Debt levels have surged since the mid-1990s and have reached historic highs across the OECD. High debt levels can create vulnerabilities, which amplify and transmit macroeconomic and asset price shocks. Furthermore, high debt levels hinder the ability of households and enterprises to smooth...

The tax burden in Switzerland is low in international comparison, largely reflecting the substantial non-tax compulsory contributions towards the health and pension systems which are managed by private institutions. Taxation of personal income and labour earnings is relatively high, whereas the...

In this paper we develop a simple analytical framework to analyze “good” and “bad equilibria” in public-debt and growth dynamics. The “bad equilibrium” is characterised by the simultaneous occurrence, and adverse feedbacks between, high and growing fiscal deficits and debt, high risk...

Mexico has embarked on a bold package of structural reforms that will help it to break away from three decades of slow growth and low productivity. Major structural measures have been legislated to improve competition, education, energy, the financial sector, labour, infrastructure and the tax...

This paper is making use of the OECD product market regulation (PMR) database to measure the heterogeneity of product market regulation across countries for the whole economy, for the main subcomponents of the PMR indicator and for the internet economy. The heterogeneity within EU countries is...

The prospective normalisation of monetary policies in the main OECD areas will be challenging given that current policy rates are likely to be significantly below neutral levels and that central bank balance sheets will be above the pre-crisis levels by a wide margin. Monetary policy...

Taxes and cash transfers reduce income inequality more in France than elsewhere in the OECD, because of the large size of the flows involved. But the system is complex overall. Its effectiveness could be enhanced in many ways, for example so as to achieve the same amount of redistribution at...

The structure of a country’s external liabilities, as well as the extent and nature of its international financial integration are key determinants of its vulnerability to financial crises. This is confirmed by new empirical analysis covering OECD and emerging economies over the past four...

This paper provides new empirical evidence on the effects of structural policies on household disposable incomes at different income levels. More specifically, it investigates the extent to which structural policies have differential long-run impacts on GDP per capita and on household incomes at...

This paper identifies and analyses some key challenges that OECD and partner economies may face over the coming 50 years if underlying global trends relating to growth, trade, inequality and environmental pressures prevail. For example, global growth is likely to slow and become increasingly...