Productivity growth in Lithuania has slowed in the aftermath of the global financial crisis,
holding back income convergence and making it harder to reduce further the relatively high
inequality and poverty. A comprehensive approach is required to address productivity and
inclusiveness challenges, building on their synergies. The government has taken measures
to this end, with the New Social Model at the core, but efforts need to continue. Reforms
should focus on additional improvements in the business environment by easing further
regulations on the employment of non-EU workers and reducing informality. Initiatives to
improve the governance of state-owned enterprises are welcome and need to continue.
Improving access to finance and ensuring effective bankruptcy procedures are key to
boosting firm dynamism, as are measures to encourage business-research sector
collaboration on innovation. Addressing large skills mismatch is also a priority. Increasing
the market-relevance of the education system is important. More and better-quality jobs in
the formal sector, especially for the low-skilled, are key to inclusiveness and well-being,
while more effective support and active labour market programmes would help combating
poverty.
This Working Paper relates to the 2018 OECD Economic Survey of Lithuania
(www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-ireland.htm)
La Lituanie, qui compte moins de trois millions d’habitants, a réussi la transition qui lui a permis de passer d’une économie planifiée à une économie de marché depuis qu’elle a retrouvé son indépendance en 1991. L’environnement politique et économique est globalement démocratique et respectueux des lois du marché. La hausse du revenu par habitant au cours des 25 dernières années a été supérieure à celle observée dans la plupart des pays de l’OCDE ainsi qu’à celle enregistrée par d’autres pays de la région, facilitant ainsi la convergence vers le revenu moyen de l’OCDE. La Lituanie est très bien intégrée dans la communauté internationale : elle a adhéré à l’Organisation mondiale du commerce en 2001, est devenue membre de l’Union européenne en 2004 et a rejoint la zone euro en 2015. La situation financière du pays est saine, après une période prolongée marquée par des déficits et une augmentation de la dette.
This review of Corporate Governance in Lithuania was prepared in the context of Lithuania’s accession process to the OECD. It assesses Lithuania’s corporate governance arrangements – the laws, regulations and institutions that shape company oversight – for listed companies and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) against the standards of the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance and the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. The report reaches a positive overall assessment of Lithuania’s willingness and ability to implement these corporate governance standards and makes a number of recommendations to address remaining weaknesses. With respect to listed companies, the report notably recommends that Lithuania give priority to monitoring implementation of recent legislative reforms to strengthen corporate boards of directors and, in the medium term, consider further strengthening and clarifying their legal responsibilities. With respect to SOEs, this report recommends that Lithuania give priority to further strengthening the effectiveness of the state’s ownership coordination function, ensuring that the state’s requirements on board composition and disclosure practices are fully implemented by the SOEs for which they are mandatory and moving forward with plans to convert commercially-oriented statutory SOEs to limited liability companies.
Since renewed independence in 1991 and transition from a centrally planned to a market economy, Lithuania has substantially raised well-being of its citizens. Thanks to a market-friendly environment the country grew faster than most OECD countries over the past ten years. The financial system is resilient, and fiscal positions stabilised after a long period of deficits and rising debt. Yet productivity has remained subdued due to stringent labour market regulations, informality and skills mismatch. Wage and income inequality are high, fuelling emigration. The population is ageing fast and declining, particularly because of emigration, putting pressure on the pension system. A wide-reaching labour market, unemployment benefits and pension reform entitled “new social model” implemented in 2017 is expected to reinvigorate inclusive growth, strengthen the social safety net and underpin the sustainability of public finances. However, catch-up and more inclusive growth will require raising productivity that still remains well below the OECD average, and has slowed down recently. And rapid ageing and high emigration shrink the labour force by 1% every year, requiring a comprehensive approach to address the economic consequences.
SPECIAL FEATURES: PRODUCTIVITY AND INCLUSIVENESS; AGEING TOGETHER
In the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis, large shares of working-age individuals in Lithuania either do not work or only to a limited extent. By 2013, several years after the start of the labour-market recovery, 21% were still without employment during the entire year, and a further 11% had weak labour-market attachment, working only a fraction of the year, or on restricted working hours. This paper applies a novel method for measuring and visualising employment barriers of individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment, using household micro-data. It first develops indicators to quantify employment obstacles under three broad headings: (i) work-related capabilities, (ii) incentives, and (iii) employment opportunities. It then uses these indicators in conjunction with a statistical clustering approach to identify unobserved (“latent”) groups of individuals facing similar combinations of barriers. The resulting typology of labour-market difficulties provides insights on the most pressing policy priorities in supporting different groups into employment. A detailed policy discussion illustrates how these empirical results can inform people-centred assessments of existing labour-market integration measures and of key challenges across different policy areas and institutions. The most common employment obstacles in Lithuania were health limitations, limited work experience, and scarce job opportunities. Although financial disincentives and care responsibilities were less widespread overall, they remained important barriers for some groups. A notable finding is that just over one third of jobless or low-intensity workers face three or more simultaneous barriers, highlighting the limits of narrow policy approaches that focus on subsets of these employment obstacles in isolation.
