The impressive emergence of China’s economy is set to lose some momentum as the country catches up with more advanced economies and its rapid ageing also weighs on it. However, China can still reap the “reform dividend”, especially with measures to...

The pandemic has highlighted significant gaps in social protection, in particularamong informal workers. With around 60% of workers in informal jobs, many of those most in need of social protection are left behind. The government has attempted to...

The paper introduces a novel, granular house-price dataset sourced from a network of public and private data providers. It offers the first results of investigations into changes in the urban geography of housing markets following the COVID-19...

This paper investigates factors that contribute to the survival of export relationships at the firm and product levels using a large anonymised firm-level database for Latvia. It finds that some characteristics of exporting firms, such as a higher...

Norway, like a number of other countries, saw steep growth in house prices during the pandemic. This added to past years of strong price increases and has brought renewed concern for housing affordability. Tax advantages to buying homes inflate house...

This paper delivers new evidence for European countries on the role of a wide range of policies for workers’ mobility in terms of hiring transitions into jobs, with an emphasis on differences across socio-economic groups. Labour market transitions...

This paper provides a new measure of human capital using PISA and PIAAC surveys, and mean years of schooling. The new measure is a cohort-weighted average of past PISA scores (representing the quality of education) of the working age population and...

This paper studies the potential impact of higher carbon taxation - to reach the government’s emission targets by 2030 - on Iceland’s economy. The paper is divided into two parts. First, a DSGE modelling exercise suggests that the equivalent of an...

This paper overviews structural reforms that promote the diffusion of digital technologies and investment in intangible capital that maximises the potential of these technologies in New Zealand. Effective use of digital technologies enables New...

The economic shock induced by the COVID-19 pandemic is accelerating structural changes and is posing new challenges. Austria faces wider growth opportunities and new adjustment challenges related notably to two major structural transformations:...

Denmark has been a frontrunner in policies that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and now plans to cut emissions by 70% by 2030 from 1990 levels and to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050. Such ambition induces halving emissions from 2019 levels and...

Resolving stark differences between rich and poor countries in vaccine coverage against COVID is a global policy priority for 2022. However, even among OECD countries, there currently remain surprisingly large differences in vaccine coverage and this...

As countries implement stricter environmental policies, the need for tools to compare countries’ environmental policy stringency is becoming more pressing. The OECD Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) index has become a widely used tool for policy...

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Malaysia undertook a series of vigorous reforms, ranging from the improvement of regulatory framework to the digitalisation of the economy, with the aim of boosting productivity. While the protracted pandemic has...

Slovakia’s population is ageing rapidly, with the share of the working-age population expected to shrink by about a fifth in the next 30 years. Ageing-related costs are projected to increase much more strongly than in other EU countries and ageing...

The Slovak population is set to age rapidly in the next decades, with significant impacts on economic growth and the sustainability of public finances. At the same time, the labour market exit age in Slovakia is among the lowest in the OECD. We use...

Australia’s financial sector entered the COVID-19 crisis in a strong position, enabling it to play a key role in cushioning the pandemic’s impact. Once the national economy reopens, policymakers will turn their focus to securing a robust, sustainable...

This paper assesses the medium term impact of the United Kingdom leaving the EU Single Market under the terms of the EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) reached at the end of 2020 using the OECD METRO CGE model. The analysis does not include...

During the first decade of the currency union, business cycle fluctuations among Euro Area countries were relatively synchronised and similar in magnitude. This concordance disappeared during the 2008 financial turmoil and the following European...

Progress in regional convergence in the EU has been uneven over the last two decades. While Central and Eastern Europe has been catching up, Southern Europe has often lost ground, especially after the global financial crisis. Furthermore, within most...