This regional seminar in Montevideo, Uruguay, focused on the monitoring and transparency of insurance markets in Latin America through the provision of sound insurance statistics and indicators, regionally and globally.

Jointly developed by the IMF, World Bank, EBRD, and the OECD, this report analyses the main elements necessary to deepen domestic bond markets in emerging and developing economies.

Low levels of financial inclusion are associated with lower levels of financial literacy. This report looks at how policy makers are developing financial education policies for financial inclusion. It highlights challenges faced and solutions found, as well as outlining the main lessons learnt and possibilities for the way forward.

This book addresses gender differences in financial literacy and reviews policy responses and initiatives across the world to tackle women’s and girls’ needs, drawing lessons from existing experiences.

This paper examines how institutional investors can access green infrastructure, the extent to which this is currently happening, and the barriers to scaling up these investment flows. Based on four case studies, broader lessons are drawn for governments on the policy settings which may support investment in green infrastructure by institutional investors.

After showing an average negative rate of return on investment across the OECD zone in 2011, pension fund assets achieved high returns in almost all OECD countries in 2012, with a real return greater than 5% in 18 countries, according to the latest edition of Pension Markets in Focus.

The 2013 Global Forum focused on a number of critical policy, regulatory and supervisory issues affecting private and public pension provision in the Asia region.

This paper identifies the main trends in long-term financial intermediation focusing on the role of institutional investors in providing long-term finance for growth and development. It also highlights infrastructure as one specific sector that is facing major challenges in long-term financing.

This statistical yearbook provides quantitative information on African central government debt instruments. It includes individual country data but also comparative statistics to facilitate pan-African (cross-country) analysis.

The bank regulator's paradox is that large, complex and interconnected banks need very little capital in the good times, but they can never have enough in an extreme crisis. Separation is required to deal with this problem, which derives mainly from counterparty risk. This paper outlines the OECD’s separation proposal and also compares it to current national approaches to separation.

This paper looks at macro-prudential policies in the light of empirical evidence on the determinants of bank systemic risk, and the effectiveness of capital controls. It concludes that complexity and interdependence is such that care should be taken in implementing macro-prudential policies until much more is understood about these issues.

This paper investigates whether countries that had controls on inflows in place prior to the crisis were less vulnerable during the global financial crisis. More generally, it examines economic growth effects of such controls over the entire economic cycle, finding that capital restrictions on inflows (particularly debt liabilities) may be useful in good times but may have adverse effects in a crisis.

The main hallmarks of the global financial crisis were too-big-to-fail institutions taking on too much risk with other people’s money: excess leverage and default pressure resulting from contagion and counterparty risk. This paper looks at whether the Basel III reforms address these issues effectively and proposes improvements to the current reform proposals.

The 2013 Forum was held on 5-6 December and discussed how governments can improve their investment policy framework to reduce the risk and attract long-term private finance in support of green growth.

Discussions at this event focused on enhancing transparency in public debt management, the impact of tapering and exit on public debt management, and the role of DMOs in centralised or integrated risk management.

This event, co-organised by the OECD and the Korean authorities, explored policies and good practices for supporting long-term savings and investments through financial education and financial consumer protection.

Discussions at the 14th roundtable focussed on quantitative easing (QE) tapering to Asia, financial regulatory reforms, financial liberalisation and fragmenting growth, long-term investment for infrastructure, financial inclusion and disaster risk financing in insurance and financial markets.

This article presents a brief overview of current financing difficulties for SMEs and policy measures to support SME lending during the crisis, and presents a literature review related to difficulties in SME’s access to finance during the crisis, against a background of a sharp decline in bank profitability and an erosion of bank capital that negatively affected lending.

The value of implicit guarantees has declined from its peak at the height of the financial crisis, which is consistent with progress made regarding the bank regulatory reform agenda, as one would expect that many of the reform measures imply a more limited value of implicit guarantees for bank debt. Implicit guarantees persist however and their value continues to be significant.

This report shows how OECD’s work on financial markets, with the Committee on Financial Markets (CMF) at its core, has evolved over the past five decades. More than just a chronology, it attempts to explain and analyse the factors and dynamics that transformed financial markets and the work conducted in that area – thereby putting into perspective the challenges that lie ahead.

This article provides a framework for analysing the character and degree of ownership engagement by institutional investors. There are large differences in ownership engagement between different categories of institutional investors. There are also differences in ownership engagement within the same category of institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment funds, etc.

Borrowing operations by OECD governments are set to decrease, as their borrowing needs continue to decline, according to a new OECD report. Net borrowing needs are projected to fall from USD 2.0 trillion in 2013 to USD 1.5 trillion in 2014, the lowest level since 2007.

In the 17th arrondissement of Paris you can walk past a bust of the 19-20th century French writer, Tristan Bernard. It carries a maxim that always makes me smile, roughly translated: Only trust yourself and then not very much. ("Ne compter que sur soi-même et encore pas beaucoup. ") It is simple, but invites reflection on the staggering level of trust that each of us invests in countless fellow humans.

Held in Amsterdam on 7 April 2014, this workshop focused on: long-term pension investment strategies under risk-based regulation; riskiness and pro-cyclicality in pension asset allocation; and, regulatory challenges for long-term illiquid assets.

This book addresses the challenges linked to the introduction of financial education in schools and and provides practical guidance and case studies to assist policy makers.

