As its workforce ages and major economies shift towards producing higher value-added goods and services, New Zealand will face increasing challenges to remain globally competitive and maintain high living standards. Future growth will need to come increasingly from productivity gains, and...

The strength of the German labour market response to the financial crisis of 2008-09 demonstrated the benefits of past labour market reforms, which raised work incentives, improved job matching and increased working hour flexibility. Going forward, the government should build on this success and...

Poor labour-market outcomes remain one of Poland’s major structural weaknesses, impeding firms’ competitiveness and the nation’s potential output. Boosting employment prospects is also critical, as the country will soon be ageing at a fast pace. Despite long working hours, labour...

With almost 50 per cent of the working age population not working, improving labour market performance represents an essential and daunting challenge for Poland. While some of today’s joblessness is cyclical in nature, most of it appears to be structural. This paper argues that to increase...

An overlapping-generations model with search unemployment is calibrated for the Netherlands to assess the impact of tax-benefit reforms on labour supply. Several reforms are analysed, in particular the introduction of a flat tax and pension reforms. The model demonstrates the potential of these...

Norway will face a fast maturing old age pension scheme over the 30 next years whereas oil revenues will supply only a part of implicit liabilities related to the present generation. This working paper examines the recently proposed new measures to strengthen long term fiscal sustainability in...

This paper examines the channels through which ageing will shape the main economic factors that in turn affect potential growth; identifies current policy settings that may in fact amplify the adverse impact of demographic trends; and sets out policy reforms that will work to temper the effects...

Brazil’s public pension expenditure is about 9 per cent of GDP, above the OECD average. Given that OECD countries are generally not only wealthier, but also significantly older, Brazil’s pension expenditures are clearly excessive, draining resources away from other areas, such as much needed...

In recent years, India has enjoyed one of the highest growth rates worldwide, weathering the global financial crisis better than many other countries. Prudent macroeconomic policies will be critical to prolonging the current expansion, given the risks associated with high inflation and volatile...