Nine questions and answers on the 2019 Economic Survey of Italy

By oecdecoscope. Italy has implemented some of the recommendations of past OECD Surveys and these have been bearing fruit. For example:

• Past Surveys have recommended reducing social security contributions to raise employment. Such a cut was implemented on a temporary basis from 2015 and employment rose by about 3 percentage points. Employment growth started slowing when the reductions in social security contributions gradually expired.
• Past Surveys have recommended strengthening innovation policies and incentives for innovative investment. The Industry 4.0 programme has introduced fiscal incentives for investments in digital technologies, which have increased rapidly since then.
• Past Surveys have recommended improving public procurement and fighting vigorously corruption. Public procurement procedures have been restructured and harmonised across the country by reducing the number of contracting authorities, resulting in large cost savings; the anticorruption authority (ANAC) has taken on an important role in preventing corruption and is now a model for other countries.

There are many areas where In Italy has not taken action following OECD recommendations. More...