1887

OECD Economics Department Working Papers

Working papers from the Economics Department of the OECD that cover the full range of the Department’s work including the economic situation, policy analysis and projections; fiscal policy, public expenditure and taxation; and structural issues including ageing, growth and productivity, migration, environment, human capital, housing, trade and investment, labour markets, regulatory reform, competition, health, and other issues.

The views expressed in these papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries.

English, French

Boosting productivity in Malaysia

Productivity growth is essential to providing sustainable increases in living standards. Malaysia has reached a development stage where growth needs to be driven more by productivity gains than the sheer accumulation of capital and labour inputs. The 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-20) sets an ambitious labour productivity growth target of 3.7% per year, well above the 2% average growth recorded from 2011 to 2015. Co-ordinated structural reforms will be necessary to achieve the productivity improvements needed to attain high-income country status. Areas where reforms would deliver the greatest boost to productivity include increasing the quality of education and skills training, spurring innovation, adopting information technology more widely, fostering a well-functioning competition policy framework, improving the functioning of the labour market and the regulatory framework for small and medium-sized enterprises, fostering regional integration and raising public sector productivity.

English

Keywords: competition, innovation, public sector, regulatory reform, productivity, structural reform, education, SMEs, skills, performance review, trade, regional integration, insolvency
JEL: O40: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity / Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity: General; I0: Health, Education, and Welfare / General; H11: Public Economics / Structure and Scope of Government / Structure, Scope, and Performance of Government; G3: Financial Economics / Corporate Finance and Governance; F1: International Economics / Trade; P48: Economic Systems / Other Economic Systems / Other Economic Systems: Political Economy; Legal Institutions; Property Rights; Natural Resources; Energy; Environment; Regional Studies; O1: Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth / Economic Development; E20: Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics / Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy / Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy: General
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error