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Economic performance has improved considerably in the past decade or so. This is most manifest in the marked acceleration in productivity, the major determinant of standards of living. More recently, [...]

The trend growth rate of GDP has slowed, mainly because of tighter limits on how quickly employment can grow. In particular, the labour force participation rate, which used to be [...]

Macroeconomic imbalances are weighing on economic prospects The New Zealand economy decelerated during 2005, after six years of strong economic growth of around 4% on average per year, and remained [...]

The achievement of balanced general government budgets has helped to reduce the level of gross debt over the past ten years. Consolidation has been facilitated by non-repeatable factors like falling [...]

The tertiary education system has been transformed from an elite-oriented system to a system providing tertiary education to a much larger share of each new generation. This re-orientation has contributed [...]

Norway has a robust macroeconomic policy framework to manage the potentially destabilising impact of its oil wealth. Nonetheless, emerging macroeconomic imbalances due to the unusually large terms of trade shock [...]

Prudent management of national resource abundance has been the hallmark of Norwegian public governance and a cornerstone of Norway's economic success. Norway has rationally decided to exploit finite natural resources [...]

Recent social security reform has significantly improved the long-run sustainability of the pension system. However, the pension system continues to serve as an important barrier to a more rapid expansion [...]

Since the crisis of 2001, an impressive package of fiscal consolidation and institutional reform has created a strong foundation for economic growth. As a result, GDP growth has been strong [...]

In recent decades the access of the school-age population to education has been expanded significantly. However, the quality of education remains low at the majority of schools, and the education [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Product market regulation and labour productivity in the OECD: convergence and divergence? Regulation Productivity Does regulation affect productivity growth? The model Results Simulation results Potential transmission [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Barriers to competition in financial markets: The role of regulation and other policies Banking regulation Securities market regulation The impact of financial systems' development and policies [...]

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction Decentralisation ratios Taxing power of sub-central governments A taxonomy of tax autonomy Taxing power in 2002 Evolution of taxing power 1995-2002 Tax autonomy across tax category [...]

Economic growth in Luxembourg has picked up to around the trend rate in the past two years, following weak activity in the wake of the bursting of the global equity [...]

After years of subdued growth and weak demand, Germany may now be in a position to enjoy a robust recovery. Further progress in economic reforms could turn this cyclical upswing [...]

Despite a solid growth performance there is both scope and need for further improvements Growth over the past decade has been among the strongest in the OECD. Finland also ranks [...]

Fiscal policy has failed to durably reduce the deficit below the Stability and Growth Pact threshold of 3% of GDP. The 2005 consolidation programme designed to bring the fiscal deficit [...]

This chapter discusses the performance of primary and secondary education services and shows that improvements are needed to narrow the significant human capital gap with other OECD countries. Despite progress [...]

This chapter examines tertiary education, adult training and research and development which are--besides primary and secondary education--essential for modernizing Portugal's economy and increasing living standards. As returns on investment in [...]

This chapter discusses structural reforms in product and labour markets that can help boost productivity growth and facilitate Portugal's adjustment to the new, more competitive, international environment. The business sector [...]

Following a period of catching up between the mid-1980s and 2000, the process came to a sudden end. Output growth was weak in 2005. Although some recovery is expected in [...]

This chapter reviews the key challenges facing the Irish economy. Ireland has continued its exemplary economic performance, attaining some of the highest growth rates in the OECD. After a remarkable [...]

Investment in infrastructure has not kept pace with Ireland's very rapid economic growth. Infrastructure deficits are beginning to show in a number of areas: road congestion, a lack of broadband [...]

The Irish housing market is very buoyant. The housing boom is driven by strong economic growth, dynamic demographics and low interest rates. However, large tax advantages and relatively lenient credit [...]

In the years to come, productivity growth will need to play the primary role in sustaining Ireland's strong economic performance because labour supply is already relatively high and there are [...]

