Regulatory reform efforts in a broad range of industries have resulted in increased importance of competitive forces as a means to allocate resources and improve economic efficiency. A number of indicators suggest that such forces have been stronger in the United States than in most other OECD...

The agricultural sector in Canada is relatively large, compared to those in most other G7 countries. In recent years, the federal and provincial governments have undertaken a number of sectoral reforms to meet the competitiveness and environmental challenges that it faces. The federal government...

Israelis enjoy higher life expectancy and have a much younger demographic profile than most OECD countries. However, the demand for health care is expanding rapidly due to population growth and ageing. Also, the country’s wide socio-economic divides are reflected in differences in health...

Economists have traditionally been very cautious when studying the interaction between employment and health because of the two-way causal relationship between these two variables: health status influences the probability of being employed and, at the same time, working affects the health...

Belgium has a good record in delivering accessible care, but adaptation to population ageing will be complicated by the fragmentation of responsibilities in the healthcare system and a strong reliance on government regulations. The organisation of the system could be rationalised by giving...

China’s exceptional economic expansion has led to rising energy demand and pollution as well as other environmental pressures. Strong efforts by the government have moderated emissions of some types of air and water pollution from high levels but others, including greenhouse gas emissions,...

Based on the latest available data up to 2009, the health status of the Hungarian population is among the poorest in the OECD, including countries with a similar level of income per capita. While this outcome has been driven by the socioeconomic status of the population and lifestyle risks, it...

The Netherlands, as other OECD countries, faces the challenge of providing high quality health and long-term care services to an ageing population in a cost-efficient manner. In the health care sector, reforms have aimed at introducing more competition. Despite major changes and some positive...

This paper derives estimates of the efficiency of welfare spending in Slovenia and the other OECD countries from data envelopment analysis based on model specifications used in earlier OECD studies. Results suggest that Slovenia ranks about 25th among OECD countries for output efficiency: for a...

The crisis revealed the need for a strategic review of the existing social protection system in Estonia. Extreme income fluctuations on one side and low social benefits on the other side exposed fragile groups in the population to a significant poverty risk. The government has recently...