France spends just over 11% of its GDP on health, one of the highest shares among OECD countries, and is projected to spend up to 13% of its GDP by 2030. This spending has contributed to good health outcomes, with life expectancy at birth two years above the OECD average. One in four adults still smoke daily and alcohol consumption remains about 30% higher than the OECD average.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in France did not change between 2017 and 2018. The tax-to-GDP ratio remained at 46.1%. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of0.1 percentage points from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

The tax wedge for the average single worker in France decreased by 0.3 percentage points from 47.0 in 2018 to 46.7 in 2019. The OECD average tax wedge in 2019 was 36.0 (2018, 36.1). In 2019 France had the 5th highest tax wedge among the 36 OECD member countries, occupying the same position in 2018.

Iceland must do more to ensure its law enforcement authorities are coordinated and adequately resourced to investigate and prosecute economic and financial crime, including foreign bribery, says the OECD in a new report.

Korea tops a new OECD PISA survey that tests how 15-year olds use computers and the Internet to learn. The next best performers were New Zealand, Australia, Japan, Hong-Kong China and Iceland.

Education at a Glance 2013 - Country notes and key fact tables

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, will travel to Reykjavik to meet with Mr. Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, President of Iceland, Mr. Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson, Prime Minister, Mr. Bjarni Benediktsson, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, and other members of the government.

This note presents key findings for Iceland from Society at a Glance 2014 - OECD Social indicators. This 2014 publication also provides a special chapter on: the crisis and its aftermath: a “stress test” for societies and for social policies.

Going for Growth 2015: Key findings for Iceland

The OECD Working Group on Bribery has serious concerns about Iceland’s lack of progress in combatting the bribery of foreign public officials, and to implement the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions.

Labour market conditions in Iceland further improved during the last year. In March 2015 the harmonised unemployment rate stood at 4.2% of the labour force, 1 percentage point lower than a year earlier.

This policy profile is part of the Education Policy Outlook series, which presents comparative analysis of education policies and reforms across OECD countries.

This country note provides an environmental tax and carbon pricing profile for Iceland. It shows environmentally related tax revenues, taxes on energy use and effective carbon rates.

This country note presents student performance in science, reading and mathematics, and measures equity in education in Iceland. The interactive charts allow you to compare results with other countries participating in the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

This note presents marginal effective tax rates (METRs) that summarise the tax system’s impact on the incentives to make an additional investment in a particular type of savings. By comparing METRs on different types of household savings, we can gain insights into which assets or savings types receive the most favourable treatment from the tax system.

The family-friendly policies introduced by Nordic countries over the past 50 years and associated increases in female employment have boosted growth in GDP per capita by between 10% and 20%, according to a new OECD report.

This country note for Iceland provides detail on the proportion of CO2 emissions from energy use subject to different effective carbon rates (ECR), as well as on the level and components of average ECRs in each of the six economic sectors (road transport, off-road transport, industry, agriculture and fishing, residential & commercial, and electricity).

The digital revolution, globalisation and demographic changes are transforming labour markets at a time when policy makers are also struggling with slow productivity and wage growth and high levels of income inequality. The new OECD Jobs Strategy provides a comprehensive framework and policy recommendations to help countries address these challenges.

The Icelandic standard VAT rate is 24.0%, which is above the OECD average. The average VAT/GST¹ standard rate in the OECD was 19.3% as of 1 January 2019. The previous standard VAT rate in Iceland was 25.5% in 2014. It changed to the current level in 2015. Iceland applies reduced VAT rates of 0% and 11% to a number of goods and services.

Mr. Angel Gurría, Secretary-General of the OECD, will be in Reykjavik on 15-16 September 2019 to present the 2019 OECD Economic Survey of Iceland, alongside Mr. Bjarni Benediktsson, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs, and Ms. Lilja Alfredsdottir, Minister of Education, Science and Culture of Iceland.

This country note explains how Iceland taxes energy use. The note shows the distribution of effective energy tax rates across all domestic energy use. It also details the country-specific assumptions made when calculating effective energy tax rates and matching tax rates to the corresponding energy base.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Iceland decreased by 0.8 percentage points from 37.5% in 2017 to 36.7% 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 wedge for the average single worker in Iceland decreased by 0.3 percentage points from 33.4 in 2018 to 33.1 in 2019. The OECD average tax wedge in 2019 was 36.0 (2018, 36.1). In 2019 Iceland had the 25th lowest tax wedge among the 36 OECD member countries, compared with the 24th in 2018.

This country note explains how Greece taxes energy use. The note shows the distribution of effective energy tax rates across all domestic energy use. It also details the country-specific assumptions made when calculating effective energy tax rates and matching tax rates to the corresponding energy base.

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Greece decreased by 0.2 percentage points from 38.9% in 2017 to 38.7% 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 wedge for the average single worker in Greece decreased by 0.2 percentage points from 41.0 in 2018 to 40.8 in 2019. The OECD average tax wedge in 2019 was 36.0 (2018, 36.1). In 2019 Greece had the 14th highest tax wedge among the 36 OECD member countries, compared with the 13th in 2018.

