economic growth since the global crisis, allowing it to reverse recession-induced job losses and put federal public finances on a sound footing, says the OECD. Growth is expected to accelerate from 2.5% this year to 2.7% in 2015.

Economic recovery in the United States is stronger than in most OECD countries, but it will remain sluggish unless new reforms are launched to boost growth, according to OECD’s latest Economic Survey of the United States.

A slowdown in global economic growth and a continuing rise in income inequality are projected for the coming decades, according to a new OECD study which looks beyond the crisis at what the world could look like by 2060.

This report examines the sustainability of social institutions and their ability to absorb and cope with short-term shocks and longer-term trends by providing risk sharing and expenditure smoothing, focusing on pension, health care and unemployment insurance schemes.

Future generations will pay a high price if countries fail to reform pension, health care and unemployment schemes, according to a new OECD report.

Turkey’s economy will grow stronger in the coming years, but remains overly dependent on domestic consumption funded by foreign finance, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Turkey.

This paper provides a framework for comparing a defined benefit (DB) and a defined contribution (DC) point schemes, which are both pay-as-you go (PAYG) financed.

This paper investigates the vulnerabilities of health care systems in OECD and BRIICS countries to adverse secular trends and large macroeconomic shocks.

Unemployment insurance is a key tool for risk sharing and redistribution and also a prominent automatic stabiliser. It is a volatile spending item by design, which can lead to vulnerabilities. This paper explores various shocks and sources of vulnerability of the unemployment insurance schemes of OECD and BRIICS countries.

Demographic developments are unfavourable for the financing of pension schemes in most OECD countries, implying continued growth in pension expenditure in virtually all OECD countries. This paper examines the vulnerability of pension systems, with an emphasis on financial sustainability and adequacy.

The recent economic crisis has provided a stress test for the vulnerability of social institutions. This paper assesses the vulnerability of social institutions in light of the current crisis, and surveys past episodes, when social institutions faced similar challenges.

Income and earning inequality has been on the rise in most of the OECD and in many emerging economies since the 1980s. This paper estimates a model of earnings inequality across OECD countries that incorporates determinants of relative demand and supply of more and less-skilled labour.

Demand for jobs, characterized by skill type and industry of employment, is driven by changes in technology, trade and consumption. Using structural decomposition analysis, we study the relative importance of these drivers for the period 1995-2008.

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.

House prices have increased significantly in Canada over the past decade, driving household debt and residential construction activity to historical highs.

To strengthen social cohesion, a top government priority, it is essential to address the labour market roots of inequality by breaking down dualism to reduce the share of non-regular workers and to boost the employment ratio toward the government’s 70% target.

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.

This paper uses data from the American Life Panel to understand the determinants of well-being in the United States during the Great Recession. It investigates how various dimensions of subjective well-being reflected in the OECD Better Life Framework impact subjective well-being.

Dutch banks were put under heavy strains early in the global downturn and have comparatively weak financial buffers to cope with new shocks. Falling house prices have increased the share of households with negative home equity to nearly 35% for home-owning households and 40% for mortgage holders.

Entrepreneurship is an important driver of economic growth, job creation and competitiveness. However, the small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) sector has been severely affected by the crisis, with access to bank finance being particularly difficult.

Spain is emerging from a protracted recession, marked by a return to moderate growth and rising international competitiveness. Decisive banking and fiscal reforms, coupled with supportive monetary policy from the European Central Bank, have reduced financial tensions and improved public finance.

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.

A moderate expansion is underway in most major advanced and emerging economies, but growth remains weak in the euro area, which runs the risk of prolonged stagnation if further steps are not taken to boost demand, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Assessment.

Turkey’s business sector dynamism has underpinned broad-based and inclusive growth in the 2000s. However, the business sector is highly segmented, with a relatively small core of modern high-productivity corporations, and myriad small, less formal and low-productivity entities.

Rising household debt has become a major policy concern in Korea. By the end of 2012, it had risen to 164% of disposable income, well above the OECD average of 133%.

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.

This paper estimates potential output losses from the global financial crisis by comparing recent OECD published projections with a counter-factual assuming a continuation of pre-crisis productivity trends and a trend employment rate which is sensitive to demographic trends.

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.

People’s well-being has generally progressed since the early 20th century across a large part of the world, according to new research published by a consortium of economic historians (CLIO-INFRA) and produced in collaboration with the OECD and OECD Development Centre.

The 34-member countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development welcomed a Memorandum of Understanding between the OECD and Ukraine which will help Ukraine’s efforts to tackle corruption, strengthen its tax system and promote competitiveness.

This paper describes developments in real long-term interest rates in the main OECD economies and surveys their various determinants. Real long-term government bond yields declined from the 1980s to very low levels in the recent period, though they have not reached the historical lows of the 1970s.

Full implementation of the structural reforms adopted and announced in France would boost potential annual economic growth by one third, or 0.4 percentage points per year over ten years, according to the OECD.

The President of the French Republic, Mr. François Hollande, met the Heads of five international economic organisations at the OECD on Friday 17th October to discuss the challenges facing the global economy.

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.

The global economy remains stuck in low gear, but is expected to accelerate gradually if countries implement growth-supportive policies. Widening differences across countries and regions are adding to the major risks on the horizon, according to the advanced G20 release of the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.

While the outlook for many OECD countries remains subdued, Emerging Asia is set for healthy growth over the medium term. Annual GDP growth for the ASEAN -10, China and India is forecast to average 6.5% over 2015-19. Growth momentum remains robust in the 10 ASEAN countries, with economic growth averaging 5.6% over 2015-19.

The G20 needs to go structural, social, and green! With fiscal and monetary policy room nearly exhausted, structural reforms are the best choices, sometimes the only choice. The OECD battle cry in this regard has been unchanged since 2008: “go structural!”.

G20 countries are taking action to lift growth in the world economy. Will their commitments be enough?

Statement made by the Secretary-General during session 1 of the Leader's Summit in Brisbane.

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.

The Indian economy is showing signs of a turnaround, but new reforms are needed to put the country on a path to strong, sustainable and inclusive growth, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of India.

Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD congratulated the newly elected President of Indonesia, Joko Widodo, for taking a bold first step in his economic reform agenda by substantially cutting fuel subsidies.

Structural transformation towards a more knowledge-based economy will strengthen Spain’s medium-term growth prospects. To deal with long standing impediments to higher growth the government has a substantial structural reform programme touching on education, the labour market and the business environment.