Sweden’s single biggest economic problem is the high number of people absent from work due to sickness or disability. This paper describes the problem and looks at what other countries have done to reduce absenteeism. It emphasises a mutual obligations approach to sickness insurance. This...

This paper reviews public expenditure in New Zealand and the scope for further progress. Since the mid-1980s, New Zealand has been a world leader in public management reforms. Government agencies have been transformed by delegating managerial responsibility to them and replacing input controls...

The Irish housing market is very buoyant. The housing boom is driven by strong economic growth, dynamic demographics and low interest rates. However, large tax advantages and relatively lenient credit policies by banks have also played their part, and prices may have become overvalued. To the...

Globalisation can be a threat or an opportunity, depending on a country’s trade mix and its economic and regulatory structure. This paper assesses which EU countries are most exposed to globalisation using, among other indicators, measures of revealed comparative advantage. It then looks at...

This paper describes the OECD’s new small global forecasting model for the three main OECD economic regions: the United States, the euro area, and Japan. The key variables – which include output, inflation, the trade balance, and import prices – are driven by monetary and fiscal policy,...

While Ireland’s economic performance has been impressive, there are too many sectors where producers are shielded from competition, at the expense of consumers. The loss in efficiency from these policies will become more noticeable as Ireland’s growth rate settles down towards more normal...

This paper reviews the strengths and weaknesses of the Swedish healthcare system and the challenges that it will face in the future. It discusses ways to improve access to primary care, including different methods for paying GPs, whether access is less equitable than in other countries and the...

International trade is a principle transmission mechanism by which developments in one country can have repercussions in others and how it is modelled is an important part of any multi-country model. This paper describes recent estimation work carried out by the OECD, which respecifies and...

The structural rate of unemployment and associated non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (the NAIRU) are of major importance to the analysis of macro and structural economic developments, although in practice these concepts are not well defined and there is considerable uncertainty and...

This article discusses and explains the various measures of inflation used by the Reserve Bank.