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Shenzhen is a stellar case of growth and economic transformation. Since its establishment as one of China’s first four Special Economic Zones in 1980, it has evolved at breakneck speed. Shenzhen transformed from a fishing village to a major world trade hub and is now home to global innovators in electronics. The Production Transformation Policy Review (PTPR) of Shenzhen, China reviews the city’s changing policy approaches, focusing on the shift from an assembly to a manufacturing centre and more recently to an innovation and start-up hub. Through a comprehensive assessment of Shenzhen’s experience, this review offers insights into the range of policies and strategies employed to stimulate industrial upgrading and learning in China. It provides lessons and actionable policy recommendations for the growth of cities and emerging economies in their catching-up journey. The PTPR of Shenzhen, China has been carried out in the framework of the OECD Initiative for Policy Dialogue on Global Value Chains, Production Transformation and Development and has benefitted from government-business dialogues and international peer learning (University of Seoul, Korea; University of Georgetown, USA and Digital India Foundation, India).

The slowdown in market demand for oil is putting increasing pressure on Kuwait's current economic and social model. This model is based on the distribution of petroleum export proceeds to Kuwaiti citizens, with relatively limited long-term investment in knowledge production and the upgrading of the national innovation capacity. The transition towards a knowledge-based society – where value creation, the resolution of societal challenges and the well-being of society at large will be based on the production, diffusion and implementation of knowledge – is becoming an imperative. This is recognised within the national development strategy which formulates the objective of attaining 'Smart Kuwait' by 2035. Such a transition is challenging and can only be achieved through the build-up of appropriate governance of the STI system with adequate institutions such as a Ministry and a professional agency with a mandate for research and innovation. This set-up should help raise awareness and reduce barriers to innovation, reinforce the scientific research base, develop the support for business innovation, foster knowledge diffusion and co‑creation between science and industry, build up the human capital needed, and establish the role of science, technology and innovation in tackling Kuwait's societal challenges.

There is a growing international concern about the slowdown in productivity growth, especially as labor productivity enhancements are important drivers of higher general-ised living standards. Using administrative data of firms in Portugal between 2010 and 2016, we analyse the relationships between productivity and wages. At odds with neoclassical theory of mar-ginal productivity of labor, we find that two thirds of firms insufficiently raised wages giv-en observed productivity growth. Employing unconditional quantile regressions, we in-vestigate some quantifiable determinants of the productivity-wage gap at different parts of the distributions. Most of the documented dynamics contributed not only to the diver-gence of productivity and wages but also to the decoupling of productivity and wage growth. We argue that labor market flexibilisation intensified segmentation, providing incentives for non standard contracts. Both dimensions, as well as higher board com-pensations, international trade and on-the-job training weakened the link between productivity and wages.

This report presents a comprehensive assessment of the policy instruments adopted by the Netherlands to reach carbon neutrality in its manufacturing sector by 2050. The analysis illustrates the strength of combining a strong commitment to raising carbon prices with ambitious technology support, uncovers the pervasiveness of competitiveness provisions, and highlights the trade-off between short-term emissions cuts and longer-term technology shift. The Netherlands’ carbon levy sets an ambitious price trajectory to 2030, but is tempered by extensive preferential treatment to energy-intensive users, yielding a highly unequal carbon price across firms and sectors. The country’s technology support focuses on the cost-effective deployment of low-carbon options, which ensures least-cost decarbonisation in the short run but favours relatively mature technologies. The report offers recommendations for policy adjustments to reach the country’s carbon neutrality objective, including the gradual removal of exemptions, enhanced support for emerging technologies and greater visibility over future infrastructure plans.

This Digital Government Review of Slovenia explores how the Government of Slovenia could enhance and harness digital government to achieve broader strategic goals. It evaluates the efforts made so far by the Slovenian government in shifting towards a digital government approach by looking at institutional governance, institutional digital talent, public service delivery and the strategic use of data. The review provides policy recommendations to allow Slovenia to make the most of digital technologies to foster a citizen and data-driven administration and to enable and sustain the digital transformation of the public sector.

Industries and businesses are becoming increasingly digital, and the COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated this trend. Regulators around the world are also experimenting with data-driven tools to apply and enforce rules in a more agile and targeted way. This report maps out several efforts undertaken jointly by the OECD and Italian regulators to develop and use artificial intelligence and machine learning tools in regulatory inspections and enforcement. It provides unique insights into the background processes and structures required for digital tools to perform predictive modelling, risk analysis and classification. It also highlights the challenges such tools bring, both in specific regulatory areas and to the broader goals of regulatory systems.

The OECD Business and Finance Outlook is an annual publication that presents unique data and analysis on the trends, both positive and negative, that are shaping tomorrow’s world of business, finance and investment. Artificial Intelligence (AI) has progressed rapidly in recent years and is being applied in settings ranging from health care, to scientific research, to financial markets. It offers opportunities, amongst others, to reinforce financial stability, enhance market efficiency and support the implementation of public policy goals. These potential benefits need to be accompanied by appropriate governance frameworks and best practices to mitigate risks that may accompany the deployment of AI systems in both the public and private sphere. Using analysis from a wide range of perspectives, this year’s edition examines the implications arising from the growing importance of AI-powered applications in finance, responsible business conduct, competition, foreign direct investment and regulatory oversight and supervision. It offers guidelines and a number of policy solutions to help policy makers achieve a balance between harvesting the opportunities offered by AI while also mitigating its risks.