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.

A fronte di una spesa sanitaria inferiore alla media, l’Italia ha la quarta più alta aspettativa di vita fra i paesi OCSE, 83 anni alla nascita. Meno del 6% delle persone valuta la propria salute “non buona”, rispetto a una media OCSE dell’8,7%. Gli italiani hanno generalmente stili di vita sani. Il consumo di alcol è basso. Anche la percentuale di adulti in sovrappeso o obesi è relativamente bassa.

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.

The Secretary-General of the OECD, Mr. Angel Gurría, will be in Rome on Friday 31 January 2020 to present the OECD Review of Italian Capital Markets “Creating Growth Opportunities for Italian Companies and Savers”.

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.

Italy - Country Health Profiles 2019: Launch presentation. The Country Health Profiles provide a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and health systems in the EU/European Economic area, emphasizing the particular characteristics and challenges in each country against a backdrop of cross-country comparisons.

This note presents selected findings based on the set of well-being indicators published in How's Life? 2020.

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.

Strengthening Cybersecurity is becoming “the new comparative advantage”, as companies and customers move to countries with safer and more reliable cyber-frameworks, said Angel Gurría, OECD Secretary-General.

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.

This report discusses the main areas in which national strategies to expand broadband networks affect universal service objectives, proposes criteria to rethink the terms of universal service policies, and shares the latest developments across a selected group of OECD countries.

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.

The OECD has launched an online portal to give consumers, businesses and governments quick and easy access to the latest information on products recalled from the market in Australia, Canada, Europe and the United States.

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.

The 2012 Technology Foresight Forum will focus on the potential of big data analytics as a new source of growth, which could help generate significant economic and social benefits

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.

Viewers are watching a growing share of video via Internet-based distribution systems. New digital content distribution services are having appreciable impacts on established media industries and network service providers in many OECD countries. This paper argues that convergence should be taken as the rule, rather than the exception. Careful application of best practices can address most policy concerns.

This report provides an overview of existing data and statistics in the fields of information security, privacy and the protection of children online. It highlights the potential for the development of better indicators in these respective fields showing in particular that there is an underexploited wealth of empirical data that, if mined and made comparable, will enrich the current evidence base for policy making.

While consumer demand for digital goods has increased rapidly in recent years, a range of challenges undermine confidence in the market and require policy attention.

This report takes an initial look at methodologies to measure and estimate the monetary value of personal data, which is creating economic and social value at an increasing pace. But measuring and estimating its value is difficult. This is because not only a huge amount of personal data is being generated, but also as it is used in many different situations and for numerous purposes.

This report explores the potential role of data and data analytics for the creation of significant competitive advantage and the formation of knowledge-based capital. Five sectors are discussed as areas in which the use of data can stimulate innovation and productivity growth: online advertisement, health care, utilities, logistics and transport, and public administration.

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.

OECD countries must ensure mobile markets remain open and competitive in order to sustain innovation and meet rising demand for data services, according to a new OECD report.

The work of the expert group played an essential role in a process which concluded in July 2013 with the adoption by the OECD Council of the first revisions to the OECD Privacy Guidelines since their original release in 1980. This document identifies a number of issues that were raised but not fully addressed as part of the review process and which could be considered as candidates for possible future study.

In OECD countries, networks look like a mesh with multiple paths that can act as each other’s backup. In developing countries, however, communication networks often resemble rivers, with small branches of regional networks delivering their traffic to a central national backbone that ends at one submarine fibre, making cable cuts a greater risk to the functioning of the economy.

This report considers the transition from IPv4 to IPv6 alongside the use of network technologies to prolong IPv4 use in the face of depletion of further IPv4 protocol addresses.

This guidance addresses a number of key issues in the emerging mobile and online payment area, including the need to establish minimum levels of consumer protection across payment mechanisms, enhanced privacy and child protection, and standards for transparent and accessible information disclosures.

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.

Many devices using small batteries have battery compartments that are easy to open and most people do not know there are safety concerns. Consumers worldwide need to be aware of the serious injuries that small batteries shaped like coins and buttons can cause when swallowed by children.

Cloud computing has become a platform for innovation. This paper looks at how the cloud changes the way computing is carried out, and evaluates the benefits, challenges and economic and environmental impacts. It discusses the policy issues raised and the role of governments and other stakeholders in addressing them.

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.

This report examines what economic theory can teach us about the reasons why the adoption of this latest Internet protocol is taking longer than was thought at its introduction.

The Internet of things, also known as the Internet of everything or the industrial internet, is a term applied to the next 50 billion machines and devices that will go online in the coming two decades. All stakeholders will have to evaluate whether their policies and practices enable or inhibit the ability of economies and societies to seize the benefits.

This working paper describes the potential of the proliferation of new sources of large volumes of data, sometimes also referred to as "big data", for informing policy making in several areas. It also outlines the challenges that the proliferation of data raises for the production of official statistics and for statistical policies.

The report notes that industry self-regulation (ISR) can play an important role in addressing consumer issues, particularly when business codes of conduct and standards are involved. It draws on 23 case studies covering notably advertising, financial services, telecommunications, video games and software applications (apps), toys, and direct selling.

On the occasion of the Global Conference on Cyberspace meeting today in The Hague, the Global Commission on Internet Governance (GCIG) issued a statement calling on ‘the global community to build a new social compact between citizens and their elected representatives, the judiciary, law enforcement and intelligence agencies, business, civil society and the Internet technical community..

Countries are making increased efforts to develop their digital economies in a way that will maximise social and economic benefits, but now need to address the risk of disruption in areas like privacy and jobs, according to a new OECD report.

New sources of growth- Phase 2, Knowledge-based capital

The UK’s tallest mountain is Ben Nevis in Scotland. Recently, it became one metre taller, standing now at 1 345m rather than 1 344m above sea level. Of course, the mountain did not actually grow. Rather, the team of Ordnance Survey experts who re-measured it for the first time since 1949 were able to do so more accurately because of improvements in technology, and specifically through the use of GPS.

Code is the next universal language. In the 1970s punk rock drove a whole generation. In the 1980s it was probably money. For my generation, the interface to our imagination and to our world is software. This is why we need to get a more diverse set of people to see computers not as boring, mechanical and lonely things, but as something they can poke, tinker with and turn around.

The world has seen more than one industrial revolution and another one is already upon us. We should face it as optimists.

The digital economy is here, and growing every day, sometimes in surprising ways. As ministers gather for major meetings in Paris and Cancun, government leaders should be in no doubt about the key role they must play in securing the digital economy’s future as a driver of productive and inclusive progress.

We are so used to all things digital that we can sometimes lose sight of just how enormous the phenomenon has become, and how disruptive it can be.