The OECD and the Inter-American Center of Tax Administrations (CIAT) hosted today the high-level event "Base Erosion and Profit Shifting Implementation: Strategic importance, challenges and opportunities" in Lisbon, Portugal.

The Czech health care system is doing well in terms of health outcomes compared to other Central East European economies that inherited similar health systems after the transition and has been converging to OECD averages.

This paper analyses the tax treatment of different employment forms for a set of eight countries: Argentina, Australia, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. The analysis includes labour income taxes, capital income taxes, social contributions, and non-tax compulsory payments.

The mission of the French High Commission for Pension Reform is to prepare the reform introducing a universal pension points system in France.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Intra-European Organisation of Tax Administrations (IOTA) signed the renewal of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for Co-operation between both Parties.

OECD Tax Policy Reviews: Seychelles 2020 provides an in-depth and comparative assessment of Seychelles’ tax system, and identifies a number of recommendations for tax reform. This publication, which is part of the OECD Tax Policy Reviews series, focused primarily on the examination of the business tax.

The world's four leading multilateral organisations working in the tax area have established their first integrated website containing information on how low- and middle-income countries can strengthen tax systems and mobilise the domestic revenue they need to address some of their urgent development challenges—including the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mongolia should persist with systematic reforms in its struggle against corruption, says a new report by the Istanbul Anti-Corruption Action Plan (IAP).

Compensation for adjudicators is generally considered as a core issue for judicial independence and for attracting good judges in the institutional design for courts. This paper examines compensation systems for adjudicators and dispute settlement administrators in investor-state dispute settlement. The paper uses in part a comparative perspective based on approaches in domestic courts in advanced economies.

The Swiss health system is one of the world’s best but must adapt to deal with rising costs and higher rates of cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, according to a new OECD/WHO report.

Data from OECD Health Data 2012 focusing on key US issues: why is the US health spending so high? Is US health spending higher due to higher prices or higher service provision? (or both?)? Is the quality of care better in the US? What are the trends in key risk factors to health in the US?

Japan has good health outcomes and has rapidly increased its spending on health care in recent years. It now needs to focus on improving efficiency of its health system in order to continue delivering high-quality care while containing costs, according to a new OECD report.

OECD insights blog: Francesca Colombo, Head of the OECD Health Division, discusses the issues related to health systems and an ageing population.

Australia should improve the integration of care across the patient pathway to prepare for a rise in chronic disease and make the health system less complex for patients, according to a new OECD report.

In the ten years since the introduction of Seguro Popular, some 50 million Mexicans previously at risk of unaffordable health care bills now have access to health insurance. The OECD Review of Health Systems: Mexico 2016 finds that the share of the population exposed to unaffordable or impoverishing health care costs has fallen from 3.3% to 0.8% of the population in the past decade.

Responses from the third wave of the OECD Health System Characteristics Survey are available online, providing access to the most recent information on key institutional characteristics of health systems of OECD countries and key partner and accession countries.

Latvia has successfully consolidated its hospital sector and strengthened primary care since the financial crisis. But persistent barriers to accessing high quality care need to be removed, according to a new OECD report.

Mental disorders represent a considerable disease burden, and have a significant impact on the lives of the OECD population, and account for considerable direct and indirect costs. This report argues that even in those OECD countries with a long history of deinstitutionalisation, there is still a long way to go to make community-based mental health care that achieves good outcomes for people with severe mental illness a reality.

Asia’s pension systems need modernising urgently to deliver secure, sustainable and adequate retirement incomes for today’s workers in the context of the rapid population ageing that will occur over the next two decades, according to a new OECD report.

How can government policies move towards increasing agricultural innovation and improving productivity? This OECD conference shared case studies and ideas from Europe, China, United States, India, Africa, Brazil, Australia and New Zealand.

Australia should improve the integration of care across the patient pathway to prepare for a rise in chronic disease and make the health system less complex for patients, according to a new OECD report.

Resistance proportions for eight antibiotic-bacterium pairs in Australia have increased in recent years, from 7% in 2005 to 10% in 2015, and could go up to 12% by 2030, should current trends in antibiotic consumption, population and economic growth continue into the future. Resistance proportions in Australia were lower than the OECD average in 2015 (17%).

