Japan’s gross government debt of 226% of GDP in 2018 is the highest ever recorded in the OECD area, and places the economy at risk. The government now aims to achieve a primary surplus by FY 2025. Additional fiscal consolidation, based on a detailed...

Fundamental reform of traditional Japanese labour market practices is essential to cope with rapid population ageing and the era of 100-year lives. A shift to more flexible employment and wage systems based on performance rather than age would enable...

A well-functioning justice system is indispensable to business activity and to a society as a whole. Judicial efficiency measured by trial length, one of the essential factors in the effectiveness of the justice system, ensures contract enforcement,...

New Zealand’s immigration system aims to enhance well-being by promoting economic development, reuniting families and meeting humanitarian objectives. Immigration is high and residence admissions are focused on the high skilled to enhance economic...

New Zealand’s housing supply has not kept pace with rising demand, including from net immigration. Affordability has worsened, particularly for low-income renters. Government action is underway to allow new housing through initiatives such as the...

Complementing the Product Market Regulation (PMR) survey, the Indicators on the Governance of Sector Regulators map the regulatory arrangements of 130 regulators across 38 countries and five network sectors: energy, e-communications, rail and air...

This paper describes the methodology used in the OECD Economics Department to produce historical estimates and short-run projections of potential output. These estimates are used mainly in the OECD Economic Outlook, in country surveys and as starting...

Housing markets, which are large and subject to sharp swings, shape to a great extent countries’ exposure to economic crises and their capacity to recover from them. This paper analyses the transmission of housing-related shocks to the real economy:...

Spain has experienced a dramatic business cycle, starting with a large construction based boom followed by a long recession, resulting in a substantial rise in unemployment, and income and wealth inequality. This paper uses longitudinal data from the...

L’investissement public a le potentiel de stimuler la demande à court terme, et des infrastructures appropriées peuvent aussi entraîner des gains de productivité et contribuer à rendre la croissance économique plus inclusive en garantissant une...

Ce chapitre propose une analyse approfondie des performances du marché du travail français suivant la nouvelle Stratégie pour l’emploi de l’OCDE. Depuis 2015, les créations d’emploi ont fait refluer le chômage et les situations de sous emploi ont...

Education is a crucial determinant of labour market success. We investigate whether education is an appropriate means to cushion the negative consequences of job loss and study the role of age as a second major labour market factor. Using German...

China’s regions have been experiencing impressive growth over the past decades, but their potentials could be better exploited by creating a single product and labour market. Local protectionism increases transaction costs and hinders competition,...

Portugal’s export performance over the past decade has been impressive, helping to reduce external imbalances. This partly owed to a sequence of structural reforms that benefited the productivity of the export sector and led to an increase in its...

Housing markets are large and highly volatile: they can thus create large macroeconomic risks. The current paper provides a bird’s eye view of where the housing markets of major OECD economies currently stand. It then uses the results of recently...

A decomposition of changes to participation rates of 55-to-74 year-olds between 2002 and 2017 based on an estimated equation attributes more than two thirds of the median increase (of 10.9 percentage points) to rising life expectancy and educational...

The mission of the French High Commission for Pension Reform is to prepare the reform introducing a universal pension points system in France. This paper explains why implementing a universal points system in France would increase transparency,...

Heavy involvement in international trade and global value chains has been an effective way for promoting Slovakia's economic and social catch-up. Large foreign direct investment inflows have helped develop a competitive export-led manufacturing...

Roma account for almost one-tenth of the population in the Slovak Republic. They live mostly excluded from the general population in concentrated settlements, separated neighbourhoods or ghettos. The majority live in poverty and face social exclusion...

The rapid emergence of gig economy platforms that use digital technologies to intermediate labour on a per-task basis has triggered an intense policy debate about the economic and social implications. This paper takes stock of the emerging evidence....