The OECD has welcomed the release by China and the US of peer reviews of their fossil fuel subsidies.

This report uses household level data covering 20 OECD countries to analyse energy affordability at current energy prices and explores how these indicators change in response to a simulated energy tax reform. The report finds that higher energy prices, needed to cut harmful carbon emissions and air pollution, can also help achieve social policy objectives.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Israel decreased by 1.4 percentage points from 32.5% in 2017 to 31.1% in 2018. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Ireland decreased by 0.2 percentage points from 22.5% in 2017 to 22.3% in 2018. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

This country fact-sheet presents key figures from "Under Pressure: The Squeezed Middle Class". This report analyses the trends of middle-income households in areas such as employment, consumption, wealth and debt, as well as perceptions and social attitudes. It also includes recommendations for protecting middle-class living standards and financial security in the face of economic challenges.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Germany increased by 0.6 percentage points from 37.6% in 2017 to 38.2% in 2018. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage point from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

The Australian state government of Queensland developed a set of Skills Formation Strategies as a new way to respond to skill shortages and mismatches.

Australia’s labour market reforms over the past 15 years have boosted employment and cut welfare benefit dependency.

Belgian companies, mutualities and employment services should be more proactive in helping people with mental health problems stay in the workplace or find a job, according to a new OECD report.

Ongoing reforms of Denmark’s disability benefits and flexjobs are promising, but a stronger focus on helping people with their mental health issues is needed for the reforms to contribute to a sustainable decline in the high rate of unemployment, according to a new OECD report. Past labour market reforms failed because underlying mental health problems of the jobless remained unaddressed.

Norway should overhaul its approach to mental health issues in the workplace in order to help more people find a job or stay in work, and cut high and rising public spending, according to a new OECD report.

Brazil’s strong economic growth has helped cut the youth unemployment rate over the past decade to levels below those of most OECD countries. Increased investment in education and vocational training is also helping young people get a foot in the jobs market, according to a new OECD report.

Switzerland needs to do more to help people with mental disorders find a job or stay in work, according to a new OECD report.

OECD Development Centre, ECLAC and CAF to launch their joint Latin American Economic Outlook 2015 at the XXIV Ibero-American Summit on Tuesday 9 December 2014

Austria needs to do more to help people with mental health problems find a job or stay in the workplace, according to a new OECD report. A more comprehensive approach would help employees and firms alike: mental health issues are estimated to cost the Austrian economy around 3.6% of GDP every year in lost productivity, health care and out-of-work benefits.

The recent mental health reform is an important step towards better services for people with mental ill-health, but Australia needs to do more to help people with mild to moderate mental health issues at and into work, according to a new OECD report.

This work addresses the role of global value chains (GVCs), workforce skills, ICT, innovation and industry structure in explaining employment levels of routine and non-routine occupations. The analysis encompasses 28 OECD countries over the period 2000-2011.

Analysis relying on a new OECD measure of the routine intensity of occupations shows the extent to which countries differ in the share of employment accounted for by routine jobs. It finds that while technological innovation is always associated with higher employment, ICTs correlates positively with employment in all occupations but not in high-routine jobs. Finally, offshoring need not hurt routine-intensive workers.

Workers can be mismatched by qualifications while their skills are, in fact, adequate for their jobs. This situation, ‘apparent’ qualification mismatch is more common in certain fields of study than in others and speaks to the need of strengthening the links between employers, education providers and students to share information on the true skills, to avoid true skills mismatch.

New research points to the role of field-of-study mismatch in explaining the long-term effects of cyclical labour market shocks. It suggests that policy effort ought to be directed not just towards the NEETs, but also towards youth who find employment during recessions, given their higher risk of prolonged field-of-study mismatch and lower wages if mismatch is accompanied by overqualification.

This chapter analyses how skills are used at work, why skills use matters for workers and economies and its key determinants. It draws on data for the 28 OECD countries participating in the Survey of Adult Skills.

Lending volumes and credit conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) have gradually improved, according to a new report from the OECD, but demand-side obstacles such as a lack of financial knowledge are contributing to holding back a stronger recovery.

The slowdown in productivity growth - already underway before the crisis – combined with sluggish investment, continued to undermine rises in economic output and material living standards in recent years in many of the world’s economies, according to a new report released today by the OECD.

Full and effective implementation of recent reforms, including the Jobs Act and the Good Schools reform, would help boost growth in Italy by improving people’s skills and ensuring their more effective use across the country, according to a new OECD report.

