Testing what works for local productivity

This webinar is the 28th meeting of the Spatial Productivity Lab.

The Spatial Productivity Lab (SPL) at the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development is a dedicated research laboratory that works with local, national and global partners to improve our collective understanding of the spatial dimension of productivity growth, the relevance of links between different types of places and the role of  regional policy in driving productivity growth, creating better jobs and boosting well-being. 

Productivity growth ultimately happens in places. Therefore, policymakers need to find interventions that will be most effective in addressing local barriers to growth, innovation and inclusion and find cost-efficient policy improvements that can unlock untapped potential and accelerate productivity. In a complex policy environment, experimentation and rigorous evaluation offer powerful tools to strengthen decision making, test new approaches, and generate evidence on what works, for whom, and under what conditions.

While experimentation has become more common in national policy settings, there is growing interest in applying these methods at the regional and local level. Place-based experimentation can help policymakers adapt interventions to local realities, allocate resources more effectively, and build a culture of learning and continuous improvement. For researchers, it offers opportunities to generate actionable evidence in real-world contexts and deepen understanding of the drivers of local productivity.

This webinar will bring together leading experts and practitioners to discuss how experimentation and evaluation can support better local productivity policies, drawing on experiences from regulatory innovation, evidence-based policymaking, and place-based economic development initiatives.

Registration is free and open to all who are interested in the topic.

For more information, please contact Carlo.Menon@oecd.org, Wessel.Vermeulen@oecd.org  and Zuzana.Zavarska@oecd.org at the OECD Spatial Productivity Lab.