Impressive gains in labour productivity have boosted Ireland's economic growth since the early 1990s. They were underpinned by a steep rise in the educational attainment of the working-age population. This [...]

This chapter discusses ways to strengthen competition in order to boost productivity growth and help restrain inflation. It reviews the general competition framework and discusses the regulatory barriers to competition [...]

This chapter reviews Ireland's recent fiscal record and discusses the challenges that policymakers will face in coming years. Revenues have been extremely buoyant, giving the government an opportunity to substantially [...]

Women have contributed a great deal to Ireland's economic growth, including by joining the labour force in lane numbers. The rise in female participation since 1990 has been amongst the [...]

The government has acknowledged the need to boost growth performance. A wideranging reform programme, called 'Series of reforms to boost growth' (Annex 1.A1) was launched in early 2004 and is [...]

Innovation policies (1) Figure 5.1 shows indicators of the performance of the Swiss innovation system drawn from the EU innovation scoreboard in comparison with Finland and Sweden, two countries where [...]

Structural problems in the labour market remain limited Despite weak trend growth, the Swiss labour market has performed well: employment ratios are high, while unemployment is still low in international [...]

Reforms of social programmes are required urgently to slow government spending While the consolidation programme to restore a balanced federal budget as from 2007 on does not include fundamental reforms [...]

Further improvement of the fiscal policy framework is necessary The management of the public finances is shaped to a large extent by the country's unique institutions, including: i) a system [...]

Using data collected through a survey of over 4 000 manufacturing facilities in seven OECD countries the determinants of investments in environmental research and development (R&D) are assessed. It is [...]

This chapter discusses priorities for strengthening innovation in the Netherlands. The main weaknesses are in business R&D intensity, the share of the population with tertiary education, and in commercially applying [...]

The Dutch economy is finally recovering, after having stagnated since the start of the decade. This first part of this chapter analyses the forces that are driving the present recovery, [...]

This chapter discusses options for further product market reform, especially in services, so as to increase productivity growth. It identifies the main regulatory barriers to product market competition based notably [...]

This chapter discusses labour-market reforms to increase macroeconomic resilience and labour utilisation. Strict EPL on regular contracts and long unemployment benefit duration weaken re-equilibrating mechanisms that drive the economy back [...]

This chapter discusses the fiscal challenges facing Dutch policymakers in the short and medium-term. After large budgetary overruns at the start of the decade, the Netherlands has successfully reined in [...]

In recent years the US current account deficit has grown to the point that most observers consider its level to be already unsustainable. Yet it seems set to continue to [...]

This chapter discusses the current state of fiscal relations between the federal, state and local governments in the United States and suggests directions for improvement. The significant degree of fiscal [...]

This chapter discusses several major challenges facing fiscal policymakers in the United States. Despite recent improvements in revenues, a return to surpluses in the federal unified budget is still unlikely [...]

This chapter discusses developments in the labour market, which have been quite unusual in the current business cycle. While movements in unemployment have not been out of line with traditional [...]

Seven per cent of the 25-54-year-old men are now inactive outside the labour market, many more than three decades ago. Solid growth since the late 1990s has brought down unemployment [...]

Lack of skills in large parts of the workforce is a key factor holding back the capacity to absorb innovations and adapt work processes to take advantage of new technologies. [...]

A wide range of indicators suggests that UK innovation performance has been mediocre in international comparison. An improvement is often viewed as one important means of closing the productivity gap [...]

On current government plans there will have been a rise in the public expenditure to GDP ratio by 5 1/2 percentage points in the eight years to 2007/08, with much [...]

The female employment rate has risen from 56% in 1971 to 70% in 2004. Among mothers with two or more children under 15 years, 24% work full-time and 40% part-time. [...]

Macroeconomic performance has been amongst the most resilient in the OECD over the last decade, but policy-makers currently face a slowdown in growth, in part caused by an overdue cooling [...]