There is a life-defining sequence in the early part of this stylishly-cut film where the excellent Shashank Arora

The main objective of this meeting was to create a Latin American Network to contribute to the better functioning of markets and the improvement of public services in Latin American countries.

Discussion of progress to enhance regulatory quality and promote inclusive economic growth in the Latin American region.

Despite major progress, Turkey still lags behind most comparable countries in terms of exported value added per capita. Its remarkable economic performance over the past 15 years has not been sufficiently backed by gains in export market shares, in particular when measured in value added terms.

OECD promotes the exchange of experiences and good practices for the improvement of regulation among Latin American countries

Mexico’s 2013 telecom reform has brought tangible benefits, spurring competition that has increased access and brought down mobile Internet costs from among the highest in advanced economies to among the lowest.

2018 Questionnaire PMR

OECD work on the independence of regulators and how to protect them from undue influence. Information includes new data from a survey of 48 regulators across the world.

This Forum took stock of the key challenges and trends in regulating money in politics; identify emerging risks and opportunities; shape a common understanding of the policy options ahead and trade-offs in enhancing fairness, integrity and transparency in decision making including in the realm of political finance; and mobilise partners to work together and promote synergies in the future agenda.

South Africa must take urgent steps to proactively investigate and prosecute foreign bribery. No foreign bribery cases have been prosecuted since South Africa joined the Convention in 2007. The 4 on-going investigations – out of only 10 allegations that have surfaced to date – are also far from reaching the prosecution stage, according to a new report by the OECD Working Group on Bribery.

Colombia necesita mejorar su capacidad para investigar el cohecho internacional estableciendo un régimen eficaz de responsabilidad corporativa, mejorando la coordinación entre sus numerosas agencias y formando con más rigor a los órganos responsables de la aplicación de la ley.

Este documento reporta los avances logrados por el Grupo Aeroportuario de la Ciudad de México (GACM) y otras dependencias con respecto a las 16 recomendaciones realizadas por la OCDE en su informe de noviembre de 2016 “Primer Informe de Avances sobre el Desarrollo del Nuevo Aeropuerto Internacional de la Ciudad de México: Hacia una Ejecución Efectiva”.

Twenty-eight officials participated in the inaugural “VAT/GST Fraud Investigations” course at the OECD Latin America Academy for Tax and Financial Crime Investigation last week in Buenos Aires.

La OCDE confirma que la muestra de PISA 2009 en Cataluña cumple con los estándares de la OCDE y es internacionalmente comparable. Las características de la muestra y las tasas de exclusión en Cataluña son también muy similares a las de anteriores evaluaciones PISA. Las afirmaciones se basan esencialmente en una interpretación errónea de los datos sobre las tasas de exclusión y estándares de muestreo de la OCDE.

The jobs gap between well-educated young people and those who left school early has continued to widen during the crisis. A good education is the best insurance against a lack of work experience, according to the latest edition of the OECD’s annual Education at a Glance.

There are few OECD countries where vocational education and training (VET) is held in such high regard or takes so many forms as in Austria. Some 60 percent of young Austrians aged between 25 and 34 have completed a VET course below tertiary level (vocational school or technical college).

This book suggests strategies for building an education model that could inspire other Mexican states and fuel federal reform efforts.

Brazil’s strong economic growth has helped cut the youth unemployment rate over the past decade to levels below those of most OECD countries. Increased investment in education and vocational training is also helping young people get a foot in the jobs market, according to a new OECD report.

Faits marquants sur la performance de la France lors de l'enquête PISA 2012 sur les compétences des élèves en mathématiques, en compréhension de l'écrit et en sciences.

Most teachers enjoy their job, despite feeling unsupported and unrecognised in schools and undervalued by society at large, according to a new OECD survey.

Parents’ level of education still greatly influences that of their children: individuals are 4.5 times more likely to attend higher education if one of their parents has a higher education degree than if both their parents have below upper secondary education.

School leaders are calling the PISA-based Test for Schools one of the better indicators out there of how well students are prepared for 21st century learning.

Latvia has made good progress improving its education system since independence in 1991, but more efforts are now needed to raise teaching standards and ensure that all students have access to a quality education, according to a new OECD report.

Austria has taken important steps to improve its school system, but needs to reform its complex school governance to further improve quality and equity, according to a new OECD report.

The digital divide has shifted.

Results from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) show that, among countries with a comparatively high gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, the amount spent on education is less important than how those resources are used.