Norwegian policy gives high priority to supporting rural communities, with support for agriculture receiving particular attention. It is broadly successful in terms of maintaining rural communities, and urban-rural gaps in a range of well-being indicators are comparatively narrow.

Israel is a young country with still dynamic population growth, but it is already beginning to face the consequences of population ageing.

Improving education and skills is the linchpin to reduce income inequality and boost productivity growth. This paper argues that to improve, and make better use of, the skills of the labour force, Chile could gain a lot from a comprehensive and consistent Skills Strategy along three pillars: developing, activating and using skills effectively.

Improving local infrastructure investments in Poland

A UK exit from the EU would immediately hit confidence and raise uncertainty which would result in GDP being 3% lower by 2020, which equates to £ 2200 per household. The OECD states that such costs are already piling up in a new study released today.

The Hungarian economy has expanded strongly in recent years, helped by robust exports and firm domestic demand. But incomes are among the lowest in the OECD and structural reforms will be needed to sustain growth over the medium term, strengthen business investment and better match skills to labour market needs, according to a new OECD report.

Denmark’s economic prospects are improving, but further reforms are needed to maintain the country’s high living standards and ensure the well-being of all citizens, according to a new report from the OECD.

Korea needs to boost productivity, increase employment and stoke economic activity as part of efforts to reverse current trends toward slower growth and low inflation, according to a new report from the OECD.

Norway puts a high priority on maintaining high levels of well-being in rural communities, many of which are in remote and challenging environments. While it is broadly successful in achieving this goal, it comes at a high price, most notably in the form of substantial support to farmers. Is there a better way?

Inequality measures in Lithuania (like in Estonia and Latvia) are high. To an important extent this is related to the high risk of poverty for non-working individuals and to the low rewards to work. Therefore, increasing the quality of jobs, ensuring that the most vulnerable have access to employment and providing adequate income support for those that have lost their job are key for making labour markets and the economy more inclusive.

The pace of structural reforms is slowing just when the world economy needs decisive policy actions to strengthen fundamentals and restore healthy growth (the 2016 Going for Growth report). Policy makers may be concerned that introducing structural reforms in the current context involve trade-offs between the mid- to long-run gains in employment and productivity and short-run losses.

This paper takes stock of the main structural reforms that Greece has undertaken since 2010, those currently proposed and that are in the process of implementation, and quantifies the medium and long‑term effects on output.

Boosting investment in infrastructure and logistics, further liberalising the network industries, improving investment in human and knowledge-based capital to allow upgrading in the global value chains will be essential to enhance export performance.

Advanced economies remain in the doldrums. People’s incomes are rising at a very low pace, especially in the lower half of the distribution. Two global trends–the slowdown in productivity and the rise in inequality–reflect the state of policy, and point to the challenges policymakers face to change prospects for their citizens and the global economy.

Global Forum on Productivity

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

Over the last decade, Poland has significantly upgraded its infrastructure network, and public investment has risen rapidly. However, bottlenecks still weigh on productivity growth and environmental and health outcomes, and the perceived quality of transport and energy infrastructure remains lower than in most OECD countries.

The Czech Republic needs new reforms to boost productivity, improve economic growth and accelerate convergence toward the levels of income and well-being seen in the most advanced European countries, according to a new OECD report.

The European economy is gradually recovering but further policy action will be required to address unresolved legacies of the global economic crisis that are weighing on growth and major new concerns that have emerged, according to two new OECD reports.

Concerns around weak productivity growth are everywhere these days. As the latest OECD Economic Outlook notes, since the mid-2000s, productivity growth has been markedly lower than at any other time since the 1950s.

The Canadian economy is adjusting to the fall in commodity prices, but additional policies are needed to boost productivity, reduce financial stability risks and make future growth stronger, greener and more inclusive, according to a new OECD report.

The Greek economy is turning around lately, but it remains in a deep depression. GDP has fallen by more than a quarter between 2007 and 2015, unemployment remains extremely high at 25 percent and anchored poverty – which measures poverty relative to its pre-crisis income level – has nearly tripled between 2007 and 2014, reaching a third of the population.

The US economy is making one of the strongest comebacks in the OECD, but there are risks on the horizon, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of the United States.

Improving opportunities for women in the United States

The German economy has steadily recovered from the 2008 global crisis. Thanks to past reforms, the labour market has proved strong and export performance has been impressive.

