Slow productivity growth in advanced economies holds back income gains and therefore improvements in well-being. Sluggish productivity gains in aggregate hide a growing gap between firms at the frontier, which display sustained productivity growth,...

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. However, the...

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. However, the...

The Peace pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development encompasses a diverse range of issues including stability and effective governance. Reforming the public sector is high on the government’s agenda, but involves a number of challenges:...

The Partnerships pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development cuts across all the goals focusing on the mobilisation of resources needed to implement the agenda. Thailand’s “sufficiency economy philosophy” encourages the prioritisation of...

The Prosperity pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development calls for an integrated approach based on boosting productivity through diversification, upgrading technology and innovation, and increasing employment and entrepreneurship....

The People pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development focuses on quality of life in all its dimensions, and emphasises the international community’s commitment to ensuring all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity, equality...

Finland raises a large amount of taxes to finance high-quality public services and redistribute income. Public finances are currently relatively solid and taxes and transfers reduce income inequality significantly. However, a rapidly ageing...

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. Major disincentives in Finland are related to tapering rules for unemployment benefits,...

Current weak labour productivity growth in many OECD countries reflects historically weak contributions from both total factor productivity (TFP) growth and capital deepening. The slowdown in trend productivity growth in the pre-crisis period is...

New indicators measuring the effects of public spending on inclusive growth have been constructed using recent empirical work by Fournier and Johansson (2016) and a recent public finance dataset (Bloch et al., 2016). A first set of indicators...

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform...

Over the last decades Argentina’s living standards have lost ground relative to other developed and emerging economies. Putting Argentina on a path to stronger, inclusive and job-rich growth requires boosting productivity and strengthening investment...

Declining inflation in many countries over the past few decades at the same time as rising global competition has led to a debate on the importance of globalisation for domestic inflation. This paper explores the implications of global value chain...

The paper describes the framework used in long-term economic scenarios for the projection of the saving rate, investment, capital stock and current account. The saving rate is determined according to an estimated equation which suggests that...

This paper investigates if higher public spending in education and better teacher qualifications are related to student’s performance, using data from Saber 11, a national standardized test conducted by Instituto Colombiano para la Evaluación de la...

Norway’s success in maintaining high living standards, low inequality and good progress in gender balance owes much to its business sector. High-productivity business-sector jobs support high wages and profits, providing capacity to fund...

Norway makes substantial public investment in transport and this has intensified in recent years. There is potentially large economic benefit from such investment, particularly as good transport infrastructure can help Norway’s transition away from...

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. Furthermore, unlike most other countries, young adults do not have stronger basic skills...

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. This holds back aggregate productivity and growth, and contributes to regional...