Increasing tax revenues and ensuring sustainable domestic resource mobilisation will be critical as emerging Asian economies seek to boost the provision of public goods and services and improve economic growth and living standards.

Healthcare costs are rising so fast in advanced economies that they will become unaffordable by mid-century without reforms, according to a new OECD report.

Tax revenues in African countries are rising as a proportion of national incomes, according to the inaugural edition of Revenue Statistics in Africa. In 2014, the eight countries covered by the report - Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauritius, Morocco, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tunisia - reported tax revenues as a percentage of GDP ranging from 16.1% to 31.3%.

Mrs Rosa Hernández de Grullón, Ambassador of the Dominican Republic to France and Mr John Petersen, Advisor to the Minister of Finance of Nauru, signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters in the presence of Deputy Secretary General Rintaro Tamaki, therewith becoming the 97th and 98th jurisdictions to join the Convention.

In 2014, the tax-to-GDP ratios of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines and Singapore were below 17% of GDP compared to Japan and Korea, which both recorded tax-to-GDP ratios above 24%,according to new data released in the third edition of the OECD’s annual publication Revenue Statistics in Asian Countries.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

Tax revenues in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) countries continued to increase in 2015, according to new data from the annual Revenue Statistics in Latin America and the Caribbean publication. The average tax-to-GDP ratio for LAC countries reached 22.8% of GDP in 2015, up from 22.2% in 2014.

Africa has sustained gains in domestic resource mobilisation made since 2000, as tax revenues remained stable in 2016, according to Revenue Statistics in Africa 2018. Providing internationally comparable data for 21 participating countries, the report finds that the average tax-to-GDP ratio was 18.2% in 2016, the same level as in 2015, which represents a strong improvement from 13.1% in 2000.

This new report shows that tax-to-GDP ratios fell in most of the 16 Asian and Pacific economies covered by the report between 2015-16 due to a combination of policy reforms and decreasing natural resource prices.

Today, at the OECD Headquarters in Paris, H.E. Sharlene Shillingford-McKlmon, Ambassador of Dominica to the European Union, signed the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters (the Convention). Dominica is the 128th jurisdiction to join the Convention.

Progress continues on implementing the BEPS Action 5 minimum standard, with a further 22 jurisdictions changing their laws to address harmful tax practices. On 19 July 2019, the Inclusive Framework on BEPS approved the latest results of reviews of jurisdictions’ domestic laws conducted by the OECD Forum on Harmful Tax Practices.

Tax-to-GDP ratios increased in the majority of Asian and Pacific economies covered by a new OECD report published today. Nine of the economies in the publication increased their tax-to-GDP ratios between 2016 and 2017, compared with only three in the preceding year, according to Revenue Statistics in Asian and Pacific Economies 2019.

In response to a request from the APEC Finance Ministers, the OECD today presented the report Combatting Tax Crimes More Effectively in APEC Economies at the APEC meetings underway in Santiago, Chile.

As part of BEPS Action 5 to curb harmful tax practices, jurisdictions may only maintain preferential regimes if certain "substantial activities" requirements are met. In order to ensure a level playing field, these requirements must also apply to jurisdictions with zero or only nominal tax rates.

As part of the Inclusive Framework’s work relating to the tax challenges arising from the digitalisation of the economy, the OECD has been carrying out an economic analysis and impact assessment of the Pillar 1 and Pillar 2 proposals. Please join a live webcast with experts from the OECD to learn more about this work, which will include a presentation of preliminary results on the revenue and investment effects of the proposals.

Global value chains (GVCs) have become a dominant feature of world trade and investment, offering new prospects for growth, development and jobs, according to a new joint report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

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.

Latin American economic growth is set to recover during the second half of 2015 and gain further speed in 2016, though with notable differences across countries.

Protectionism and local content requirements are holding back investment in clean energy and thus undermining the fight against climate change. This Investment Insights puts forward policy options for mobilising investment in clean energy and restoring order and confidence in international markets.

17 October 2016, Paris: The G20 Chinese Presidency, the UK and the OECD jointly organised a Seminar on “Corruption and Economic Growth”. Expert panellists recognised the negative impact of corruption on economic growth and society at both the macro and micro level, and stressed the importance of strong political leadership in fighting corruption.

The paper summarises views expressed by practitioners at a workshop in Beijing on 13-14 April 2016 with respect to contemporary challenges in international co-operation in corruption cases and possible solutions to mitigate these challenges. It has a practical orientation and is intended to contribute to ongoing dialogue at national and multilateral levels on enhancing international co-operation.

