This paper provides, for all OECD countries, an estimate of the net tax cost per currency unit of contribution to a tax-favoured retirement savings plan, using a present-value methodology. The latter takes into account the future flows of revenues foregone on accrued income and of revenues...

This paper provides estimates of the implicit fiscal assets as well as of the evolution over time of fiscal costs and revenues related to tax-favoured retirement saving regimes in 17 OECD countries, taking into account current and future contributions, asset accumulation and withdrawals, all of...

This paper assesses if GDP per capita is an adequate proxy as a measure of wellbeing or whether other indicators are more suitable for this purpose. Within the national accounts framework, other better measures of economic resources exist, but they are closely correlated with GDP per capita and...

The paper considers whether structural reforms have a different impact on adjusted household disposable income (AHDI) compared to GDP, particularly given that while the latter is currently used as the basis for the OECD Economics Department’s framework for evaluating the effect of structural...

There have been concerns that employment-enhancing reforms along the lines of the 1994 OECD Jobs Strategy could inadvertently lead to increased income inequality and poverty. This paper focuses on the impact of institutions and redistributive policies on inequality and poverty with the view of...

This working paper presents evidence on changes in income distribution and poverty in thirteen OECD countries over the two decades up to the first half of the 1990s. While country experience has been variable, income and poverty rose in most countries. Both earnings and capital and self...

Over the past decades, productivity growth and technology diffusion have slowed down, and business dynamism has declined in many advanced and emerging economies. Meanwhile, inequalities in economic outcomes, such as in income and wealth, and in opportunities, such as access to quality education...

For many years now, a growing number of economists, policy makers, and civil society groups have pointed to the limits of using only GDP as the primary measure of national economic progress. Accordingly, a progressively greater focus has been placed on the concept of well-being and its optimal...

In Germany fiscal relations between the various levels of government have come to the fore of the policy debate. In practice the federal fiscal set-up has evolved towards consensus and co-operation, where equalisation of living standards takes precedence over public choice and economic...

Productivity growth has been falling for a decade, hindering improvements in living standards. Low productivity reflects, firstly, poor infrastructure in telecommunications and transport. Secondly, the regulatory environment is not always business-friendly and often raises obstacles to firm...