OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2019
The new OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook presents the latest trends in performance of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and provides a comprehensive overview of business conditions and policy frameworks for SMEs and entrepreneurs.
This year’s edition provides comparative evidence on business dynamism, productivity growth, wage gaps and export trends by firm size across OECD countries and emerging economies. It explores the implications of digitalisation and globalisation for market conditions and SME access to strategic resources such as finance, skills, technology, data and other innovation assets. The report gives comparative analysis of regulatory frameworks and policies to enhance contributions by SMEs and entrepreneurs, and delivers a forward-looking perspective on the opportunities and challenges SMEs and entrepreneurs face in doing business and scaling up their activities. It also contains country profiles outlining the latest developments in national SME performance and business conditions, with expanded country profiles available on line.
Also available in: French
Reader’s guide
As the predominant form of business and employment, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are key actors for economic resilience, productivity and inclusiveness. Yet, smaller firms face particular size-related barriers in accessing finance, skills, technology and the knowledge-based capital that are required for innovating, driving competitiveness and growing, which, in the aftermath of the 2008-09 global financial crisis, may have compounded long-standing productivity and wage gaps with larger firms. These barriers are not only symptomatic of sub-optimal credit and labour markets; they also reflect disproportionate impacts of the regulatory environment, for example administrative burdens and inefficiencies in tax systems, inhibiting a level playing field for SMEs.
Also available in: French