SME and Entrepreneurship Policies After the Crisis

The 2008–2009 financial and economic crisis was the most severe in decades and its costs have been enormous. GDP contracted by about 3.5% in the OECD area as a whole in 2009 and unemployment reached a post-war high of close to 9% on average (OECD 2010a). The longer-term legacy of the crisis is also heavy. Public debt in OECD countries increased to about 100% of GDP at the end of 2011, some 30% points higher than before the crisis. OECD countries may have lost about 3% of potential output. The recovery that seemed to be underway in many OECD countries in 2010 has proved uneven. In several OECD economies, earlier improvements in the labour market have been fading in the course of 2011, and there appear to be greater risks that high unemployment could become entrenched. Economic growth slowed down also in non-OECD countries, including China, where manufacturing production weakened in the first half of 2011. In 2012, world GDP is projected to increase by 3.4%, whereas across OECD countries GDP is projected to rise by 1.6% (OECD 2011a).