The present paper develops Adaptive Trees, a new machine learning approach specifically designed for economic forecasting. Economic forecasting is made difficult by economic complexity, which implies non-linearities (multiple interactions and discontinuities) and unknown structural changes (the...

What is the role of government policies in encouraging healthier food choices to fight the current overweight and obesity epidemics? This report briefly examines the evidence base on unhealthy diets, including the associated burden on health systems. It then takes stock of current knowledge on...

Using a large panel of OECD countries this paper studies the link between debt and macroeconomic stability by comparing the evolution of balance sheet aggregates and economic output in high- and lowdebt environments. While the relationship between debt and economic growth has been extensively...

Industrial specialization has important implications for economic performance; therefore, understanding its determinants is of key policy relevance. This paper quantifies the relationship between factor endowments, policies and institutions and patterns of industrial specialisation in production...

This paper quantifies the importance of different determinants of trade at the industry level using a sample of 54 OECD and non-OECD economies. The empirical methodology extends the approach of previous empirical studies to explicitly quantify the impact that trading partners’ factor...

For much of the second half of the twentieth century, labour productivity grew rapidly in most OECD economies, fuelled by the adoption of a large stock of unexploited existing technologies. However, the slowdown in productivity growth over the past decade underscores the idea that as economies...

Using cross-country time series panel regressions for the last two decades, this paper seeks to identify the main policy and institutional factors that explain the share of self-employment across European countries. It looks at the aggregate share of self-employed as well as its breakdown by...

Tax and spending reforms offer numerous opportunities to promote inclusive growth. There is potential for so-called win-win reforms that simultaneously boost economic output and enhance income equality. Other changes in the structure of public finances will produce benefits only along a single...

Global trade imbalances narrowed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. They have remained at a lower level but are still of concern to policy makers because of the risks they pose to individual economies, as well as globally. However, the ultimate causes of these imbalances are not...

Health care expenditure per person, after accounting for changes in overall price levels, began to slow in many OECD countries in the early-to-mid 2000s, well before the economic and fiscal crisis. Using available estimates from the OECD’s System of Health Accounts (SHA) database, we explore...