Documents Koen, Vincent 7 results

"Employment fosters equity and economic inclusiveness because those out of work face the highest risk of poverty, and it generates the tax receipts on which the social safety net depends. Further enhancing education and life-long learning would lower hurdles to employment, which are high for the low-skilled. Policies to speed up tertiary graduation, improve work incentives and activation of the unemployed and postpone labour market exit are necessary to bring the employment rate closer to the level of other Nordics. Easing employment regulations and allowing more flexible wage setting would increase both employment and productivity. This working paper relates to the 2016 OECD Economic Survey of Finland (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-finland.htm)."

"A highly skilled workforce is crucial to sustain competitiveness and contain the rise in income inequality. Recent surveys of adult skills and educational performance suggest that younger cohorts are doing less well than their predecessors. Many immigrants struggle both in school and in the labour market partly because of low skills and language difficulties. Educational outcomes could be improved through raising the attractiveness of the teacher profession, improving teacher education and increasing support for struggling students. A more flexible labour market would facilitate access to jobs for youth with low qualifications and immigrants. This Working Paper relates to the 2015 OECD Economic Survey of Sweden www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-sweden.htm"

"Finland's population is set to age rapidly in the coming decades. This will put pressure on public finances, while shrinking labour resources. Nonetheless, solutions exist to alleviate those pressures. Adjusting the pension age in line with the rise in life expectancy would reduce pension costs and increase older workers' employment, provided it is accompanied by the removal of the pathways to early retirement. In order to allow people to work longer, labour market flexibility should be enhanced and lifelong training promoted further. Active labour market policies should be strengthened so as to increase the labour force participation of youth, childbearing age women and the long-term unemployed. Finally, ageing should not only be seen as a burden as it can also create opportunities for innovation and new markets and industries. Information and communications technologies, where Finland has a strong knowledge base, can help the elderly stay as autonomous as possible, which would contain long-term care costs and improve well-being. This Working Paper relates to the 2014 OECD Economic Survey of Finland (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economicsurvey- finland.htm)."

"Surveys suggest that Denmark ranks close to or slightly above the OECD average in terms of student and adult skills, even though Denmark spends more than many OECD countries on education, labour market policies and adult learning. Sluggish productivity growth over the past two decades raises the question of how to develop better skills and use them more efficiently to achieve stronger and more inclusive growth. Improving the performance of compulsory and tertiary education would help all students acquire the right skills. Ensuring adults upgrade their skills is another key challenge, which involves strengthening the adult learning system. Reforms of taxation and of the wage setting system in the public sector would promote a better allocation of skills economy-wide. Finally, to activate skills more broadly, reforms to raise labour market participation should continue and the efficiency of active labour market policies will have to be increased further. This Working Paper relates to the 2013 OECD Economic Survey of Denmark (www.oecd.org/economic-surveydenmark. htm)."

"Sweden is a very egalitarian country but inequalities have risen and some groups are poorly integrated into the labour market. For growth to become more inclusive, the gap between the cost of labour and productivity for some groups needs to be reduced, transitions from education to work should be facilitated, incentives to take a job ought to be strengthened and the non-employed need to be protected against the risk of falling into unemployment or inactivity traps. This calls for lowering minimum wages relative to the average wage for groups at risk of becoming unemployed, improving vocational education and training, and extending the coverage of the unemployment insurance while strengthening obligations for the unemployed. To address labour market duality risks, the gap in job protection between temporary and permanent contracts needs to be reduced. Women's employment is high but the gender wage gap could be narrowed further by enhancing their employment opportunities."

"Economic Forecasting deals with macroeconomic forecasts from a global point of view. The focus is first on a large range of theories as well as empirical methods: business cycle analysis, time series methods, macroeconomic models, medium and long-run projections, fiscal and financial forecasts, and sectoral forecasting. In addition, the book addresses the main issues surrounding the use of forecasts (accuracy, communication challenges) and their policy implications. A synthetic overview of economic data and forecasting institutions is also provided."

"Sweden is an egalitarian society in international comparison, and has managed to combine equity with economic efficiency. Rapidly rising inequality and relative poverty from a historical low in the 1980s partly stem from ageing, changing family structures and migration. Living standards increased for all groups, but social benefits rose less than earned income. Incomes of newly-arrived immigrants and single mothers trailed the median. Bottlenecks in the migrant settlement process are costly to migrants and society, and high entry wages further slow integration. Spatial segregation leads to school segregation and potentially reduced social mobility for the least endowed, and rental regulations reduce the scope for settling where job opportunities are the best. Fast-growing capital incomes, likely linked to increasing wealth concentration and income shifting, increased inequality. Low intergenerational income mobility in the very top of the income distribution is a concern. Social benefits should be uprated more systematically and regressive housing-related taxation reformed to strengthen redistribution. Migrant settlement and integration need to be better coordinated and adapted to individual starting points. The number of wage subsidies and their administrative complexity should be reduced to ease labour market entry. Dysfunctional rental regulations should be reformed to increase mobility and limit spatial segregation."