The paper reviews the role of Small and Medium Size Enterprises (SMEs) as drivers of employment and economic growth in rural regions across a number of OECD geographies. It argues that SME creation is especially important for rural economic development and identified lessons for national level...

OECD countries and their regions are ageing fast. In principle, the negative impact of ageing on the growth rate of per capita gross domestic product could be offset by increases in productivity. However, for many regions, productivity growth required to maintain per capita GDP levels constant...

European Union Strategy for the Adriatic and Ionian Region (EUSAIR) represents a long-term strategic policy framework to promote socio-economic growth and tighter relations between European Union member countries and countries in the Western Balkan region. Of the four European Union Strategies...

Smart cities represent the future of urban development in Emerging Asia as more and more cities and countries resort to smart technologies to build more efficient and liveable urban environments, boost economic growth, foster well-being and facilitate citizen engagement. Policy makers in the...

This paper describes the EU-OECD method to define functional urban areas (FUAs). Being composed of a city and its commuting zone, FUAs encompass the economic and functional extent of cities based on daily people’s movements. The paper first presents briefly the methodological approach and...

Due to the lack of Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) at regional level, regional Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures have been traditionally adjusted using national PPPs. The simplifying assumption that all regions of a country have the same cost of living, and implicitly that there are no...

Following the historic 2015 Paris Agreement aiming to limit global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels by 2100, 165 Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, representing 192 countries, have been submitted. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) detail each...

That global networks provide positive externalities to participating firms is a well‑documented fact. Less is known about how the performance of non-participating firms, especially those that are small or medium-sized, changes with exposure to an increase in the presence of globally integrated...

This paper provides an assessment of the presence of migrants, their characteristics and integration outcomes across OECD regions, based on a new OECD database on immigrant integration at the regional level. It reveals the wide diversity of the presence of migrants within countries, as well as...

This paper discusses approaches to strengthen and monitor urban resilience through the use of indicators. Resilience is the capacity of a city or community to prepare for, respond to and adapt from dangerous and disruptive events, such as natural disasters, economic crises, demographic changes,...