Recovery is under way in the world’s advanced economies, underpinned by supportive financial conditions and reduced drag from budgetary tightening, but activity in the major emerging markets is mixed, according to the OECD’s latest Interim Economic Assessment.

High variations in health care use for knee replacement and cardiac procedures, suggest more effort is needed to improve the appropriateness of health care activities in Germany.

The number of young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs) remains elevated in many countries since the crisis. This country note examines the characteristics of those at risk of being NEET in Germany along with policies to help meet the challenge. It also includes many new youth-specific indicators on family formation, self-sufficiency, income and poverty, health and social cohesion.

The Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum) published today the first 10 outcomes of a new and enhanced peer review process aimed at assessing compliance with international standards for the exchange of information on request between tax authorities.

This country highlight puts the spotlight on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people: their numbers, their economic situation and well-being and policies to improve LGBT inclusivity. It also includes a special chapter on people’s perceptions of social and economic risks and presents a selection of social indicators.

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 Skills Outlook Scoreboard assesses the extent to which Germany is able to make the most of digitalisation. Germany’s performance is measured along 3 main dimensions: Skills for digitalisation, Digital exposure and Skillsrelated policy effort.

Can both less income inequality and more growth be achieved? A recent OECD study sheds new light on the link between policies that boost growth and the distribution of income.

The euro area crisis finds its roots in the credit booms seen in many countries following the introduction of the euro in 1999. Easy credit led to strong growth in a range of sectors, notably housing, as well as higher levels of public spending. Inflation in these over-heating economies was higher than the euro area as a whole. Rising prices led to rising costs and a loss of international competitiveness.

Progress has been made in narrowing the gender gap in pay, especially in employment, over the past decade but much remains to be done in many countries. Women pay a high price for motherhood, with steep childcare costs and taxes deterring many from working more, according to a new OECD report.

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.

Everyone loses from unpaid internships – young people, society, even businesses. Companies that expect young people to work without pay are excluding graduates and school-leavers whose parents can’t afford to support them. They’re also shrinking the size of their potential talent pool and failing to develop a potentially valuable recruitment tool.

Latin America’s GDP growth rate has slowed down in 2014, dropping below 1.5%. This is the first time in a decade that the region grows less than the OECD average, according to the OECD Development Centre, the Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean and the development bank for Latin America. Given the projections in the past weeks, any recovery in 2015 is likely to be challenging.

Education systems have made major strides to close gender gaps in student performance but girls and boys remain deeply divided in career choices, which are being made much earlier than commonly thought, according to a new OECD report.

Income inequality has reached record highs in most OECD countries and remains at even higher levels in many emerging economies. The richest 10 per cent of the population in the OECD now earn 9.6 times the income of the poorest 10 per cent, up from 7:1 in the 1980s and 9:1 in the 2000s, according to a new OECD report.

This blog post looks at the importance of assessing and anticipating skill needs as recent empirical literature warns about the negative impact that skills mismatch can have on individuals and economies as a whole.

Older workers earn more than younger workers with the same skills. So what explains the lower return to skill among younger, less-experienced workers? Employers may need time to learn about (and reward) the true skills of young workers. “Experience and the returns to education and skill in OECD countries, Evidence of employer learning?” published in the OECD Journal: Economic Studies.

All OECD countries, except the United States, provide nationwide paid maternity leave. Over half also offer paternity leave to fathers right after childbirth. By enabling fathers to take on a greater share of the childcare burden, parental leave can support women’s careers.

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.

When nearly a million Vietnamese “boat people” fled their country in the late 1970s and early 1980s and sought refuge elsewhere, they were typically seen as a burden and often turned away. Eventually, many were allowed to settle in the US. Most arrived speaking little or no English and with few assets or relevant job skills. Yet Vietnamese refugees are now more likely to be employed and have higher incomes than people born in the US.

Information and communication technologies (ICT) are changing profoundly the skill profile of jobs. To thrive in the digital economy, ICT skills will not be enough and other complementary skills will be needed, ranging from good literacy and numeracy skills through to the right socio-emotional skills to work collaboratively and flexibly.

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 OECD LEED Trento Centre is working with Italy and the Autonomous Province of Trento to strengthen capacities to develop and implement integrated strategies targeted at improving the quality of life and well-being of people and reversing demographic trends in ‘inner areas’ (sparsely populated areas and stranded communities isolated from large and medium-sized urban centres).

The OECD Trento Centre is undertaking a review (2017/2018) to identify the needs and priorities for policy improvement and to foster the exchange of experiences, the capitalisation of acquired know-how and the generation of new and fresh thinking in the Adriatic-Ionian macro-region.