Japan has good health outcomes and has rapidly increased its spending on health care in recent years. It now needs to focus on improving efficiency of its health system in order to continue delivering high-quality care while containing costs, according to a new OECD report.

An ecosystem assessment is a social process through which the findings of science concerning the causes of ecosystem change, their consequences for human well-bring, and the management and policy options are evaluated. The main objective of the paper is to draw insights from experience in the UK, Japan, Spain and Portugal of the added value to policy making of undertaking national level ecosystem assessments.

Faced with the acute poverty of many Russian pensioners, the Russian government is engaged in wide-ranging systemic reforms. This report contributes to the policy discussion by identifying aspects of the system that may need to be reformed and describing the experience of other countries as a point of comparison.

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.

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.

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.

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 reforms to the pensions system in Mexico, especially the introduction of a system of individual defined contribution accounts, have significantly improved the system’s financial sustainability.

This review of Colombia by the by the OECD Committee on Financial Markets examines Colombia’s position with respect to core principles related to financial systems.

This review of Latvia by the by the OECD Committee on Financial Markets examines Latvia’s position with respect to core principles related to financial systems.

This review of Latvia by the OECD Working Party of Governmental Experts on Insurance examines Latvia’s position with respect to core principles related to insurance systems.

This review of Lithuania by the OECD Committee on Financial Markets examines Lithuania’s position with respect to core principles related to financial systems.

A new OECD report, the 2018 Business and Finance Outlook, highlights a number of major risks having the potential to disrupt global economic growth. It notes that the gradual normalisation of monetary policy in an environment of growing debt will be a major test of whether the Basel III regulatory reforms have achieved their goal of ensuring safety and soundness in the financial system.

This paper studies the case of Turkey and suggests several tools to promote retirement planning. Section I provides a review of the traditional and behavioural policy instruments designed to promote retirement savings, along with a discussion on their effectiveness.

The main features of China’s current sub-national finance arrangements date back to the 1994 tax reform. China has a multi-level government structure that shares national tax revenues through a system of tax sharing and transfers, and divides spending assignments and responsibilities.

Under the Universal Credit reform, the main means-tested benefits except the Council Tax Benefit will be pooled into one single benefit with one single taper rate. The reform will give people better incentives to work, reduce complexity and contribute to reducing poverty.

Well-functioning judicial systems play a crucial role in determining economic performance – notably by guaranteeing the security of property rights and the enforcement of contracts – but not all countries’ judiciaries operate at the same level of efficiency.

Israelis enjoy higher life expectancy and have a much younger demographic profile than most OECD countries. However, the demand for health care is expanding rapidly due to population growth and ageing.

In Norway house prices have risen to high levels, associated with very strong credit growth, in a context of low interest rates. Such a combination was in many countries a contributory factor to the 2008-09 crisis.

This paper investigates the vulnerabilities of health care systems in OECD and BRIICS countries to adverse secular trends and large macroeconomic shocks.

Demographic developments are unfavourable for the financing of pension schemes in most OECD countries, implying continued growth in pension expenditure in virtually all OECD countries. This paper examines the vulnerability of pension systems, with an emphasis on financial sustainability and adequacy.

The project provided recommendations to the city of Medellin and Antioquia to support the development of the local economy and includes a focus on how the innovative environment can be strengthened to support inclusion, entrepreneurship, SME, and local developmentto and how to better coordinate and integrate its policies with the national level.

Colombia is one of the most unequal countries in Latin America. The high level of informality in the labour market and many characteristics of the pension system leave many elderly in poverty. Only formal-sector employees earning more than the relatively high minimum wage are covered.

Israel is a young country with still dynamic population growth, but it is already beginning to face the consequences of population ageing.

Denmark’s economic prospects are improving, but further reforms are needed to maintain the country’s high living standards and ensure the well-being of all citizens, according to a new report from the OECD.

Governments should use tax policy to drive forward economic agendas that seek to boost growth while sharing the benefits more evenly within society, according to a new OECD report.

Promoting inclusive growth in India requires improving social and physical infrastructure.

Brazil’s old-age pensions have reduced old-age poverty below OECD levels, but pension expenditures of 8.2% of GDP are expected to rise rapidly as the population ages. A pension reform is necessary to ensure the financial sustainability of the system.