Weak productivity in Egypt is rooted in deep-seated structural causes that impede market competition and prevent a more efficient resource allocation. This implies a number of challenges for economic policy to meet the objectives for long-term sustainable growth as set out in the National...

New Zealand’s productivity level remains markedly below the OECD frontier. Insufficient competition is an important contributor to this performance, as the relatively small number of competitors in New Zealand’s small market contributes to market concentration. Ensuring adequate competition...

Housing affordability has deteriorated in the past decade. There is scope for eliminating barriers to expand housing supply by reforming land use policy and streamlining the administration of building permits. Measures can be taken to promote the expansion of the rental market and reform housing...

Before the war, the Ukrainian Pay-As-You-Go pension system required large government transfers. Since then, large scale emigration and an increasing number of people eligible for pensions have further increased the need for government transfers and exacerbated the challenges of population...

Weak investment has weighed on the convergence process of Latvia towards higher living standards. Limited access to finance coupled with high informality, costly insolvency procedures, skilled labour shortages and weak competition have hampered business dynamism and innovation, weighing on...

Romania’s clean energy transition needs to accelerate for the country to decarbonise its economy by mid-century. Following an impressive decline from the early 1990s, emissions of greenhouse gases have stopped falling in recent years. Fossil fuel dependence, an increasing and ageing vehicle...

Gender inequalities in Australia have steadily declined, but remain particularly visible in the labour market. Women in Australia have lower employment rates, hourly wages and hours worked than their male counterparts. Childbirth is particularly disruptive for their labour market experience....

Australia has committed to achieving net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and more recently outlined a more ambitious intermediate target for emission reductions by 2030. However, achieving these targets will be challenging given a historical reliance on coal generation and the presence of...

Japan faces serious demographic headwinds. Under current fertility, employment and immigration rates, the population would fall by 45% by 2100 and employment by 52%. Given the challenges of a shrinking and ageing population, the government has pledged to “create a children-first economic...

The Danish labour market is strong, but tensions have increased since the pandemic. The post-pandemic recovery boosted labour demand, but structural factors, such as late labour market entry by the young, changing skills requirements and obstacles to the recruitment of migrants, contribute to...