OECD indicators of structural policy show that policy changes in Italy since 1998 should have improved the environment for entrepreneurship significantly, but in the same period its economic performance has deteriorated noticeably. This may be partly because there is a difference between policy...

Economic growth is the basis of increased prosperity. This makes the attainment of growth a key objective for governments across the world. The rate of growth can be affected by policy choices through the effect that taxation has upon economic decisions and through productive public...

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”...

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”...

Economic growth is the basis of increased prosperity. This makes the attainment of growth a key objective for governments across the world. The rate of growth can be affected by policy choices through the effect that taxation has upon economic decisions and through productive public...

During the economic and financial crisis, fiscal positions across the OECD countries deteriorated sharply. This raises the question of what level of primary deficit would ensure long-term sustainability and what degree of consolidation is needed. The purpose of this paper is to gauge the scale...

The economic and financial crisis was the catalyst for a fiscal crisis that engulfs many OECD countries. In most countries, budget deficits soared as a result of the economic slump, weaker revenues and the policy response to the crisis. Consolidating the public finances is an important challenge...

This paper assesses how and in what circumstances, fiscal consolidations are affected by monetary conditions, using data covering 24 OECD countries over the past 25 years, Focusing on fiscal consolidation “episodes”, it is found that these tend to occur when large budget deficits threaten...

In this paper the OECD’s interlink model is used to explore several possible channels through which a narrowing of the US current account deficit could occur. The shocks considered include dollar depreciation, fiscal consolidation, and an improvement in the non-price competitiveness of US...

This paper was prepared in the OECD Economics Department as a contribution to the Organisation-wide study entitled, “Towards a New Global Age”. It examines macro-structural economic developments in and between OECD and non-OECD economies, the economic linkages and a number of structural...