In most OECD countries tax revenues are continuing to rise in relation to GDP from the 2008-09 declines seen at the beginning of the crisis, according to OECD’s annual Revenue Statistics. OECD countries collected about 34.0% of GDP in taxes in 2011, compared with 33.8% in 2010.

G20 Finance Ministers have welcomed a new OECD/G20 framework designed to help governments develop financial strategies for disaster risk management.

A complement to the OECD insurance database, this report monitors and analyses the insurance industry’s overall performance and health in OECD countries and Hong Kong (China), India, Malaysia, Russia, Singapore, South Africa and Thailand.

This report advances a “green investment policy framework” taking infrastructure investment as a starting point and looking only at climate change mitigation and adaptation. It highlights the significant opportunities and many challenges that exist today in both developed and developing countries to transition to low-carbon, climate-resilient (LCR) development through investment in both renovated and in new infrastructure.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría opens the Global Forum on Better Governance for Inclusive Growth held in Paris. The Forum will focus on public sector reforms worldwide and identify lessons learned, good practices and innovative solutions for advancing the governance reforms necessary to foster inclusive growth.

OECD countries are intensifying their fiscal consolidation efforts, introducing additional measures and extending the time horizon to implement them. Most have announced fiscal consolidation of more than 3% of GDP over the period 2009-15, according to the OECD’s Restoring Public Finances 2012.

This report concludes that actual application of bail-ins, involving bondholders in loss sharing, could effectively reign in perceptions of implicit guarantees for bank debt. However, bail-ins are rare owing to concerns about contagion risks and depositor and investor protection, so implicit guarantees persist.

This paper addresses several broad issues for governments aiming to encourage private sector investment in low-carbon climate resilient (LCR) infrastructure, in both developed and developing world contexts.

Big changes are needed to strengthen the capital positions of euro area banks. European banks remain at the heart of the euro area crisis. Despite actions to strengthen banks and build a banking union, confidence in the euro area banking system remains weak, and is likely to remain so until underlying concerns over low capitalisation of some banks are addressed.

This conference in Nairobi, Kenya, addressed specific issues relating to financial literacy in Africa and the MENA region. It presented the output of the Russia/OECD/World Bank Trust Fund on Financial Literacy and Education.

The gross borrowing needs of OECD governments are projected to increase slightly to around USD 10.9 trillion in 2013, up from the already high level of USD 10.8 trillion in 2012, according to a new OECD report.

This conference, taking place on 4-5 March 2013 in New Delhi, India, addressed specific issues relating to financial literacy in India and the Asia region. It presented the output of the Russia/OECD/World Bank Trust Fund on Financial Literacy and Education.

London, UK. Discussions at this event focused on how to make Defined Contribution pensions work better for members, designing Defined Ambition pension plans, guarantees v. risk sharing pension deals and pensions communication and individual behaviour.

This article summarises discussions from a financial roundtable addressing concerns about structural flaws in the way banks operate and are being regulated and supervised in the wake of on-going banking sector problems involving financial fraud and banking scandals.

The management of operational risk is at the heart of efficient government, but countries often fail to apply good or even routine operational risk management practices and have difficulty in understanding how to put the processes in place. This paper sets out a widely-applicable and relevant policy approach and management framework and illustrates its practical application in Turkey.

The OECD provides an update on global economy in this statement to the International Monetary and Financial Committee - April 2013.

This statement by Adrian Blundell-Wignall and Paul Atkinson was presented to the German Bundestag's Finance Committee Hearing on the Draft Bank-Separation Law (Drucksache 17/12601) on 22 April 2013.

Governments are major issuers of debt instruments in the global financial market. This volume provides quantitative information on central government debt instruments for the 34 OECD countries.

The paper argues that interest rates are at extremely low levels to support banks, and the search for yield has pushed the liquidity driven speculative bubble from real estate, derivatives and structured products markets into the corporate debt market. Equities have rallied strongly too. This asset cycle is certainly helping banks reduce hidden losses on illiquid securities and could also help reduce the cost of equity.

Co-organised by the G20 Russian Presidency and the OECD, this roundtable focused on policy measures to address constraints in long-term investment. It was organised back-to-back with the 2013 OECD Forum and the OECD-Euromoney Infrastructure Summit.

This conference in Moscow explored strategies for developing financial literacy and capability and building effective consumer protection systems.

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.

At a time when many governments are looking to encourage private investment in infrastructure to bridge the infrastructure financing gap, this paper compares the experience of pension funds in Canada and Australia, looking at infrastructure policies, the pension system, investment strategies, asset allocation and governance of pension funds.

Sovereign index-linked bond issuance has grown significantly since the early 1980s and index-linked bonds have become a widely accepted part of the set of instruments that sovereign debt managers use for funding purposes. This paper sets out a methodology for assessing their cost effectiveness relative to other financing options, using UK examples for illustration.