This event addressed cutting-edge policy issues and research ideas to advance consumer protection globally. Discussions will focus on mobile, online and digital payment systems; behavioural and decision-making insights; and, frameworks for treating consumers fairly.

This G20 report looks at the evolution of private institutional investment in infrastructure and examines how the market has developed; analyses various investment vehicles with a snapshot of the growth experienced in the market; categorises methods used for investing in infrastructure; and, highlights the challenges and barriers to investment.

Organised in Istanbul, this event focused on financial education across Europe and in Turkey, the role(s) of the private and not-for-profit sectors in financial education, financial literacy and innovation for young people and financial education for migrant workers and their families.

This brochure provides information about the OECD Project on Institutional Investors and Long-term Investment. It covers the first two years of activity following the launch of the project in February 2012. This project aims to facilitate long-term investment by institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds, addressing both potential regulatory obstacles and market failures.

Singapore, 4 June 2014: This roundtable focused on how policymakers and investors can facilitate private sector infrastructure financing, as well as issues related to governance for institutional investors and the accounting treatment for long-term investment.

The financial crisis has led to a widespread loss of trust in financial intermediaries of all kinds, perhaps helping to open the way towards the general acceptance of alternative technologies. This paper briefly summarises the crypto-currency phenomenon, separating the ‘currency’ issues from the potential technology benefits.

This report describes the key findings from responses by 35 countries to a survey on implicit guarantees. Policy makers have announced their intention to rein in the values of implicit guarantees so it is important to measure their value to help facilitate the task of assessing progress in reducing their value.

This seminar took place in Dalian, China, with discussions focusing on institutional investors and long-term financing and policy measures and initiatives to address constraints to infrastructure investment identified by APEC under the Chinese presidency.

The results of the first international assessment of 15-year-old students’ financial literacy competencies were presented in Paris on 9 July 2014.

Since the 1980s, OECD investment-saving correlations – as an inverse measure of economic openness – indicate a very wide disparity of openness between the OECD and emerging market economies (EMEs) with an absence of open markets in the latter. Given the increasing weight of EMEs in the world economy, this paper warns that this pattern of growth with disparity of openness is ultimately unsustainable.

Bank regulatory reform measures are expected to limit the value of implicit bank debt guarantees, even if not plainly targeting such values. These survey results, covering 35 countries, show that no single policy is considered capable of fully eliminating the market perception that bank debt is “special”. A mixture of different and complementary measures is seen to hold greater promise.

This blog post by Adrian Blundell-Wignall builds on a working paper he published earlier this year titled "The Bitcoin Question: Currency versus Trust-less Transfer Technology".

Washington DC, 10 September 2014: This meeting addressed the evolution of the terrorism threat, the availability and affordability of terrorism risk insurance, the financial liability of governments and short and long-term perspectives.

This blog post by Sony Kapoor, Managing Director, Re-Define International Think Tank, gives his view on why the OECD – which uniquely houses financial, development, infrastructure and environmental expertise under one roof – must take charge of promoting long-term investment in developing country infrastructure.

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their expiry date, we must focus our efforts on ensuring a brighter, more inclusive and sustainable future for all. We face a plethora of common issues: growing inequalities; changing consumption patterns and population dynamics; increasing natural resource scarcity; and ongoing illicit financial flows.

2-3 October 2014, Swakopmund, Namibia: This event focused on the pension reform process in Africa, tax and the financial incentives that affect savings in complementary private pensions, and the role of pension funds in long-term investment financing and capital market development.

This article summarises discussions from an OECD Financial Roundtable on reducing bank dependence in financing small-and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and non-bank debt financing alternatives.

The infrastructure financing market has gone through a process of radical transformation starting from the mid-2000s. This article provides an overview of international trends in infrastructure finance. It proposes a map of the different investment channels that private investors can use to access the infrastructure investment on the equity and debt side, highlighting the historical evolution of these segments in the past few years.

This paper analyses the effects of government policies on flows of private finance for investment in renewable energy. It also examines whether direct provision of public finance for a project increases the volume of private finance raised. The analysis covers 87 countries, six renewable energy sectors (wind, solar, biomass, small hydropower, marine and geothermal).

Closing remarks made by the OECD Secretary-General during the Paris Club Forum, organised jointly by the Australian Presidency and the Paris Club.

2014 OECD/Euromoney Roundtable on Long-term Investment Policy: The roundtable provided a unique opportunity for participants to discuss the OECD’s work on institutional investors and long-term financing with senior policymakers and regulators, and to facilitate investment by institutional investors, addressing both potential regulatory obstacles and market failures.

Low growth, low interest rates and low returns on investment linked to the slow global economy are now compounding the problems of population ageing for both public and private pension systems, according to a new OECD report.

The 2014 edition of the OECD Pensions Outlook explores the crucial and far-reaching challenges that pension systems are currently facing. This report was released at a launch event in London on 8 December 2014.

This seminar addressed cutting-edge policy issues and research ideas to promote financial inclusion and financial literacy in Asia, notably: national strategies for financial education; financial education and consumer protection; measuring financial literacy; and, financial literacy for micro-entrepreneurs and SMEs.

“Why do financial institutions and investors see so little risk, while companies investing in the real economy see so much risk?” This is perhaps the most important question facing policy makers today. This paper sets out some of the possible hypotheses for lack of investment in the world economy. It uses data drawn from 10 000 global companies in 75 advanced and emerging countries.