This book examines the major rural developments and the issues that policy makers have been dealing with across the OECD over the last two decades. The OECD Conference, held in Siena, Italy, in July 2002, on the Future of Rural Policy, identified the need for rural policies to look beyond...

This note examines which regional economies in Europe are most exposed to rising gas prices on the basis of their dependency on gas intensive manufacturing sectors such as chemicals or basic metals. Based on OECD calculations we find that the employment shares of the most gas-intensive...

Over the last few years, much progress has been made in developing rail charges to ensure non-discriminatory access to, and efficient use of national rail networks. But in Europe the international dimension is still missing, particularly in terms of the freight market. Integration of European...

The SME Policy Index is a benchmarking tool designed for emerging economies to assess SME policy frameworks and monitor progress in policy implementation over time. The Index has been developed by the OECD in partnership with the European Commission, the European Bank for Reconstruction and...

The SME Policy Index: Eastern Partner Countries 2020 – Assessing the Implementation of the Small Business Act for Europe is a unique benchmarking tool to assess and monitor progress in the design and implementation of SME policies against EU and international best practice. It is structured...

This paper presents the first estimates of the OECD project "Towards a pilot dashboard of SME greening and green entrepreneurship indicators", which is part of broader work of the OECD Committee on SMEs and Entrepreneurship (CSMEE) to support governments in making SMEs active players in the...

This paper takes stock of one year of policy responses to the 2022/2023 energy crisis triggered by Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine from the perspective of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In this paper, "SME policy responses" are defined as all government policies, whether...

Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of Western Balkan economies but until recently received relatively little attention from policy makers. Governments focused on consolidating macroeconomic stabilisation and the restructuring and privatisation of large companies. The adoption...