Programme
Welcoming remarks
H.E. Ambassador Marlies Stubits-Weidinger, Austrian Ambassador to the OECD
Session 1. Central research questions
Introduction "Why has the European Commission sponsored this pan-European research initiative?"
Domenico Rossetti, Principal Administrator, European Commission, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation 
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Karl Aiginger, Director of WIFO, WWWforEurope Project Coordinator Download presentation
Session 2. The long-term productivity challenge & drivers for change
Martine Durand, Director, OECD Statistics Directorate
David Bailey, Aston Business School Download presentation
Dirk Pilat, Deputy Director, Directorate for Science, Technology and Innovation
Session 3. Biophysical boundaries & long-run growth
Anthony Cox, Deputy Director, OECD Environment Directorate
Jeroen van den Bergh, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Download presentation
Shardul Agrawala, Head of the Environment and Economy Integration Division, OECD Environment Directorate
Session 4. The inequality challenge & the welfare state
Georg Fischer, Director for Analysis, Evaluation, External Relations, Directorate General for Emplyoment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, European Commission
Thomas Leoni, WIFO Download presentation
Stefano Scarpetta, Director, OECD Directorate for Employment, Labour and Social Affairs
Wrap-up: Main challenges ahead
Mathilde Mesnard, Senior Advisor to the OECD Secretary General and NAEC Coordinator
Elena Flores, Director, Policy Strategy and Coordination, Directorate General for Economic and Financial Affairs, European Commission
Joint OECD & WWWforEurope Workshop
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How to Further Enhance
Welfare, Wealth and Work in Europe?
Joint WWWforEurope and OECD Workshop
December 10th, 2014
OECD Headquarters, Paris, France
The OECD and WWWforEurope have cooperated on a workshop exploring "How to further enhance Welfare, Wealth and Work in Europe?" in the OECD's "New Approaches to Economic Challenges" Seminar Programme, with Karl Aiginger, WIFO, David Bailey, Aston University, Georg Fischer, European Commission, Thomas Leoni, WIFO, and Jeroen van den Bergh, University of Barcelona as some of the speakers.
In 2012, the same year when work on the WWWforEurope project began, the OECD started its initiative on "New Approaches to Economic Challenges" (NAEC). The NAEC is both an organisation-wide reflection on the roots of and lessons from the global crisis, and an exercise to review and update the OECD’s analytical framework. It seeks to incorporate multidimensionality into policy design, by helping countries identify trade-offs, complementarities and unintended consequences of policy choices, and as a result improve and better target the OECD’s policy advice.
NAEC and WWWforEurope have many points in common: They share a broad, multi-dimensional approach and aim to provide a basis to inform policy-making on long-term social, economic and environmental challenges. On December 10th, 2014 a joint OECD – WWWforEurope workshop, organized by the Permanent Delegation of Austria to the OECD and WIFO, took place in the OECD headquarters in Paris. Members from the WWWforEurope consortium presented findings of the work carried out so far, as well as central topics and also controversial themes from the project. The attending stake-holders and OECD representatives engaged them in lively discussions.
The first session was devoted to an overview of the background and central questions of the WWWforEurope project. Domenico Rossetti explained the role of large-scale research projects such as WWWforEurope to support the work of the Commission and to help to manage the socio-ecological transition. Karl Aiginger placed the spotlight on the need for Europe to aim for a "high-road" strategy and outlined the vision for Europe 2050.
In the second session, Martine Durand, Dirk Pilat and David Bailey provided inputs on the question of long-term productivity and drivers for economic change. Industrial policy and the role of manufacturing took a prominent role in this session. In the third session, Jeroen van den Bergh engaged Shardul Agrawala, Anthony Cox and the audience with an impulse statement in which he proposed to shift policy-focus consistently away from the issue of economic growth and to adopt an agnostic or neutral approach to GDP growth.
In the fourth session, Georg Fischer, Thomas Leoni and Stefano Scarpetta discussed how welfare states can adapt to meet the "inequality challenge" resulting from the long-term increase in economic inequality and the additional negative impact of the crisis on distributional dynamics. This session revolved around the strengths and potential shortcomings of the social investment strategy as encompassing social policy paradigm. In the final session, Mathilde Mesnard and Elena Flores summarized main findings of the workshop and provided an outlook on the challenges that lie ahead.
Downloads
Download Domenico Rossetti's presentation
Download Karl Aiginger's presentation
Download David Bailey's presentation