Structural Reforms

Well, what ARE these structural reforms of which politicians and economists speak so highly, as Bertie Wooster might have said, but which they rarely if ever spell out? I heard on the BBC's Today programme that Dijon is selling off its wine collection in a bid to raise money. That's the way to go! My younger daughter, who works in a Government Ministry in Paris, tells me that French civil servants enjoy conditions in terms of offices etc. that their British counterparts can only dream of.

Is that what is meant by "structural reforms"? If so, I think we could all usefully go quite a long way down that road.

The Secretary-General of the OECD said "the key now was to focus on structural reforms that will make countries' economies and labor markets more competitive.

"This incipient, hesitant recovery needs to be consolidated," Gurria said. "We ran out of room on the monetary side, we've run out of room on the fiscal policy side, so what you need is to go structural. "

"You need to go for education, for innovation, for more competition, for tax structures that are conducive to investments and job creation, you need to go for flexibility in the labor markets, for flexibility in the product markets," he said. "These are the things that are going to keep you going long term."