Economic prosperity and social cohesion the role of entrepreneurship and innovation an oecd perspective speech by the oecd deputy secretary general mr aart de geus dear sheik dear participants i am honoured to be here today to discuss entrepreneurship and innovation a topic which is crucial. Drawing on an array of new economic studies this book explains the concept of social cohesion and explores its impact on economic performance it includes case studies linking social cohesion to workplace productivity school quality health and the welfare of children later chapters examine the origin of social cohesion and the factors that favour or diminish it with special attention to the fate of social cohesion in the globalizing world. Economic and social cohesion cohesion policy is unique to the european integration process as a bank that is owned by the eu member states the eib supports cohesion that pushes for a balanced territorial development and will leave no one behind we complement eu grants with loans and other financial instruments for projects and programmes that . Social cohesion is a very important driver of long term prosperity and competitiveness cohesive societies are politically stable and focus on economic growth and business development social cohesion itself is built over years not overnight it results from policies that allow everybody in society to share its prosperity it makes competitiveness sustainable our ranking of social cohesion in 2008 explains 20 percent of the variation in political instability in 2013 by the way on the