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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Macroeconomic shocks as severe and protracted as those since 2007 warrant a reconsideration of the role growth-promoting policies play in shaping the vulnerability and resilience of an economy to macroeconomic shocks.

After five years of work at every level to correct the fiscal, financial and external imbalances that led to the crisis, and to reinforce fiscal and financial institutions, the Euro Area is beginning to show signs of recovery. But, despite these positive signs, growth is still weak and uneven.

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 prospective normalisation of monetary policies in the main OECD areas will be challenging given that current policy rates are likely to be significantly below neutral levels and that central bank balance sheets will be above the pre-crisis levels by a wide margin.

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.

Danish productivity has grown only weakly over the past two decades, both historically and in relation to other countries, despite sound policies and institutions. Denmark needs to continue its efforts to reap the benefits of globalisation, which would contribute to invigorating productivity growth.

Despite relative affluence, workplace stress is a prominent feature of the US labour market. To the extent that job stress causes poor health outcomes – either directly through increased blood ressure, fatigue, muscle pain, etc. or indirectly through increased rates of cigarette smoking – policy to lessen job stress may be appropriate.

As environmental pressures continue to rise, governments throughout the OECD area have not been sitting back. If anything, the stringency of their policy measures has been increasing on the whole, not least to combat pollution and climate change. And as the evidence shows, stringent environmental policies can be introduced without hurting overall productivity.

In a majority of OECD countries, GDP growth over the past three decades has been associated with growing income disparities. To shed some lights on the potential sources of trade-offs between growth and equity, this paper investigates the long-run impact of structural reforms on GDP per capita and household income distribution.

This paper shows that household-level economic instability is only very loosely related to macroeconomic volatility. However, the analysis also uncovers that moving to highly competitive policies generally reduces micro-level instability.

Indonesia has a very good record of poverty reduction, having halved its incidence over the past two decades. Nevertheless, almost 30 million people still live below the national poverty line, mostly in rural areas and in certain provinces.

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.

In order to promote productivity, and thus boost living standards in the long run, public policies need to focus on improving incentives, capabilities and flexibility within an economy.

Where does the productive capacity of firms come from? What are the barriers that prevent resources to flow to the firms with the greatest potential? Why is it that not all people that possess entrepreneurial talent choose to start firms?

High house prices are being supported by very low interest rates, immigration-fuelled population growth and smaller family units, while demand is being bolstered by mortgage interest tax deductibility and institutional investors.

This paper investigates the impact of policies and institutions on health expenditures for a large panel of OECD countries for the period 2000-10.

Using a gravity model of bilateral trade in manufacturing industries for selected OECD and BRIICS countries over 1990s-2000s, this paper studies how exports are related to national environmental policies.

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.

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.

This paper explores the relationship between policy settings and extreme positive and negative growth events, what we call GDP tail risks, using quantile regression methods.

This paper explores the relationship between policy settings and extreme positive and negative growth events, what we call GDP tail risks, using quantile regression methods.

Labour productivity in Japan is about a quarter below the average of the top half of OECD countries, which is surprising given Japan's outstanding performance in education and skills and high level of R&D spending.

This paper provides an overview of labour market resilience in the wake of the Great Recession of 2008-09 and the role played by macroeconomic and structural policies.

In its latest Economic Survey for Norway , the OECD underscores the importance of policy facilitating transition away from oil-related activities and helping businesses seize opportunities from digitalisation and globalisation, through providing i) macroeconomic and financial stability, and ii) improvements to structural-policy settings.

Global trade imbalances narrowed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. They have remained at a lower level but are still of concern to policy makers because of the risks they pose to individual economies, as well as globally.

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

The euro area sovereign debt crisis highlighted important weaknesses in the euro area design. Fiscal policy did not build sufficient buffers before the crisis, which forced some countries to tighten fiscal policy too rapidly during the downturn to restore market confidence in sovereign borrowing.

Using cross-country time series panel regressions for the last two decades, this paper seeks to identify the main policy and institutional factors that explain the share of selfemployment across European countries.

Brazil has made remarkable progress in reducing poverty and inequality. This reduction is explained by strong growth but also by effective social policies. Besides growth, public services and cash transfers have played the biggest role, the latter notably through the successful "Bolsa Familia" programme.

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.

Cities can generate growth and jobs while becoming greener – this is the message of the OECD’s new Green Growth in Cities report. Drawing on case studies of Paris, Chicago, Kitakyushu and Stockholm, the report identifies green policies that can respond to urban growth priorities and suggests how to implement and finance them.

This workshop is to discuss the policy relevance of inequalities in the access to services in regions and cities, including the institutional and territorial organization for service delivery.

This paper provides an overview of fiscal consolidation efforts at the central and sub-central government level, both during the current and past consolidation episodes.