Posted by . Measuring skills can be problematic as adequate proxies are, in many cases, not readily available. ‘Qualification levels’ are among the most commonly used proxies for skills as they can be found in large datasets produced by national statistical offices and updated regularly. More...
Posted by . In 2012, the OECD released the first results of the Survey of Adults Skills. Workers in Japan and Finland showed higher proficiency than workers in Spain or Italy. Those findings captured the media attention, as OECD country rankings typically do. But there is much more in the data. More...
Posted . Concerns around weak productivity growth are everywhere these days. As the latest OECD Economic Outlook notes, since the mid-2000s, productivity growth has been markedly lower than at any other time since the 1950s. In response, the OECD has just launched the Global Forum on Productivity, an initiative to foster international co-operation between public bodies who promote productivity-enhancing policies. More...
Posted . Long-term rates are low in OECD countries, particularly in Japan, France and Germany. This opens up fiscal space and can justify any public investment projects with a positive rate of return. At the same time, infrastructure needs are sizeable, especially as fiscal consolidation in recent years has pushed down public capital spending to very low levels in many countries. In such a situation, additional public investment is likely to benefit from high rates of return. More...
Posted . Policymaking is at an important juncture. Without comprehensive, coherent and collective action, disappointing and sluggish growth will persist, making it increasingly difficult to make good on promises to current and future generations. More...
Posted .The Greek economy is turning around lately, but it remains in a deep depression. GDP has fallen by more than a quarter between 2007 and 2015, unemployment remains extremely high at 25 percent and anchored poverty – which measures poverty relative to its pre-crisis income level – has nearly tripled between 2007 and 2014, reaching a third of the population. More...
Posted . The Special Chapter of the OECD Economic Outlook published today shows why the global economy remains in the doldrums. Since the mid-2000s, productivity growth has been markedly lower than at any other time since the 1950s. This matters as rising productivity lies at the heart of economic progress. More...
Posted . Four hundred years after the death of Shakespeare there remain many misconceptions on what he wrote. Perhaps the most common concerns the adulterated quote above, which is actually a reference to why Romeo was a Montague rather than where Romeo was. In the same spirit of confusion, recent years have seen considerable debate about the causes of the productivity slowdown seen across OECD countries. More...
Posted . The pace of structural reforms is slowing just when the world economy needs decisive policy actions to strengthen fundamentals and restore healthy growth (the 2016 Going for Growth report). Policy makers may be concerned that introducing structural reforms in the current context involve trade-offs between the mid- to long-run gains in employment and productivity and short-run losses. More...
Posted . The output gap ought to be a key input in short-term policy-making because it provides a summary measure of economic slack, so allowing policy-makers to anticipate inflationary pressures. It can also be used to estimate cyclically-adjusted measures of the fiscal balance, to provide a better assessment of fiscal sustainability. More...
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