A highly educated and skilled workforce has been an important driver of productivity performance and prosperity in Belgium.

Can reforms that shift the balance among different taxes in the revenue mix lastingly influence the overall prosperity of an economy and the distribution of income across households?

Switzerland is among the leaders in many global rankings including on R&D, innovation, infrastructure, universities and competitiveness. It is well integrated in global value chains, specialised in some high-value-added activities and home of many large multinationals. These factors should contribute to high, and rising, labour productivity.

The United Kingdom displays large regional disparities in productivity compared to most other OECD countries, with a large gap between London and most other regions.

More than a quarter of adults in the United Kingdom have low basic skills, which has a negative impact on career prospects, job quality and productivity growth.

A favourable growth outlook offers Chile an opportunity to address its low productivity levels compared to other advanced economies, improve access to quality jobs and take steps to reduce its persistently high inequality, according to a new OECD report.

The Irish economy is recovering robustly. Business investment by local firms has picked up, household consumption is reviving while the boost to jobs and a rapidly declining unemployment rate have led to strong wage growth in a number of sectors, says a new OECD report.

Chile has been one of the fastest-growing economies in the OECD in recent decades. Sound macroeconomic management, bold structural reforms, such as trade and investment liberalisation, and buoyant natural-resource sectors, supported fast convergence in living standards.However, progress has slowed: declining productivity gains are limiting prospects for rising incomes and better-quality jobs; and inequality remains stubbornly high.

The Israeli economy continues to register remarkable performance, with strong growth, low and falling unemployment and sound public finances leading to the 15th consecutive year of economic expansion. Further reforms will be needed to drive down inequality and raise living standards for all Israelis, according to a new report from the OECD.

The Irish economy is booming and is expected to continue expanding at healthy rates over the next few years.

Inequality and relative poverty in Israel remain high, particularly among Arab-Israelis and Haredim (Ultra-Orthodox).x

What is the relevant perspective for evaluating people’s living standards in advanced countries? According to standard assessments of inequality it is fellow citizens within the country.

This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform benefit for all ("basic income") and a universal tapering rule ("universal credit").

Current weak labour productivity growth in many OECD countries reflects historically weak contributions from both total factor productivity (TFP) growth and capital deepening.

Costa Rica has made impressive economic and social progress in recent years, with robust economic growth facilitating near-universal access to education, health care and pensions.

New firm-level analysis undertaken in tandem with the OECD Economic Survey of Ireland 2018 finds that the majority of businesses in Ireland have actually experienced falling productivity since the mid-2000s.

The Nordics are rightly renowned for being inclusive societies with low inequality compared to other OECD countries. However, some of the largest inequality increases over the past few decades took place in Sweden, Finland and Denmark.

Greece’s recovery from deep economic depression is finally gaining traction, according to the OECD. Economic growth has started to pick up led by a rise in exports while labour market reforms have improved competitiveness and are helping to create jobs.

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment.

Over the past decade, limited structural reform and capital investment have held back productivity growth and improvements in well-being, and Thailand has lost ground vis-à-vis regional comparators.

Slow productivity growth in advanced economies holds back income gains and therefore improvements in well-being.

Consecutive years of primary deficits have led to mounting public debt of almost 50% of GDP, one of the fastest increases in Latin America over the last decade.

Owing to past structural reforms, Costa Rica has enjoyed robust GDP growth and productivity levels are gradually converging towards the OECD average.

Lithuania’s economy has grown faster than most other OECD economies over the past 10 years, unemployment continues to fall and public finances have stabilised after a long period of deficits and rising debt.

Low interest rates prevailing in many advanced economies in recent years have already helped to lower the debt servicing burden, but government debt and interest payments remain large in many OECD countries. Could a further reduction in interest payments be attained by "locking-in" current low interest rates?

The Czech economy is thriving, with robust employment, expanding exports and falling government debt. Efforts should now focus on boosting workforce skills and innovation to improve labour supply and productivity, further reduce poverty and inequality, and green the economy, according to two new OECD reports.

Turkey’s business sector exhibits one of the highest investment rates among OECD countries.

