based analysis of the short - term effects of structural reforms in labour and product markets ”, oecd economics department working papers no. 948, oecd publishing. this study provides useful insights into the shortterm effects on structural reforms. see vansteenkiste, i. ( 2016 ), “ did the crisis permanently scar the portuguese labour market? : evidence from a markov - switching beveridge curve analysis ”, forthcoming. see oecd ( 2016 ) “ going for growth ”. chapter 2 of the report gives a good overview of the literature on reform priorities in a difficult macro context. see imf ( 2016a ), op. cit. a good example of the depth and detail of the greek reform programme is given in “ the second economic adjustment programme for greece fourth review – april 2014 ”, european commission occasional papers, 192, april 2014. see monteagudo et al. : “ the economic impact of the services directive : a first assessment following implementation, european commission economic papers 456 ”, june 2012. according to european commission ameco database. the latest observation is 2013. bis central bankers ’ speeches see imf ( 2016b ), " euro area : staff concluding statement of the 2016 article iv mission ", 16 june, and banerji, a. et al. ( 2015 ), " building a better union : incentivizing structural reform in the euro area ", imf working paper, wp / 15 / 201, september. bis central bankers ’ speeches

we must have a common growth strategy based on identifying our structural weaknesses. the key words must in my view be “ productivity ” and “ employment ”, which are positive - sum games – not “ competitiveness ”, which could end up as a zero - sum game. the member states will not lend much support to euro area growth by merely competing for their neighbours ’ market shares. we have to act together to raise productivity and employment. improving the functioning of the service market in the euro area is therefore important not only because of its large share of overall gross value added, 65 % on average in the euro area, but also because 75 % of the total labour force is employed in this sector. even though there has been a steady shift towards more service production, we are still lagging behind other advanced economies such as the us and, to a lesser extent, japan, which have higher production of services per capita. in particular, it is striking that service sector output per capita ( in ppp terms ) is 33 % higher in the us than in the euro area, which is the main reason for a smaller difference in overall gdp per capita levels ( 26 % ) [ 27 ]. to a large extent this is due to old - fashioned restrictions that prevent competition in many countries in the euro area. the european commission has estimated that an ambitious implementation of the 2006 services directive would have the potential to increase euro area gdp by around 2. 5 %. the latest estimates show that only around 0. 8 percentage point of this has been realised – and this is ten years after the directive entered into force. also, bear in mind that these figures significantly underestimate the gains from a wider service market reform, given that some of the most important sectors – for instance health care – are completely excluded from the directive. another factor in services that is sometimes overlooked is that of scale. in today ’ s fragmented service market in europe, there is insufficient pooling of resources to drive large - scale r & d initiatives, new distribution platforms and to increase competition between market participants. we therefore need to take a step back and consider what can be done to complete the european single market for services. to give an example, the original idea of applying the socalled country of origin principle should be reconsidered. this would mean that the regulation of the exporting country is applied. the benefits from such a change are straightforward : first, it becomes easier for a service provider that no longer has to deal with