The report analyses the performance of Lithuania’s health system which has been long characterised by its institutional stability and the steady pursuit of a policy agenda aimed at adapting it to the evolving burden of disease. Today, even if total spending on health is low and out-of-pocket payments represent nearly a third of it, the system ensures fairly equitable access to care. The main challenge to the system is that health outcomes still place Lithuania among the lowest ranked in the OECD. Efforts need to be geared more systematically towards strengthening public health and improving the quality of the services delivered at primary and hospital care levels.
Lithuania has undergone major economic and social change since the early 1990s. Despite an exceptionally deep recession following the global financial crisis, impressive economic growth over the past two decades has narrowed income and productivity gaps relative to comparable countries in the OECD. But Lithuania faces a massive demographic challenge, mostly as a result of large and persistent emigration driven primarily by low wages and poor working conditions. Income inequality is also very high, and households at the bottom of the income distribution have recently benefited very little from the recovery. Major reforms of the labour code, the unemployment insurance system, employment policies and pensions were recently undertaken within the New Social Model to improve labour maket adaptibility and income security. This report provides comprehensive analysis of Lithuania’s policies and practices compared with best practice in the field of labour, social and migration from the OECD countries. It contains several recommendations to tackle key challenges facing Lithuania. This report will be of interest in Lithuania as well as other countries looking to promote a more inclusive economy.
Lithuania has achieved steady expansion of participation in education, substantially widening access to early childhood education and care and tertiary education, coupling this with nearly universal participation in secondary education. However, if Lithuania’s education system is to help the nation respond effectively to economic opportunities and demographic challenges, improvements in the performance of its schools and its higher education institutions are needed. Improved performance requires that Lithuania clarify and raise expectations of performance, align resources in support of raised performance expectations, strengthen performance monitoring and the assurance of quality, and build institutional capacity to achieve high performance. This orientation to improvement should be carried across each sector of its education system.
This report assesses Lithuania’s policies and practices against best practice in education from across the OECD and other countries in the region. It analyses its education system’s major strengths and the challenges it faces, from early childhood education and care to tertiary education. It offers recommendations on how Lithuania can improve quality and equity to support strong, sustainable and inclusive growth. This report will be of interest in Lithuania and other countries looking to raise the quality, equity and efficiency of their education systems.
The OECD Reviews of Innovation Policy offer a comprehensive assessment of the innovation system of individual OECD countries and partner economies, focusing on the role of government. They provide concrete recommendations on how to improve policies that affect innovation performance, including R&D policies. Each review identifies good practices from which other countries can learn.
The effective use of school resources is a policy priority across OECD countries. The OECD Reviews of School Resources explore how resources can be governed, distributed, utilised and managed to improve the quality, equity and efficiency of school education.
The series considers four types of resources: financial resources, such as public funding of individual schools; human resources, such as teachers, school leaders and education administrators; physical resources, such as location, buildings and equipment; and other resources, such as learning time.
This series offers timely policy advice to both governments and the education community. It includes both country reports and thematic studies.
The present report on Lithuania is the fourth of a new series on "Investing in Youth" which builds on the expertise of the OECD on youth employment, social support and skills. This series covers both OECD countries and countries in the process of accession to the OECD, as well as some emerging economies. The report provides a detailed diagnosis of the youth labour market and VET system in Lithuania from an international comparative perspective, and offers tailored recommendations to help improve school-to-work transitions. It also provides an opportunity for Lithuania to learn from the innovative measures that other countries have taken to strengthen the skills of youth and their employment outcomes, notably through the implementation of a Youth Guarantee.
Canada
Liability and compensation
France
Liability and compensation
Nuclear safety and radiological protection
Greece
Organisation and structure
Hungary
General legislation
India
Liability and compensation
Japan
Liability and compensation
Korea
Liability and compensation
Lithuania
General legislation
Transport of radioactive material
Slovak Republic
International co-operation
Liability and compensation
Slovenia
General legislation
Switzerland
Liability and compensation
United States
Radioactive waste management