France’s health-care system offers high-quality care. Average health outcomes are good, public satisfaction with the health-care system is high, and average household out-of-pocket expenditures are low. As in other OECD countries, technology is expanding possibilities for life extension and...

The United Kingdom displays large regional disparities in productivity compared to most other OECD countries, with a large gap between London and most other regions. This holds back aggregate productivity and growth, and contributes to regional differences in living standards. To make the...

More than a quarter of adults in the United Kingdom have low basic skills, which has a negative impact on career prospects, job quality and productivity growth. Furthermore, unlike most other countries, young adults do not have stronger basic skills than the generation approaching retirement....

Norway makes substantial public investment in transport and this has intensified in recent years. There is potentially large economic benefit from such investment, particularly as good transport infrastructure can help Norway’s transition away from oil-related activities. However, realising...

Norway’s success in maintaining high living standards, low inequality and good progress in gender balance owes much to its business sector. High-productivity business-sector jobs support high wages and profits, providing capacity to fund comprehensive public services and inclusive employment...

This paper investigates if higher public spending in education and better teacher qualifications are related to student’s performance, using data from Saber 11, a national standardized test conducted by Instituto Colombiano para la Evaluación de la Educación. The estimation exploits...

The paper describes the framework used in long-term economic scenarios for the projection of the saving rate, investment, capital stock and current account. The saving rate is determined according to an estimated equation which suggests that demographics, captured by the old-age dependency rate...

Declining inflation in many countries over the past few decades at the same time as rising global competition has led to a debate on the importance of globalisation for domestic inflation. This paper explores the implications of global value chain (GVC) integration and market contestability for...

Over the last decades Argentina’s living standards have lost ground relative to other developed and emerging economies. Putting Argentina on a path to stronger, inclusive and job-rich growth requires boosting productivity and strengthening investment through wide-ranging structural reforms....

The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform benefit for all (“basic income”) and a...