EU accession in 2004 has confirmed Hungary’s successful transformation from a centrally planned economy into a functioning market economy operating within the framework of a multi-party democracy. However, the country’s output per capita is still ...

The OECD has faced many challenges in the last 50 years, but perhaps none as great as the current global crisis. Response to the crisis has been swift and massive. But despite some cautious optimism, the immediate future does not offer much relief. The global economic system must undergo many structural changes if we are to avoid a repetition of this scenario. The job ahead is substantial and requires great perseverance. This is a key feature of the OECD , which has consistently worked with governments with a long-term view, to address structural problems through enhanced global co-operation. The crisis has left virtually no area of policy making untouched. It has brought many long-simmering issues, such as tax evasion, income inequality, good governance and competition issues, back to the centre stage. But other substantive, medium and long-term matters, such as climate change and poverty reduction, which were at the forefront of most government agendas only one year ago, are adding to the sense of urgency. This crisis presents opportunities as well as challenges, and the OECD is seizing these opportunities to formulate policies that will lead to a stronger, cleaner, fairer world economy. Over the past year, the OECD has pressed for a "stronger" world economy through its work in areas such as regulation; governance; trade (especially Doha); investment and competition; and, of course, developing policies for sustainable growth. Work on anticorruption, corporate governance and tax evasion has sought to restore trust in globalisation by making it "cleaner". So has, literally, our work on environment and climate change, another face of "cleaner". Finally, our work on employment and social inclusion, education, health care and economic development is key to developing a "fairer", more participative world economy. The OECD is the global standard setter in many of these fields. It helps governments to determine where policy changes are needed and how governments can implement those reforms. It is not surprising that the focus of much of this year's Annual Report is on the Organisation's analysis of and response to the crisis. The OECD 's unique ability to address the complex nature of the global crisis, which affects virtually every aspect of policy making, is presented and developed in the pages that follow. We will continue working with member and non-member countries, as well as with other international organisations, to establish the basis for a better world economy.

OECD's comprehensive review of Hungary's environmental programs and policies, covering air and water management, nature and biodiversity, sustainable development, the environment-economy interface, the environment-social interface, and international commitments.

This report assesses the current status of Hungary’s innovation system and policies, and identifies where and how the government should focus its efforts to improve the country's innovation capabilities.

This 2008 edition of OECD's annual report on labour markets brings the reader detailed information on recent labour market developments, as well as in-depth analysis of the effects of various policy measures and prospects through 2009.

This Selected Issues paper assesses the efficiency of public spending on health and education in Hungary, with a view to identifying potential efficiency gains and areas for reforms so as to lock in such gains. The paper finds potentially large room for efficiency gains over the medium term, particularly in the health sector. A frontier analysis using data envelopment methodology, suggests that savings from efficiency gains in the health and education sectors could amount up to about 3 percentage points of GDP over the medium term, of which 90 percent could be achieved from efficiency gains in the health sector.

The global financial crisis has provided an important opportunity to revisit debates about post-socialist transition and the relative success of different reform paths. Post-communist Central and Eastern Europe (CEECs) in particular show resilience in the wake of the international crisis with a diverse range of economic transformations. Transformation and Crisis in Central and Eastern Europe offers an in depth analysis of a diverse range of countries, including Poland, Hungary, Russia, Ukraine, Czech Republic and Slovakia. This volume assesses each country’s institutional transformations, geopolitical policies, and local adaptations that have led them down divergent post-communist paths. Chapters take the reader systematically through the evolution of former communist national economic systems, before ending with lessons and conclusions for the future. Subsequent chapters demonstrate that economic performance crucially depends on achieving a sustainable balance between sound institutional design and policies on one hand, and localization on the other. This new volume from a prestigious group of academics offers a fascinating and timely study which will be of interest to all scholars and policy makers with an interest in European Economics, Russian and East European Studies, Transition Economies, Political Economy and the post-2008 world more generally.

Through a comparative global study of countries from all continents representing a diversity of health, legal, political, and economic systems, this book explores the role of health rights in advancing greater equality through access to health care. Does health care promote equality, or does it in fact advance the opposite result? Does inserting the idea of 'the right to health' into health systems allow the reinsertion of public values into systems that are undergoing privatization? Or does it allow for private claims to be re-articulated as 'rights', in a way that actually reinforces inequality? This volume includes studies from countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Canada, The Netherlands, China, and Nigeria, among many others, and authors with expertise in the legal and health systems of their countries, making this a seminal study that allows readers to see the differing role of rights in various health systems.

This book provides an up-to-date assessment of the main processes and dilemmas of regional development and regional policy in the newer European Union Member States in Central and Eastern Europe and neighbouring countries. It highlights the difficulties of balancing the demands within the new Member States for rapid regional growth and development with, firstly, the demands of the European Union overall that restructuring and development should conform to the aims and principles of EU common policies; and, secondly, with budgetary constraints. The book covers a wide range of issues, including global and national challenges to regional convergence and cohesion; regional dynamics, city networks and border issues; the effectiveness of policy responses at national and European levels, including an assessment of policy experiences from outside the new Member States; and likely future developments.

This open access book draws the big picture of how population change interplays with politics across the world from 1990 to 2040. Leading social scientists from a wide range of disciplines discuss, for the first time, all major political and policy aspects of population change as they play out differently in each major world region: North and South America; Sub-Saharan Africa and the MENA region; Western and East Central Europe; Russia, Belarus and Ukraine; East Asia; Southeast Asia; subcontinental India, Pakistan and Bangladesh; Australia and New Zealand. These macro-regional analyses are completed by cross-cutting global analyses of migration, religion and poverty, and age profiles and intra-state conflicts. From all angles, this book shows how strongly contextualized the political management and the political consequences of population change are. While long-term population ageing and short-term migration fluctuations present structural conditions, political actors play a key role in (mis-)managing, manipulating, and (under-)planning population change, which in turn determines how citizens in different groups react.