By Date

Half a century after independence, Bangladesh has achieved impressive progress. The country has transformed from one of the poorest nations into a global textile manufacturing hub capable of meeting its medical needs almost entirely through domestic pharmaceutical production. The country will graduate from the least developed country (LDC) category in 2026 and aspires to be a high-income nation through industrialisation by 2041. Meeting this challenge requires accelerating economic transformation through diversification and innovation. This Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR), implemented with the support and collaboration of the European Union (EU), and in partnership with the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), identifies concrete options for supporting Bangladesh’s development. It calls for leveraging digitalisation to address persistent fragilities and it advocates for a new pact based on shared responsibilities between the national government, the private sector and international partners to shift to a new development phase and ensure sustainable, smooth and irreversible graduation.

The impact of productivity on employment remains uncertain, particularly in light of growing concerns regarding potential negative effects of technological progress on labour demand. This report uses harmonised and comparable data from 13 countries spanning the last two decades to comprehensively analyse how productivity growth affects employment dynamics at various levels of aggregation. The study's findings highlight a positive correlation between productivity growth and employment as well as wage growth, both at the firm level and on a broader scale. This outcome arises from counteracting mechanisms and heterogeneous dynamics across different groups of firms. The findings have relevant policy implications: productivity is not just an isolated key economic objective, but well-designed and complementary policies can also help convert technological and organisational change into higher employment and wage growth.

Scale-ups, i.e. firms that grow fast over a short period of time, significantly contribute to job creation and economic growth. This study uses granular firm, establishment and employee data to understand how relocations, domestic expansions or foreign acquisitions impact the life cycle of scale-ups. Around 95% of scale-ups remain in their 'home' region over the 2014-20 period, reflecting the importance of their personal local business networks in driving growth. Instead of relocating, many scale-ups create new plants or branches in different regions to serve new customers, tap into new markets, or to gain access to new resources and capabilities. Scale-ups that relocate or expand continue to grow. However, relocations and expansions can be a challenge for talent retention, as they may lead existing employees to find other opportunities in new places. Foreign capital appears to support the scale-ups’ growth process. Across the five Nordic countries, between 6% and 20% of scale-ups became foreign owned between 2014 and 2020.

'New space', characterised by new commercial players bringing cutting-edge business techniques and funding methods to space activities, has brought disruptive innovation and democratised access to space. But there also reasons for concern, as this has led to an intensified use of the orbital environment, creating more congestion and debris. Furthermore, the vitality of the 'new space' ecosystem is under threat from economic shocks and market entrenchment. This G20 background paper examines the emergence of the 'new space' ecosystem over the last 15 years, its impact on the space sector and society at large and the role of governments in ensuring sustained and sustainable growth of the sector. The paper provides a definition of 'new space' activities to better target policy responses and suggests policy options to address these challenges.

This OECD Guide takes stock of the current advice, guidelines, and good practices for assessing the impact of global events. Global events (including culture, sports and business events) can have a significant impact on local development. Yet measuring this impact in a consistent, reliable and comprehensive way can be challenging. This Guide provides an overview of approaches to impact assessment, discusses the issues, challenges and considerations to be made in conducting impact evaluations, and offers a set of actions which event hosts can take to improve impact assessments. In doing so, the Guide supports the OECD Recommendation on Global Events and Local Development, which helps countries and future hosts bring greater local benefits and legacies from global events. This Guide can be read alongside 'Impact indicators for culture, sports and business events: A guide, Part II'.

This OECD Guide sets out a framework of indicators to measure the impact of global events on local development. Global events (including culture, sports and business events) can have a significant impact on local development. Yet measuring this impact in a consistent, reliable, and comprehensive way can be challenging. This Guide presents a set of indicators which events hosts can incorporate into their evaluation strategy to assess the economic, social, and environmental impact of their event. It offers practical guidance and advice on how to implement this framework, alongside examples of indicator use. In doing so, the Guide supports the OECD Recommendation on Global Events and Local Development, which helps countries and future hosts bring greater local benefits and legacies from global events. This Guide can be read alongside 'How to measure the impact of culture, sports and business events: A guide - Part I'.

Over the past few years, the global economy has suffered profound shocks that have had a marked impact on small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and entrepreneurs. While government support protected SMEs from the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, new threats have emerged. Rising geopolitical tensions and global financial risks, high inflation, tightening monetary and fiscal policies, labour shortages, high trade barriers and slowing integration into global value chains all contribute to a more challenging business environment for SMEs. Meanwhile, there is an urgent need to accelerate the contribution of SMEs and entrepreneurship to the green and digital transitions and help them navigate a changing international trade and investment landscape. Against this background, the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Outlook 2023 provides new evidence on recent trends in SME performance, changing business conditions, and policy implications. It reflects on the broad underlying theme of SME integration into a series of networks, including global production and supply-chain networks and the role of women led-businesses in international trade, knowledge and innovation networks, and skill ecosystems, as well as the main policies in place to ensure SMEs can integrate these networks and benefit from the ongoing transformations they go through. The report also contains statistical country profiles that benchmark the 38 OECD across a set of indicators.