Fairly sharing the social impact of the crisis in Greece Poverty and income inequality have worsened since the onset of the crisis. While the design of fiscal measures has mitigated the burden sharing of fiscal adjustment, as the recession has deepened unemployment has risen, earnings have declined and social tensions have increased. Getting people back to work and supporting the most vulnerable remain priorities for inclusive growth and distributing the costs of adjustment equitably. Within the limited fiscal space this calls for continued reforms in targeting social support, especially housing benefits, extending unemployment insurance and introducing a means-tested minimum income. Sustaining universal access to good health care is also essential. Well-designed activation policies are important to bring the unemployed, especially the young, to work. At the same time, it is important to strengthen the effectiveness of the labour inspection to ensure full enforcement of the labour code. Decisive steps to contain tax evasion are also critical to social fairness. Reforms by the government in many of these areas are welcome and need to continue.

This paper reviews the accuracy of the OECD Economic Outlook projections — both “ current year ” and “ year ahead ” — for output growth, inflation and current account balances (as a percentage of GDP) for the major seven countries, as well as projections for world trade growth. The sample period differs somewhat between the variables, depending on data availability, but it runs until 1998 in all cases. Several evaluation criteria were used to assess the accuracy of the OECD Economic Outlook projections. These include an inspection of projection error summary statistics; comparisons with “naive” alternative forecasts; statistical tests for unbiasedness and efficiency; and testing for directional accuracy. In addition, the paper provides an examination of the performance of OECD Economic Outlook projections over different time periods. The findings suggest that, on the basis of the conventional statistical criteria, the current year projections outperform the year ahead projections ... Cet article analyse la précision des prévisions pour l’année courante et pour l’année suivante des Perspectives Économiques de l’OCDE pour la croissance du PIB, l’inflation, et la balance courante (en pourcentage du PIB) pour les 7 pays les plus importants, aussi que les prévisions pour la croissance du commerce international. La période d’analyse varie selon la variable en question, en fonction de la disponibilité des données, jusqu’en 1998 dans tous les cas. Plusieurs critères ont été utilisés pour évaluer la précision des prévisions, y compris les statistiques d’erreur de projection, les comparaisons avec des prévisions “naïves”, les tests statistiques de biais et d’efficience, et les tests de validité directionnelle. En outre, l’article examine la performance des prévisions des Perspectives Économiques de l’OCDE sur différentes périodes de temps. Les résultats montrent que, basées sur des critères statistiques conventionnels, les prévisions pour l’année courante sont ...forecasting accuracy, error analysis, unbiasedness and efficiency, biais et efficience, analyse d'erreur de prévision, précision des prévisions

Organisation de Coopération et de Développement Économiques Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development 04-Apr-2016 ___________________________________________________________________________________________ _____________ English-Or. English ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT ADDRESSING THE CHALLENGES IN HIGHER EDUCATION IN NORWAY ECONOMICS DEPARTMENT WORKING PAPERS No. 1285 By Vassiliki Koutsogeorgopoulou OECD Working Papers should not be reported as representing the official views of the OECD or of its member countries. The opinions expressed and arguments employed are those of the author(s).

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Boosting productivity in Australia Australia's productivity growth has decelerated markedly around the turn of the century. Part of the decline is probably temporary, but raising multifactor productivity is key to ensure that living standards continue to grow strongly, especially if the currently strong terms of trade weaken over time. Recent efforts by the government are welcome. Ensuring responsive, high quality, vocational and higher education systems is indispensable to long-term growth. Raising the completion rate of vocational students, and enhancing the level of collaboration among the key innovation players are priorities. The productivityenhancing effects of infrastructure could be boosted by more effective and strategic planning, new sources of funding, and better use of existing capacity. Efficient pricing for infrastructure services and rapid progress towards harmonisation of regulations across states would boost competition and productivity.

