Adult skills play a crucial role in shaping productivity. This column uses data from the 2023 OECD Survey of Adult Skills to analyse the relationship between productivity and the level and allocation of skills across industries. Differences in skill levels account for one-quarter of productivity gaps between the OECD average and the top three performers. […]
The growth of the private equity in recent years has raised concerns about its consequences. This column matches 2.5 million workers who were employed by 3,600 firms in the US that underwent leveraged buyouts with workers at firms that were not acquired to explore the effects of private equity on labour market outcomes. The authors […]
Governments are increasingly employing industrial subsidies, raising questions about their market implications. This column undertakes a thorough econometric testing of the causal impacts of subsidies on several firm performance indicators for large manufacturing companies. The authors find that subsidies increase firms’ market shares but have either no impact, or a negative impact on investment and […]
Policy debates around climate change frequently focus on the trade-off between the near-term costs of reducing carbon emissions and the long-term benefits of mitigating climate change. William Nordhaus highlighted the importance of aggregate productivity losses from climate change in shaping this intertemporal trade-off, but estimating these losses is challenging. This column examines both the direct […]
Product market regulation reforms directly affect firm entry, innovation and reallocation, and thus productivity and economic growth. This column leverages the 2025 update of the OECD Energy, Transport and Communications Regulation indicator to show that anticompetitive regulations in upstream sectors curb long-run economic performance in downstream sectors. Across the OECD, deregulation in network industries between […]
“When I tried to find work in the handmade hammock industry, a traditional craft in my area, I only lasted two months because I had no one to care for my two-year-old son,” shares Keylin Aguilera, a young rural woman from Orocuina, Honduras. You may find that this is a common scenario across rural Honduras, […]
The world is seriously off track to meet global nutrition targets. In fact, in some countries, statistics are moving in the wrong direction. Stunting remains a widespread problem, with nearly 148 million children affected, while at the other end of the spectrum, millions of adults are either struggling with obesity or suffering from non-communicable diseases (NCDs). […]
It is well established that exporters tend to be some of the most productive firms. But in today’s world, exporters typically rely strongly on other firms in their supply network. This columns uses data on the domestic supply chains of Dutch exporters to investigate whether domestic suppliers to exporting firms are more productive than firms […]
Amid geopolitical shocks, the EU is revisiting its industrial strategy. However, traditional metrics often paint a misleading picture of Europe’s underlying strength. This column uses a new approach to measure the EU’s relative state of technology in different sectors. It shows that although EU manufacturing broadly outperforms the rest of the world in productivity terms, […]
In 2000, the World Bank published, “Can Africa Claim the 21st Century?” This landmark report proposed four crucial areas of progress, and the priorities that were highlighted are even more pertinent today: improve governance and reduce conflict, invest in people; increase competitiveness and diversify economies; and reduce aid dependence and debt. Much of what was on […]