Norway’s predominately public and tuition-free tertiary education system has encouraged participation and generated high attainment rates. However, few Norwegian universities rank high in international comparisons on the basis of research related and other indicators.

In many OECD countries, the labour market has yet to recover the lost ground suffered in the aftermath of the financial crisis. In some of them, unemployment has been persistently high, resulting in a very high incidence of long-term unemployment.

Strong and adequate skills are essential to support workers’ productivity and to ensure robust employment outcomes. Developing workers’ skills would also increase their personal satisfaction and wages, contributing in making growth more inclusive. The Netherlands performs well in terms of competences of a large part of the population. Moreover, the country has been successful in adjusting the required level of skills over time.

GDP per capita in Lithuania rose from one third to two thirds of the OECD average level between 1995 and 2014, despite internal and external crises. Productivity catch-up was critical to this process, although the level of labour productivity also remains around one-third below the OECD average.

This paper develops an analytical framework to identify the policies relevant for firm exit and the channels through which they shape aggregate productivity growth.

In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection.

This paper analyses the effects of product market reforms in the short and medium term across 10 regulated industries and 18 advanced economies for the period 1998-2013 using internationally comparable firm-level data based on Orbis.

The nexus of slowing productivity growth and rising inequality is capturing the attention of policymakers and researchers. The productivity slowdown, its causes, and the link with inclusiveness will be discussed on 7-8 July in Lisbon at the first Annual Conference of the new Global Forum on Productivity, which was created by the OECD in collaboration with a number of Member and non-Member countries.

Productivity catch-up along with deeper integration into the global economy played a central role in the convergence of the Czech incomes toward OECD countries before the 2008 financial crisis.

Turkey’s economy has proven remarkably resilient in the face of a challenging global economic context. However, further action can be taken to raise productivity and advance the shift to a more balanced, sustainable and stronger growth path that will boost living standards for the entire population, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Turkey.

Costa Rica’s economic, social and environmental achievements are impressive. It has succeeded in combining rising living standards, virtually universal health care, pension and primary education systems with sustainable use of natural resources.

GDP per capita in Lithuania rose from one third to two thirds of the OECD average level between 1995 and 2014, despite internal and external crises. Productivity catch-up was critical to this process, although the level of labour productivity also remains around one-third below the OECD average.

This paper develops an analytical framework to identify the policies relevant for firm exit and the channels through which they shape aggregate productivity growth.

In 2015 the Lithuanian government launched an ambitious Social Model reform agenda aimed at balancing flexibility of the labour market and security provided through the system of social protection.

This paper analyses the effects of product market reforms in the short and medium term across 10 regulated industries and 18 advanced economies for the period 1998-2013 using internationally comparable firm-level data based on Orbis.

This paper analyses the effects of the Greek crisis on inequality and poverty in 2009-2014 using the micro-simulation model EUROMOD.

To support the recovery, structural reforms that yield short-run as well as long-run gains should be prioritised.

Reviving productivity requires improving framework conditions further so labour and capital can more easily move to the most dynamic sectors and firms, making the tax system more growth-friendly, and supporting innovation, basic research and young firms’ financing.

Policies to speed up tertiary graduation, improve work incentives and activation of the unemployed and postpone labour market exit are necessary to bring the employment rate closer to the level of other Nordics

Macro-simulations benchmarking employment in Finland to the Nordic average show that closing the large gaps in labour participation vis-à-vis the other Nordics across genders and age groups would boost employment significantly.

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.

Leaders of the G20 countries meeting at their Summit in Hangzhou, China, have called on the OECD to help develop an agenda to build a stronger, more innovative and inclusive world economy.

Weak trade growth and financial distortions are exacerbating slow global economic growth, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Outlook.

Yesterday’s OECD Interim Economic Outlook warns that trade growth is slowing, contributing to another slowing of global GDP growth in 2016 and with few signs of improvement for 2017.

Across the OECD, GDP per capita is converging. In contrast, regional disparities – or differences in GDP per capita across jurisdictions – are rising, mainly as a result of widening productivity differences. Fiscal decentralisation could help reduce them again. According to new OECD research, assigning more ownsource revenue to sub-national governments dampens regional GDP disparities and underpins regional convergence.