Both women and men need to be sufficiently financially literate to effectively participate in economic activities and to take appropriate financial decisions for themselves and their families, but women often have less financial knowledge and lower access to formal financial products than men. Women therefore have specific and additional financial literacy needs.

This regional seminar in Montevideo, Uruguay, focused on the monitoring and transparency of insurance markets in Latin America through the provision of sound insurance statistics and indicators, regionally and globally.

Jointly developed by the IMF, World Bank, EBRD, and the OECD, this report analyses the main elements necessary to deepen domestic bond markets in emerging and developing economies.

This book addresses gender differences in financial literacy and reviews policy responses and initiatives across the world to tackle women’s and girls’ needs, drawing lessons from existing experiences.

This paper examines how institutional investors can access green infrastructure, the extent to which this is currently happening, and the barriers to scaling up these investment flows. Based on four case studies, broader lessons are drawn for governments on the policy settings which may support investment in green infrastructure by institutional investors.

After showing an average negative rate of return on investment across the OECD zone in 2011, pension fund assets achieved high returns in almost all OECD countries in 2012, with a real return greater than 5% in 18 countries, according to the latest edition of Pension Markets in Focus.

The 2013 Global Forum focused on a number of critical policy, regulatory and supervisory issues affecting private and public pension provision in the Asia region.

This statistical yearbook provides quantitative information on African central government debt instruments. It includes individual country data but also comparative statistics to facilitate pan-African (cross-country) analysis.

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.

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.

The 2013 Forum was held on 5-6 December and discussed how governments can improve their investment policy framework to reduce the risk and attract long-term private finance in support of green growth.

Discussions at this event focused on enhancing transparency in public debt management, the impact of tapering and exit on public debt management, and the role of DMOs in centralised or integrated risk management.

This event, co-organised by the OECD and the Korean authorities, explored policies and good practices for supporting long-term savings and investments through financial education and financial consumer protection.

This article presents a brief overview of current financing difficulties for SMEs and policy measures to support SME lending during the crisis, and presents a literature review related to difficulties in SME’s access to finance during the crisis, against a background of a sharp decline in bank profitability and an erosion of bank capital that negatively affected lending.

This article provides a framework for analysing the character and degree of ownership engagement by institutional investors. There are large differences in ownership engagement between different categories of institutional investors. There are also differences in ownership engagement within the same category of institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment funds, etc.

Held in Amsterdam on 7 April 2014, this workshop focused on: long-term pension investment strategies under risk-based regulation; riskiness and pro-cyclicality in pension asset allocation; and, regulatory challenges for long-term illiquid assets.

Organised in Istanbul, this event focused on financial education across Europe and in Turkey, the role(s) of the private and not-for-profit sectors in financial education, financial literacy and innovation for young people and financial education for migrant workers and their families.

This brochure provides information about the OECD Project on Institutional Investors and Long-term Investment. It covers the first two years of activity following the launch of the project in February 2012. This project aims to facilitate long-term investment by institutional investors such as pension funds, insurance companies, and sovereign wealth funds, addressing both potential regulatory obstacles and market failures.

Singapore, 4 June 2014: This roundtable focused on how policymakers and investors can facilitate private sector infrastructure financing, as well as issues related to governance for institutional investors and the accounting treatment for long-term investment.

The financial crisis has led to a widespread loss of trust in financial intermediaries of all kinds, perhaps helping to open the way towards the general acceptance of alternative technologies. This paper briefly summarises the crypto-currency phenomenon, separating the ‘currency’ issues from the potential technology benefits.

This report describes the key findings from responses by 35 countries to a survey on implicit guarantees. Policy makers have announced their intention to rein in the values of implicit guarantees so it is important to measure their value to help facilitate the task of assessing progress in reducing their value.

The results of the first international assessment of 15-year-old students’ financial literacy competencies were presented in Paris on 9 July 2014.

This blog post by Adrian Blundell-Wignall builds on a working paper he published earlier this year titled "The Bitcoin Question: Currency versus Trust-less Transfer Technology".

This blog post by Sony Kapoor, Managing Director, Re-Define International Think Tank, gives his view on why the OECD – which uniquely houses financial, development, infrastructure and environmental expertise under one roof – must take charge of promoting long-term investment in developing country infrastructure.

As the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) approach their expiry date, we must focus our efforts on ensuring a brighter, more inclusive and sustainable future for all. We face a plethora of common issues: growing inequalities; changing consumption patterns and population dynamics; increasing natural resource scarcity; and ongoing illicit financial flows.

2-3 October 2014, Swakopmund, Namibia: This event focused on the pension reform process in Africa, tax and the financial incentives that affect savings in complementary private pensions, and the role of pension funds in long-term investment financing and capital market development.