Integrating measures to tackle climate change into regular economic policy will have a positive impact on economic growth over the medium and long term, according to a new OECD report prepared in the context of the German Presidency of the G20.

Health spending continues to rise faster than economic growth in most OECD countries, maintaining a trend observed since the 1970s. Health spending reached 9.5% of GDP on average in 2009, the most recent year for which figures are available, up from 8.8% in 2008, according to OECD Health Data 2011.

The OECD and the ESRC Genomics Policy & Research Forum jointly organised a one-day Forum on 12 November 2012 in Paris. The event was both retrospective and forward-looking. The forum concluded that the promise of biotechnology is not set but evolves with fresh scientific knowledge, novel laws and regulations. The future of biotechnology needs to also integrate social and cultural dimensions.

This report presents the findings of a research project to investigate the drivers and criteria shaping the application of genomic biotechnology to health in different national settings, and the barriers to implementation nationally and internationally. Findings are based on case studies on Finland, Israel, Luxembourg, Mexico, the United Kingdom, China and South Africa.

An ageing population brings new challenges both to healthcare systems and to medicine in terms of the increased manifestation of specific diseases primarily seen in the elderly. Biomedical innovation, and in particular research into "omics technologies", offers the promise of new means of detection, prevention and treatment of age-related disabilities and diseases.

Healthcare costs are rising so fast in advanced economies that they will become unaffordable by mid-century without reforms, according to a new OECD report.

This note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

The OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Australia, to be published at 00.01 am on Friday, 3 March 2017 AEDT (13.01, GMT; 14:01 Paris time Thursday), looks at Australia’s current macroeconomic situation, as well as the steps that can be taken to ensure stronger and more inclusive growth in the future. The Survey’s two in-depth chapters focus on innovation.

Economic growth has been resilient, exports and investment will support the economy and wage growth and price inflation will gradually pick up

This note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012.

A moderate recovery is underway in the major advanced economies, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Assessment. Growth is proceeding at encouraging rates in North America, Japan and the UK. The euro area as a whole is out of recession, although output remains weak in a number of countries.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

The Japanese economy is on a path to stronger growth, but fundamental structural reforms are urgently needed to promote a more robust recovery, address high levels of government debt and reverse a trend toward declining living standards, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Japan.

Japan must make revitalising growth its number one priority with reforms to boost productivity and encourage more women and older people into jobs to compensate for its rapidly shrinking labour force, according to the OECD.

The global economy is stuck in a low-growth trap that will require more coordinated and comprehensive use of fiscal, monetary and structural policies to move to a higher growth path and ensure that promises are kept to both young and old, according to the OECD’s latest Global Economic Outlook.

This note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2011.

This note is taken from Chapter 2 of Economic Policy Reforms: Going for Growth 2012.

This publication highlights new evidence on policies to support job creation, bringing together the latest research on labour market, entrepreneurship and local economic development policy to help governments support job creation in the recovery. It also includes a set of country pages featuring, among other things, new data on skills supply and demand at the level of smaller OECD regions (TL3).

Austria’s transition to a digital economy and society is progressing but is slower than in the most advanced economies. A whole-of-government approach should help embrace change and facilitate the flourishing of innovative businesses, work practices and lifestyles throughout Austria.

The Latin American Economic Outlook 2013: SME Policies for Productive Development will be launched at the Ibero-American Summit in Cadiz, Spain, on Friday 16 November. This long-standing flagship of the OECD Development Centre is co-published with the UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC).

This article by OECD Deputy Secretary-General Rintaro Tamaki focuses on three issues that will be important in shaping the future of the Asian economic and financial community: trade, funding long-term investment and strengthened regional financial co-operation.

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.

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.

This chapter from the 2015 OECD Business and Finance Outlook examines the potential impact of an environment of protracted low interest rates on pension systems and life insurance companies. It describes the mechanisms through which prolonged low interest rates can affect the solvency position of these institutions and uses available data to assess potential impacts.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

This paper looks at the application of behavioural economics in the area of financial consumer protection and how numerous governments are testing and implementing its application for policies promoting financial consumer protection. It highlights the opportunity for behavioural economics to help provide cost-efficient ways of making policy more effective at promoting positive outcomes for consumers.

The global economy is expected to pick up moderately but greater efforts are needed to ensure that the benefits from growth and globalisation are more widely shared, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.

Paris, 25 May 2018 - Following a keynote speech from Emmanuelle Auriol, Professor at Toulouse School of Economics and Chair of Women in Economics of the European Economic Association, discussions at this event will explore some of the issues emerging from the gender biases evident in the field of economics.