Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2015

Country Notes | Chapters | Previous editions | Multilingual summaries

OECD’s 2015 Going for Growth: Breaking the vicious circle
Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General

Editorial: Breaking the vicious circle

Executive Summary

This year’s report launches on the first day of the G20 finance ministers’ meeting in Istanbul, Turkey. It identifies and assesses progress that countries have made on key reforms to boost long-term growth, improve competitiveness and productivity and create jobs. Read the book online

G20: Framework for Strong, Sustainable and Balanced Growth
Remarks by Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General

Country Notes

Australia	European Union	Italy	Russian Federation
Austria	Finland	Japan	Slovak Republic
Belgium	France	Korea	Slovenia
Brazil	Germany	Latvia	South Africa
Canada	Greece	Luxembourg	Spain
Chile	Hungary	Mexico	Sweden
China	Iceland	Netherlands	Switzerland
Colombia	India	New Zealand	Turkey
Czech Republic	Indonesia	Norway	United Kingdom
Denmark	Ireland	Poland	United States
Estonia	Israel	Portugal

Chapter 1. Taking stock of reform action and identifying priorities in 2015

This chapter assesses progress that countries have made in responding to Going for Growth policy recommendations since 2013. Against this background, it identifies and discusses new priority areas where structural reforms are needed to lift growth across OECD and partner countries.

Chapter 2. The effect of pro-growth structural reforms on income inequality

This chapter reviews the evidence on the potential effect of pro-growth structural reforms on wage dispersion and household income inequality and examines whether specific policies driving GDP growth over the past decades may have also contributed to widening inequalities. In doing so, it distinguishes between the main channels via which policies affect growth and income distribution and identifies policy packages to make growth more inclusive.

Chapter 3. Pro-growth structural reforms, the environment and environmental policies

This chapter examines the environmental pressures related to economic growth, and how these may feed back to future growth and wellbeing. It discusses the role of structural reforms and environmental policies in this respect, and presents recent evidence on the importance of adequate design of environmental policies as well as on their impact on productivity growth.

Chapter 4. Going for Growth ten years after: Taking a longer perspective on reform action

This chapter provides an overview of reform activity since the early 2000s in the policy areas covered by the regular set of indicators featured in Going for Growth. It examines how policy priorities have evolved since the start of Going for Growth in response to actions taken as well as to shifts in challenges. It also gives an idea of the extent to which reforms in these areas have contributed to economic performance over that period.

Chapter 6: Structural policy indicators

This chapter contains a comprehensive set of quantitative indicators that allow for a comparison of policy settings across countries. The indicators cover areas of taxation and income support systems and how they affect work incentives, as well as product and labour market regulations, education and training, trade and investment rules and innovation policies. The indicators are presented in the form of figures showing for all countries the most recent available observation and the change relative to the previous observation.

Multilingual summaries