This paper assesses Italy’s 2019 tax and benefit reforms, analyses hypothetical reforms and proposes a reform package that balances goals of reducing poverty, encouraging employment and fiscal sustainability. Using the OECD’s Tax-Benefit and the EUROMOD microsimulation models, it shows that...

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform benefit for all (“basic income”) and a...

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. Major disincentives in Finland are related to tapering rules for unemployment benefits, social assistance and the housing benefit, the...

Estimating the impact of the crisis on income distribution requires up-to-date information. Due to the complexity of income surveys such as EU-SILC, income data usually become available with considerable delay. In this context, micro-simulation models are an appropriate and widely used...

Getting tax and transfer systems to efficiently deliver sufficient revenues to achieve macroeconomic targets, address goals in re-distribution and social welfare, encourage employment, accommodate business-competitiveness concerns and incorporate environmental issues is difficult. In Australia,...

The paper investigates the financial vulnerability of non-financial firms during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemic crisis. In particular, it evaluates the extent to which firms may run into a liquidity crisis following the COVID-19 outbreak and the impact of stylised policy measures to reduce...

This paper takes stock of the main structural reforms that Greece has undertaken since 2010, those currently proposed and that are in the process of implementation, and quantifies the medium and long‑term effects on output. Special attention is given to three issues that are relevant to...

This paper provides guidance for developing country-specific policy recommendations from the broad policy principles of the new OECD Jobs Strategy. To this end, it identifies countries’ main policy challenges and develops broad policy packages to address them. It highlights the importance of...

A policy framework that does not unduly inhibit the creative destruction process is vital to sustaining productivity growth. Yet, a key question is what happens to workers who lose their jobs due to this process and what are the policies that minimise the costs of worker displacement?...

In many OECD countries, low productivity growth has coincided with rising inequality. Widening wage and productivity gaps between firms may have contributed to both developments. This paper uses a new harmonised cross-country linked employer-employee dataset for 14 OECD countries to analyse the...