The OECD Growth Study and other empirical work have shown that the strength of competition in product markets plays an important role in the economic growth process as well as contributing to a more efficient allocation of resources in a static sense. More intense competition is likely to encourage stronger efforts of managers to improve efficiency and induce higher innovative activity, leading to higher multi-factor productivity. This paper begins with a short review of Australia’s growth performance since the early 1990s and its possible link to strengthened competitive pressures and their interaction with other economic reforms. Attention is then turned to indicators of product market competition to gauge the strength of competitive pressures. This is followed by an assessment of the general competition policy framework and its role in promoting competition. The next section presents the framework of the National Competition Policy and reviews the completeness of the reform programme and the areas requiring further action. The paper then examines a number of sectors where regulatory policies can be expected to have particularly large impacts. The implications of trade liberalisation on Australia’s economic performance and the scope for further improvements are also discussed in some detail. The paper concludes with a set of policy recommendations. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Australia (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/australia). Concurrence sur les marchés de produits et performance économique en Australie L’Étude sur la croissance de l’OCDE et d’autres travaux empiriques ont montré que la vigueur de la concurrence sur les marchés des produits joue un rôle important dans le processus de croissance économique et contribue aussi à une allocation plus efficiente des ressources du point de vue statique. Un renforcement de la concurrence encouragera vraisemblablement les gestionnaires à faire des efforts plus soutenus pour améliorer l’efficience et induire une activité plus novatrice, conduisant à une augmentation de la productivité multifactorielle. Ce document de travail commence avec un bref examen de la performance de l’Australie sur le plan de la croissance depuis le début des années 90 et de ses liens éventuels avec le renforcement des pressions concurrentielles et leur interaction avec d'autres réformes économiques. On s’intéressera aussi aux indicateurs de la concurrence sur les marchés des produits de façon à évaluer la vigueur des pressions concurrentielles. Cet examen est suivi d’une évaluation du cadre général de la politique de la concurrence et de son rôle dans la promotion de la concurrence. La section suivante expose le cadre de la politique nationale de la concurrence et analyse l’exhaustivité du programme de réformes et les domaines exigeant une action plus approfondie. Plusieurs secteurs où les politiques réglementaires devraient avoir une incidence particulièrement importante sont ensuite passés en revue. Les conséquences de la libéralisation commerciale sur la perfor...

The Australian education system fares well in international comparison with regards to PISA test scores and the higher education system attracts an increasing number of foreign students. Vocational education and training (VET) is an important part of the post–secondary education system, equipping individuals with the skills to enter or re–enter the labour force and offering a pathway to further education. However, a number of challenges need to be addressed. Reducing complexity and fragmentation and tackling issues of under–supply and under–representation of children from disadvantaged groups in the early childhood education and care system is of major importance, given the beneficial impact of early education on outcomes later in life. A key challenge for the school sector is to reduce the achievement gaps of the lowest performing students, while improving overall literacy and numeracy outcomes. Greater autonomy at the school level and improvements in teaching quality would help in this regard. Enhancing the capacity of the VET system to address skill shortages is another key priority. The low rate of completion of training courses is an additional policy issue facing the sector. Finally, moving towards a less rigid policy framework for higher education would enhance flexibility and diversity, making the system more responsive to labour market needs and globalisation challenges. The promotion of a highquality education system that responds swiftly to changing skill needs is a top priority of the new government. The “Education Revolution”, backed by the Council of Australian Governments (COAG), pursues reforms across all sectors of the education system, an important objective being the closing of the gap for the indigenous population. Améliorer les résultats dans le domaine de l'éducation en Australie L’Australie est relativement bien placée dans les comparaisons internationales des systèmes d’enseignement, à en juger notamment par les notes obtenues aux épreuves du PISA, et ses établissements d’enseignement supérieur attirent un nombre croissant d’étudiants étrangers. L’enseignement et la formation professionnels jouent un rôle important dans la formation postsecondaire et les qualifications qu’ils confèrent permettent aux intéressés de s’insérer ou de se réinsérer dans l’emploi ou bien d’accéder à un autre cycle de formation. Mais un certain nombre de problèmes subsistent. Il importe au premier chef de rendre le système moins complexe et moins compartimenté et de s’attaquer à la question des carences de l’offre et de la sous-représentation des enfants issus de milieux défavorisés dans le dispositif d’éducation et d’accueil des plus jeunes, compte tenu du rôle que jouent les premières années de formation dans la suite du parcours scolaire. L’un des défis majeurs consiste à réduire le retard des élèves moins performants, tout en améliorant le niveau global de maîtrise de l’écrit et du calcul. À cet égard, une plus grande autonomie des établissements et une amélioration de la qualité pédagogique pourraient se révé...

Since 2004, the fiscal deficit has been brought down by over 5% of GDP to below the 3% limit in 2006, which is a major achievement. The government plans a more gradual reduction over coming years so that overall balance or surplus is reached no later than 2010. However, fiscal consolidation should continue, possibly at a more rapid pace than planned, given the high level of government debt, favourable outlook for output growth, and long-term fiscal costs of ageing which are estimated to be among the largest in the OECD. There are as yet no specific proposals to reform pensions, which account for most of the prospective ageing-related increase in public expenditure, although the government is expected to announce reforms following the publication of a report from a Committee of Experts. Delaying fiscal consolidation, particularly the urgently needed pension reform, would have substantial longer-term costs in terms of higher taxes and additional debt service costs, including an increase in the risk premium paid on government debt. In addition, this would heavily skew the tax burden towards future generations. Consolidation should focus on reducing primary spending and on enhancing tax revenues. This can be achieved particularly through increased efficiency of public administration and by measures to tackle tax evasion and further broaden the tax base. Ensuring long-run fiscal sustainability will also require the implementation of wide-ranging reforms in the key area of health care, as well as an early decision to introduce a comprehensive reform of the pension system.