Income inequality in Colombia has declined since the early 2000s but remains very high by international standards. While most of the inequality originates from the labour market, wealth – and thus capital income – is also highly concentrated and the tax and transfer system has little...

Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin”...

Ensuring tax and transfer systems bring sufficient revenue to reach macroeconomic fiscal targets, address societal goals in re-distribution and social welfare, recognise the influence taxation has on businesses’ competitiveness and adequately address environmental externalities is a tough...

Finland’s population is set to age rapidly in the coming decades. This will put pressure on public finances, while shrinking labour resources. Nonetheless, solutions exist to alleviate those pressures. Adjusting the pension age in line with the rise in life expectancy would reduce pension...

Demographic developments are unfavourable for the financing of pension schemes in most OECD countries, implying continued growth in pension expenditure in virtually all OECD countries. This paper examines the vulnerability of pension systems, with an emphasis on financial sustainability and...

Low investment rates are limiting Brazil’s future potential growth rate. This paper analyses a number of potential reasons for these low investment rates and discusses policy options to achieve faster capital accumulation. A shortage of domestic saving appears to be a major constraint to...

The Czech fiscal position is generally sound and policy making is prudent. However, the fiscal framework was not strong enough to contain spending in the upturn and it would benefit from independent budget oversight. An anchor for the fiscal policy would be helpful, in the form of an explicit...

This paper presents in summary form the findings that emerge from a study of 20 structural reform episodes in 10 OECD countries. The study’s principal messages may be summarised as follows. First, it pays to have an electoral mandate for reform. Secondly, major reforms should be accompanied by...

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 of the formalsector economy in two ways. First, early-retirement incentives (including...

The Czech Republic faces one of the largest demographic challenges in the OECD area and making sure the public pension system is able to cope with rapid population ageing is important for long-term fiscal stability and social welfare. This paper assesses five proposals for pension reform made in...