While the prevalence of obesity in Italy is lower than in most other countries, it still has significant consequences. Italians live on average 2.7 years less due to overweight. Overweight accounts for 9.0% of health expenditure, above the average for other countries. Labour market outputs are lower due to overweight by the equivalent of 571 thousand full time workers per year.

Sebbene in Italia la prevalenza dell’obesità sia inferiore a quella della maggior parte degli altri paesi, essa ha comunque conseguenze significative. Gli italiani vivono in media 2,7 anni in meno a causa del sovrappeso. Il sovrappeso rappresenta il 9% della spesa sanitaria, superiore alla media degli altri paesi.

This country note explains how Italy taxes energy use. The note shows the distribution of effective energy tax rates across all domestic energy use. It also details the country-specific assumptions made when calculating effective energy tax rates and matching tax rates to the corresponding energy base.

Despite lower than average health spending, Italy has the fourth highest life expectancy across the OECD, at 83 years at birth. Italians generally have healthy lifestyles. Alcohol consumption is low. The share of adults overweight or obese is also relatively low (46% of adults, as compared with the OECD average of 56%). However, the share of children overweight is the second highest across OECD countries.

Key findings for Italy from the report "Pensions at a Glance 2019"

The tax-to-GDP ratio in Italy did not change between 2017 and 2018. The tax-to-GDP ratio remained at 42.1%. The corresponding figure for the OECD average was a slight increase of 0.1 percentage points from 34.2% to 34.3% over the same period.

Italy’s structural reforms of recent years have improved the financial health of the corporate sector and contributed to a gradual economic recovery. However, the Italian economy still lags other large European economies. Improving the way capital markets function would help drive investment in the real economy, creating jobs and boosting productivity, according to a new OECD report.

The tax wedge for the average single worker in Italy increased by 0.2 percentage points from 47.8 in 2018 to 48.0 in 2019. The OECD average tax wedge in 2019 was 36.0 (2018, 36.1). In 2019 Italy had the 3rd highest tax wedge among the 36 OECD member countries, occupying the same position in 2018.

Switzerland tops for the first time the OECD fixed broadband ranking, with 39.9 subscribers per 100 inhabitants, followed closely by the Netherlands (39.1) and Denmark (37.9). The OECD average is 25.6, according to new OECD statistics.

The OECD has adopted a new basket methodology for benchmarking wireless broadband prices. It adds to the existing baskets for voice, leased lines and fixed broadband services and reflects the increasing importance of wireless broadband for laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Mobile providers have garnered a very large share of traditional services, such as telephony, over the past decade. Nevertheless, mobile networks are dependent on fixed networks and could not efficiently meet the rapidly expanding demand of users without the contributions made by fixed broadband networks.

Every day one exabyte of data is said to travel over the Internet – enough data to fill 300,000 of the world’s biggest hard disks or 212 million DVDs. And astonishingly, according to a new OECD report on Internet traffic exchange, most of the thousands of networks that exchange this traffic do so without a written contract or formal agreement.

This report provides background on e-book markets and examines various policy issues. These include differing tax rates in countries between physical books and e-books, consumer lock-in to specific platforms, limitations on how users can read and share their purchased content, and a lack of transparency about how data on their reading habits is used.

OECD events at the Internet Governance Forum 2012 (Baku, Azerbaijan)

While the nature of cyber attacks continues to include criminal activities motivated by financial gain, the main emerging threats are large-scale denial of service attacks, information leaks, targeted cyber espionage, and the disruption of critical infrastructures.

In 2017 a household with two teenagers will have 25 Internet connected devices. In 2022 this will rise to 50, compared with only 10 today. In households in the OECD alone there will be 14 billion connected devices, up from 1.7 billion today and this doesn’t take into account everything outside the household and outside the OECD. All this leads to the smart world discussed in a new OECD paper.

Even though the term “open access” is widely used in policy discussions surrounding broadband networks, there is little universal agreement as to what it means. A new OECD report helps to shed some light on this important concept by examining how and why open access policies have been implemented in communication markets around the world.

The aim of this consultation, held on 20-21 June 2013 in Oxford (UK), was to stimulate discussion at the highest possible level of expert engagement in setting out an agenda for OECD action to accelerate innovation for Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

This report focuses on the development of backhaul and cross-border networks, which enable local networks to connect to the wider Internet. To connect their networks to others around the world, operators need access to regional and international high-speed networks. The level of investment required in these networks varies and can be very different from region to region.

An OECD report looks at new approaches to enhance spectrum management to make more spectrum resources available for wireless communication services to meet current and future demand and, at the same time, increase the efficiency in its use.

The actual performance of Internet connections, particularly their speed, is critical to meeting various objectives set out by a range of stakeholders including consumers, policy makers and regulators. This page provides links to network speed tests in OECD countries.

Enhancements to fixed broadband networks remain critical despite the growth in the use of wireless services. This report examines the development of fixed networks, barriers to their upgrading and regulatory challenges.

The overarching theme of the 2014 Global Forum, held in Tokyo on 2 and 3 October, was data-driven innovation for a resilient society. The event focused on the collection and use of data throughout the economy and society for enhanced growth and well-being.

In countries with four or more mobile operators benefits to consumers are visible through more competitive, more inclusive, and more understandable offers. International mobile roaming is another area where challenger brands are changing markets.