The assessment report explores the innovative capacity of the Latvian public sector to understand how innovation can be better supported and leveraged to improve the public sector's effectiveness and impact. It provides an evidence base for the development of a public sector innovation strategy and action plan.

The assessment report explores the innovative capacity of the Latvian public sector to understand how innovation can be better supported and leveraged to improve the public sector's effectiveness and impact. It provides an evidence base for the development of a public sector innovation strategy and action plan.

This report examines the innovative capacity of the public sector of Romania, exploring opportunities for the public sector to work in new and novel ways to improve outcomes. It assesses the current innovative capacity and suggests paths forward to enhance capacity.

Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine has led to higher energy prices and disruptions in trade and supply chains, weighing on economic growth. Economic convergence had already slowed down before the pandemic, calling for accelerating structural reforms. Rising spending pressures related to defence, internal security, health and old age poverty need to be addressed by raising spending efficiency and tax revenue, while the tax burden should be shifted from labour towards other income, property, and environmental taxes. Continuing to improve the capacity of the public sector, fostering investment and innovation and addressing skilled labour shortages are key for raising potential growth. Low credit supply is a main factor for weak investment and should be tackled by fostering competition and deepening capital markets. High informality, which hinders access to finance and distorts the level playing field, should be addressed by reducing labour taxes for low-wage earners, improving tax enforcement and continuing to fight corruption. Strengthening the power of the Competition Council to enforce competitive neutrality of state-owned enterprises and challenge regulation that restricts competition would help to foster business dynamism and innovation. Addressing skilled labour shortages will require facilitating skilled migration and investing more in human capital. SPECIAL FEATURE: RAISING INVESTMENT TO SUPPORT GROWTH

This report presents a case study of applying the OECD anticipatory innovation governance framework to develop and manage anticipatory innovation ecosystems as vehicles for knowledge generation, innovation governance and co-ordinated action to achieve policy goals. Part I establishes the case for anticipatory innovation ecosystems and sets out how they can be governed through a multi-level approach.

This working paper explores avenues to improve public sector efficiency in Latvia, a catching-up and ageing economy where spending needs are large. Ensuring that spending allocated to core services (e.g. education, healthcare) is adequate to achieve convergence of policy outcomes to OECD upper standards is challenging. Efficiency gains in the tax system could bring additional revenues. The tax base should be expanded by reducing informality, strengthening tax administration and increasing property and environmentally related taxes, which are low by international standards. To reduce unemployment and income inequality, the tax-benefit system should also be revised as it is now relatively regressive and the tax wedge on low-income earners is high. Enhancing analytical, monitoring and assessment capacities should help to rein in wasteful expenditure and improve the prioritisation of spending. The reform of human resource management, public procurement, and state-local relations is also needed to deliver higher-quality and more cost-efficient public services.

Latvia, a member of the European Union since 2004, is a small, dynamic and open economy that has successfully transitioned from central planning to a market economy. The reforms undertaken have driven progress, although from generally low levels and at a slower pace in agriculture than for the ...