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Economy


  • 3-March-2023

    English

    Health sector performance and efficiency in Ireland

    Overall, the health of the Irish population has improved substantially during recent decades and is quite good compared with other OECD countries. However, spending is elevated, partly reflecting a system that is strongly based on hospitals. Population ageing is exacerbating spending pressures. In addition, the health sector is dealing with past underspending, particularly in capital outlays in the years following the global financial crisis, that have constrained service delivery, contributing to substantial waiting lists and heavy pressure on staff. The government has initiated wide-ranging reforms, termed Sláintecare, with the aim of broadening the coverage of universal care, decentralising provision and enhancing the integration of primary, community and hospital care. The reforms are complicated, reflecting a healthcare system that is complex and at times opaque. This is particularly the case with the interaction of the public and private parts of the system in which private patients enjoy easier access to care, leading to concerns about a two-tier healthcare system. The creation of new regional health areas is set to support more decentralised decision-making, but information systems to track spending and reform implementation need an overhaul. The COVID-19 pandemic has diverted policy-making attention just as the reforms got underway, but stepping up the efforts to address legacy issues and move forward on the reforms is now key to meet the coming challenges while using resources effectively.

  • 14-December-2022

    English

    Ireland: Structural reforms are needed to ease long-term pressures on public finances

    Ireland’s economy weathered the COVID-19 pandemic well, emerging with solid GDP growth and a strong fiscal position. Yet rising inflation and global economic uncertainty over Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will dent the pace of the recovery, according to a new OECD report.

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  • 18-May-2021

    English

    Policy brief on e-learning and digital business diagnostic tools for entrepreneurs

    This policy brief discusses recent international policy experiences in developing e-learning and digital business diagnostic tools for entrepreneurs. E-learning tools can develop entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and competences among users and increase their confidence and success in business creation. Business diagnostic tools offer entrepreneurs ways to assess their business management practices against peer companies or good practices, building competence and diffusing good practice. This brief sets out considerations for the successful development and implementation of these tools. It presents eight international cases of tools and discusses the public policy lessons from these international experiences.

  • 25-March-2021

    English

    Funding and financing of local government public investment - A framework and application to five OECD Countries

    The bulk of government investment is done at the local level in OECD countries, representing on average 41% of total public investment. Most studies on subnational government debt focus on the regional or state level, and very few studies analyse public investment specifically by local governments. This paper aims at filling this gap, presenting a framework to analyse the key factors, which affect the capacity of local governments to fund and finance public investment, and illustrates the framework with five case studies: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands and New Zealand.

  • 17-November-2020

    English

    The impact of COVID-19 on SME financing - A special edition of the OECD Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs Scoreboard

    The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.

  • 25-June-2020

    English

    Technological diffusion and managing the associated economic transitions in Ireland

    Technological change is transforming Ireland’s economic structures, leading to new jobs and innovative products that benefit consumers. Adoption of new technologies by businesses has been high relative to many other OECD economies, but it has been uneven across industries and the impact on productivity growth in most firms has been modest so far.

  • 23-July-2018

    English

    Reforms for sustainable productivity growth in Ireland

    The Irish economy has experienced a decline in productivity growth over the past decade. This has mostly reflected the poor performance of local firms, with the large productivity gap between foreign-owned and local enterprises having widened.

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  • 28-April-2016

    English

    Growing together: towards a more inclusive Ireland

    The Irish economy is growing strongly, but there is a risk many households will be left behind despite robust growth. High joblessness especially among the low-educated and skill-biased wage differentials have induced high market income inequality, among the highest in the OECD.

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  • 28-April-2016

    English

    Migration in Ireland: challenges, opportunities and policies

    The Irish labour market is exceptionally open to international migration flows, thus making labour supply highly responsive to changes in cyclical conditions. Immigration provides the skills that the Irish economy needs.

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  • 12-April-2016

    English

    How did immigrants fare in the Irish labour market over the great recession?

    This paper identifies the labour market impact of the Great Recession on immigrants compared to natives and how this relationship has evolved since the downturn.

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