Structural reforms add 4.8% to GDP per capita in 15 years, OECD estimates

  • ECO News
  • 10 December 2021

The OECD estimates that if just four structural reforms were implemented in Portugal this could add 4.8% to GDP per capita over the next 15 years.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is known for recommending various structural reforms to countries. This time, as well as suggesting them to Portugal, the OECD calculated their potential positive impact on the national economy: the implementation of four structural reforms would lead to a 4.8% growth in GDP per capita over 15 years, according to the Economic Survey of Portugal published on Friday.

The four reforms are: improve the level of education of the adult population (increase the average number of years of study by six months), increase spending on active labour market policies (to 0.3 percentage points of GDP), help SMEs investing in research and development (to 0.4 percentage points of GDP), and improve judicial efficiency and contract enforcement.

Among these measures, the one that would have the most economic impact in the long term would be improving the efficiency of the judicial system. In the report, the OECD notes that Portugal has not made progress on past recommendations, such as increasing the management autonomy of the judicial system so that there is a more effective allocation of resources or the introduction of a mechanism outside the court to facilitate the liquidation of unviable companies.