Indonesia's fiscal position is generally sound and policy making prudent. However, the country still faces important challenges in terms of economic and social development. Infrastructure, education, health and social security are all spending areas that the government is trying to improve...

Swiss GDP per capita stands amongst the top OECD performers. However, to face medium-term challenges productivity developments will be key to allow the country to maintain its enviable position. Recent trends have not been favourable, with productivity growth underperforming peer countries....

After peaking in the first half of 2008, international imbalances declined sharply during the global crisis of 2008-09, in part reflecting cyclical factors such as large contractions in domestic demand on the back of bursting housing bubbles in a number of deficit countries, as well as large...

Growth in emerging market economies (EMEs) is set to durably slow from the rates observed over 2010-12 as cyclical effects fade, potential growth declines and external financing conditions tighten. Large negative current account balances make some EMEs vulnerable to sudden reversals in capital...

This paper estimates potential output losses from the global financial crisis by comparing recent OECD published projections with a counter-factual assuming a continuation of pre-crisis productivity trends and a trend employment rate which is sensitive to demographic trends. Among the 19 OECD...

Global trade growth over the past few years has appeared extraordinarily weak, even in relation to weak global GDP growth. This paper shows that the apparent breakdown in the relationship between global trade and global GDP growth is largely explained by two factors: an inappropriate measurement...

Recent episodes of large exchange rate movements, such as for Japan or the United Kingdom, have typically not been associated with large changes in trade balances and despite the polarisation of international investment positions large currency fluctuations during the global crisis of 2008-09...

Tourism has boomed in Indonesia in recent years and is already one of the main sources of foreign-currency earnings. Indonesia has rich and diverse natural assets, whose tourism potential remains underutilised. The government has an ambitious target of attracting 20 million tourists by 2019, up...

Current weak labour productivity growth in many OECD countries reflects historically weak contributions from both total factor productivity (TFP) growth and capital deepening. The slowdown in trend productivity growth in the pre-crisis period is mostly explained by a long-established slowdown in...