Reports

This report has been prepared by the OECD upon request by the Portuguese Independent Commission for Decentralisation. Decentralisation and regionalisation reforms have recently emerged on the Portugal’s policy agenda, with two main objectives: assigning more tasks to municipalities and strengthening regional level governance. The report presents a diagnosis of Portugal multi-level governance in international perspectives and highlights the strengths and challenges of the system. It then presents three potential policy paths of regional reform for Portugal. As the options are not mutually exclusive, they could work as complements to each other. The report analyses the conditions under which the reforms may deliver more economic efficiency and regional equity.

This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Portugal as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system.This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.

Twenty-first century governments must keep pace with the expectations of their citizens and deliver on the promise of the digital age. Data-driven approaches are particularly effective for meeting those expectations and rethinking the way governments and citizens interact. This report highlights the important role data can play in creating conditions that improve public services, increase the effectiveness of public spending and inform ethical and privacy considerations. It presents a data-driven public sector framework that can help countries or organisations assess the elements needed for using data to make better-informed decisions across public sectors.

This review provides policy recommendations on how to improve the Portuguese pension system, building on the OECD’s best practices in pension design. It details the Portuguese pension system and identifies its strengths and weaknesses based on cross-country comparisons. The Portuguese pension system consists of an old-age safety net, a pay-as-you-go defined benefit scheme and voluntary private savings. The safety net includes an old-age social pension and a complement (the so-called Complemento Solidário para Idosos or CSI), both of which pursue similar objectives but have different eligibility criteria. The defined benefit scheme has two main components: the general social security scheme (regime geral da Segurança Social) and the civil-servant pension scheme (Caixa Geral de Aposentações or CGA). The latter has been closed to new entrants since 2006 with new civil servants contributing to the general scheme. Funded voluntary pensions make up a very small share of total pension entitlements. The OECD Reviews of Pension Systems: Portugal is the fourth in the series, after Ireland (2014), Mexico (2016) and Latvia (2018), with a fifth review on Peru under preparation. 

Portugal aims to develop a more innovative, inclusive and productive economy, and to ensure that the ensuing benefits are widely distributed, regionally and socially. This report assesses the extent to which Portugal’s higher education, research and innovation system is well configured to help Portugal achieve its vision of inclusive innovation, and identify which policy options might help it achieve its goals.The assessment and the related recommendations focus on: 1) governance, strategy and funding in higher education, research and innovation; 2) the missions, profiles and use of resources of higher education institutions; 3) undergraduate and master’s level education activities; 4) doctoral training activities; 5) academic careers; 6) high-skill employment and business innovation.

Portugal’s services markets are among the most heavily regulated in the OECD. As vital inputs into the business sector, services provided by professionals, such as lawyers and engineers, generate up to 1.8 times their value in outputs by firms that use them. However, structural flaws in the regulation make professional services highly expensive for firms, diminishing their ability to compete effectively. Regulatory restrictions also hamper innovation and efficiency within the professions. Against this backdrop, this report examines regulations for 13 self-regulated professions (lawyers, solicitors, notaries, bailiffs, architects, engineers, technical engineers, certified accountants, auditors, economists, customs brokers, nutritionists and pharmacists). From 923 pieces of legislation analysed, the report makes 348 individual recommendations for amending or removing provisions to improve competition, and makes a detailed inventory of the analysis underlying the work. Analysis of Portuguese legislation and professions was complemented by research into international experiences and wide consultations with stakeholders from the public and private sectors. The OECD recommendations aim to remove or modify overly restrictive provisions in order to facilitate the access or exercise of the professions, to benefit businesses and consumers alike. This report identifies the sources of those benefits and gives estimates of their impact. Provided all recommendations are fully implemented, the benefit to the economy from lifting the barriers in the 13 liberal professions is estimated at around EUR 130 million a year.