Poland is on track to meet its international greenhouse-gas emissions commitments. However, it will need to cut emissions significantly in the future, if the European Commission’s proposal on the Low Carbon Roadmap is adopted. Policies should ensure that the country’s substantial reduction...

Housing conditions in Belgium are among the best in OECD countries according to the Better Life Index, as dwellings are of high quality and large, and housing costs are average. However, the steep increase in house prices since 2003 has put market access for first-time buyers under pressure....

With strong economic growth overall and an increasingly important role as a regional economic centre, Luxembourg is experiencing mounting environmental pressures. This is mainly a result of a growing population and a rapid increase in transport, which is dominated by the car, as the number of...

While environmental economics studies using stated life satisfaction data have been gaining attention, much of this body of work remains exploratory. In this study we contribute to this emerging body of research by combining OECD survey data from four European countries on life satisfaction and...

Urbanisation in China has long been held back by various restrictions on land and internal migration but has taken off since the 1990s, as these impediments started to be gradually relaxed. People have moved in large numbers to richer cities, where productivity is higher and has increased...

Reducing food losses and food waste is attracting growing public attention at the international, regional, and national levels, and is widely acknowledged to contribute to abating interlinked sustainability challenges such as food security, climate change, and water shortage. However, the...

This paper presents a productivity growth measure that explicitly accounts for natural capital as an input factor and for undesirable goods, or “bads”, as an output of the production process. The discussion focuses on the extension of productivity measurement for bad outputs and estimates of...

Since around 2007, the country has been enjoying an “energy renaissance” thanks to its abundant stocks of shale oil and gas. The resurgence in oil and gas production is beginning to create discernible economic impacts and has changed the landscape for natural gas prices in the United States,...

Resource efficiency and circular economy policies aim at reducing resource intensity and use throughout the economy, thereby decreasing environmental impacts. Besides the environmental benefits expected from these policies, potential employment benefits are often emphasised, which would follow...

This report investigates the effects of a resource efficiency and circular economy (RE-CE) transition on international trade flows, using the OECD’s ENV-Linkages model. A global RE-CE policy package will cause secondary materials to become cheaper, while primary materials become more expensive...