The Irish economy has experienced a decline in productivity growth over the past decade. This has mostly reflected the poor performance of local firms, with the large productivity gap between foreign-owned and local enterprises having widened.

This paper investigates the effect of structural characteristics on debt limits of middle income countries.

Since the start of the Great Recession, labour productivity growth has been weak in the United Kingdom, weaker than in many other OECD countries.

Employment is pivotal to strengthening Greece’s economic recovery, increasing social welfare and redressing poverty.

Large business groups, which played a key role in Korea's economic development, are still dominant today, especially in exporting.

Brazil’s supreme audit institution – the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) – has began a process to reform its audit of the Accounts of the President of the Republic to enhance transparency and accountability of federal budget execution.

“What is the city but the people?” asked Shakespeare in Coriolanus. All city planning focuses on people and the quality of life. The big cities in Brazil took shape from the 1950s, when the country’s population amounted to approximately 52 million inhabitants, only 36.2% of whom lived in cities.

Sustaining high agricultural growth is critical to Brazil's overall development given the importance of agriculture and agro-industries to the national economy and the resource potential that has yet to be exploited.

There is strong international evidence that trade liberalisation and increased international integration are key elements of a successful growth strategy. Exposure to international competition, sourcing internationally and learning by exporting accelerates technological upgrading and fosters productivity growth.

The conference aims to discuss how intellectual property data, statistics and analysis are used and can be used to inform decision-makers in both the public and private sectors, and to identify key information needs and possible shortcomings.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery reaffirms the importance of the independence of prosecutors and judges and is concerned that Brazil’s achievements in fighting corruption may be seriously jeopardised by recent legislative developments.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery is to send a high-level mission to Brasilia as soon as possible in November, to meet with senior officials, to reinforce the message that law enforcement capacity to investigate and prosecute foreign bribery should be preserved in order to ensure that Brazil remains able and committed to meeting its obligations under the OECD Anti-Bribery Convention.

The OECD Working Group on Bribery urges Brazil, one of the founding Parties to the Anti-Bribery Convention since 1997, to preserve the full capacity and independence of law enforcement authorities to investigate and prosecute foreign bribery and corruption.

Can both less income inequality and more growth be achieved? A recent OECD study sheds new light on the link between policies that boost growth and the distribution of income.

On 8 June 2012 an International Seminar on « Ensuring Transparency and Integrity in Lobbying : Towards a Regulatory Framework » will take place in Moscow, Russia.

This Guide provides concrete recommendations of high impact reforms to simplify the processes of business start ups, construction permits, property registration, procurement, and to upgrade regulatory transparency and efficiency in the management of formalities in Mexico.

This paper analyses the monetary and fiscal policy implications of output gap estimates in times of crisis. The widening of output gaps observed in major OECD economies in the wake of the recent crisis has been mainly due to total factor productivity gaps, except in the United States where it essentially resulted from a large increase in the unemployment gap.

Indonesia has improved its macro-economic and structural policies over the last 15 years. Its economy, with strong and stable growth rates of 5–6.6%, is catching up with other countries in the region and allowing Indonesia to focus on its development agenda.

The economics profession seems to increasingly endorse the existence of a strongly negative nonlinear effect of public debt on economic growth. Reinhart and Rogoff (2010) were the first to point out that a public debt to GDP ratio higher than 90% of GDP is associated with considerably lower economic performance in advanced and emerging economies alike.

by Charles Jenkins, Writer, Commentator and former Director of Western Europe Country Analysis, Economist Intelligence Unit, London. The EU’s crisis has as much to do with leadership and solidarity as resolving fiscal and debt problems. It is time to dispense with caricatures and write the next chapter in the EU’s ongoing history. And for that, clear and transparent data will be needed.

Brazil’s supreme audit institution – the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) – has began a process to reform its audit of the Accounts of the President of the Republic to enhance transparency and accountability of federal budget execution.

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.

In collaboration with the Federal Government of Germany, the OECD organised four workshops at the International Regulatory Reform Conference (IRRC) 2013 in Berlin. The workshops focused on the use of cost-benefit analysis in governmental decision making, as well as on the role of key actors of regulatory governance in the regulatory policy cycle: Parliaments, regulatory agencies and audit offices.