Policy reforms aimed at boosting long-run growth often have side effects – positive or negative – on
an economy’s vulnerability to shocks and their propagation. Macroeconomic shocks as severe and
protracted as those since 2007 warrant a reconsideration of the role growth-promoting policies play in
shaping the vulnerability and resilience of an economy to macroeconomic shocks. Against this
background, this paper looks at a vast array of policy recommendations by the OECD that promote longterm
growth – contained in Going for Growth and the Economic Outlook – and attempts to establish
whether they underpin macroeconomic stability or whether there is a trade-off.