"Anna: Kisan Baburao Hazare"; Director: Shashank Udapurkar; Cast: Shashank Udapurkar, Tanishaa Mukerji, Rajit Kapur, Govind Namdeo, Kishor Kadam, Sharat Saxena and Daya Shankar Pandey; Rating: **1/2

The Netherlands, as other OECD countries, faces the challenge of providing high quality health and long term care services to an ageing population in a cost-efficient manner.

In collaboration with the Federal Government of Germany, the OECD organised four workshops at the International Regulatory Reform Conference (IRRC) 2013 in Berlin. The workshops focused on the use of cost-benefit analysis in governmental decision making, as well as on the role of key actors of regulatory governance in the regulatory policy cycle: Parliaments, regulatory agencies and audit offices.

Openness is one of the key values that guide the OECD vision for a stronger, cleaner, fairer world. This is why the OECD welcomes the launch of the Open Government Partnership today and the efforts led by Presidents Obama and Rousseff to promote government transparency, fight corruption, empower citizens and maximise the potential of new technologies to strengthen accountability and foster participation in public affairs.

The United Kingdom has significantly boosted its foreign bribery enforcement efforts but needs to be more transparent when resolving cases.

The OECD has released a study to help all countries understand and address the risks of sales suppression software. It describes some of the most common electronic sales suppression techniques and shows how these methods can be detected by tax auditors. The report also considers the approaches already adopted by countries in combating this risk and highlights a number of best practices.

The Czech government must urgently engage with the private sector to raise awareness, says a new OECD report. The awareness of the Czech foreign bribery offence remains regrettably low among companies, despite the recent adoption of a comprehensive corporate liability regime that holds Czech companies liable for this crime.

The Forum addressed key challenges in designing and implementing a system that ensures compliance in a cost-effective way.

Most international bribes are paid by large companies, usually with the knowledge of senior management, according to new OECD analysis of the cost of foreign bribery and corruption.

The international community should call time on all remaining holdouts who have yet to implement internationally agreed tax transparency standards, OECD Secretary General Angel Gurría said in a new report to the G20.

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.

Can both less income inequality and more growth be achieved? A recent OECD study sheds new light on the link between policies that boost growth and the distribution of income.

The report highlights strategies from other countries that could serve as a model for England as it develops its early childhood education and care programme.

More and more countries are having discussions about how to evaluate the quality of their teaching workforce and, subsequently, how to reward teachers for their work. The OECD’s newest series of briefs, Teaching in Focus, launches this month with a discussion of the appraisal and feedback teachers receive and the impact of both on their teaching.

More people than even before now reach a level of educational attainment equivalent to upper secondary education. The available evidence is very conclusive: this level of education can be considered a minimum level to ensure a job and a living wage.

Most of us think of education as the great leveller; but are our education systems really doing all they can to ensure that boys and girls from all backgrounds have an equal shot at a high-quality education? As this month’s PISA in Focus reports, some countries have been more successful than others in levelling the playing field for their students.

In many OECD countries, ECEC services have increased in response to a growing demand for better learning outcomes as well as growing female labour force participation. In recent years, however, the goals of ECEC policy have become more child-centred.

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.

The rapidly growing demand for highly skilled workers has led to a global competition for talent. High-level skills are critical for creating new knowledge and technologies and for sparking innovation; as such, they are key to economic growth and social development.

This Education Indicators in Focus No. 15 sets out the changing needs of a more diverse generation of university students.

Across OECD countries, 18% of students skipped classes at least once in the two weeks prior to the PISA test, and 15% of students skipped a day of school or more over the same period.

Many countries have implemented reforms to develop and support doctoral studies and postdoctoral research, stressing the crucial role of doctorate students and degree holders in terms of economic growth, innovation and scientific research.

Latin America’s GDP growth rate has slowed down in 2014, dropping below 1.5%. This is the first time in a decade that the region grows less than the OECD average, according to the OECD Development Centre, the Commission for Latin American and the Caribbean and the development bank for Latin America. Given the projections in the past weeks, any recovery in 2015 is likely to be challenging.

The quality of an education system today shapes the economic and social prosperity of the country tomorrow. Chile has embarked on wide-ranging reform to improve the quality and equity of its education system on several fronts, including early childhood education and care (ECEC), school funding, student selection, school governance, teacher career pathways, vocational education and training (VET) and tertiary education.

If there’s one word that encapsulates the desires and aspirations of education stakeholders around the world, it is improvement.

Between 2000 and 2012, the proportion of young adults (25-34 year-olds) with a tertiary qualification has grown by more than 3% per year on average in OECD countries. On average across 24 national and sub-national entities participating in the OECD Survey of Adult Skills, 39% of adults have achieved a higher level of education than their parents.