As part of continuing efforts to support market confidence and business integrity, the OECD has launched in Asia a new set of corporate governance principles that were endorsed at the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in September 2015.

28 April 2016, Paris - OECD, IOPS and the World Bank are joining forces to expand the reach of the OECD’s Global Pension Statistics database and annual Pensions Markets in Focus report. This collaboration with the World Bank will help bring data from emerging and developing economies that are not currently included in the database.

Funded Pension arrangements, in particular defined contribution ones, are playing a growing role in complementing retirement income from public sources in OECD countries and worldwide. However, their design needs to be improved, according to a new OECD report.

Denmark’s green growth strategy focuses on moving the energy system away from fossil fuels and investing in green technologies, while limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

Indonesia has improved its macro-economic and structural policies over the last 15 years. Its economy, with strong and stable growth rates of 5–6.6%, is catching up with other countries in the region and allowing Indonesia to focus on its development agenda.

This workshop will convene leading experts from health and finance backgrounds in government, academia, and international organisations to take stock of progress in health expenditure forecasting and to discuss future directions, in light of policy needs and recent advancements in techniques, detailed data and computing power.

Global economic activity is picking up, but the continuing crisis in the euro area is delaying a meaningful recovery, the OECD said in its latest Interim Economic Assessment.

The unemployment rate among young people has reached painfully high levels, in particular among those young people with low levels of education.

The economic situation of young people is unsatisfactory. Educational inequalities have been widening for over a decade, due to a sharp decline in the results of the most highly disadvantaged students. The unemployment rate for the 20-24 age bracket has not dropped below 16% for nearly 30 years.

South Africa has achieved remarkable progress in educational attainment relative to other emerging countries, but the quality of basic education for a large fraction of the Black African population is still very low.

The NZ labour market is among the most flexible in the OECD, and outcomes for its young people have been among the best. However, labour-market opportunities are heavily determined by initial education, where New Zealand’s system is also successful and innovative in many ways.

Israel’s economy is in good shape, but further efforts are needed to fight poverty and close the gap in living standards with other leading nations, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Survey of Israel.

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.

Inequality – now at its highest level in decades in many countries – undermines economic growth and well-being, says a new OECD report. But policies to tackle the widening gap between rich and poor will only succeed if they also look beyond income and address better access to high-quality education, health care and public infrastructure, it adds.

Smarter planning for natural and man-made disasters that increases collaboration between countries and encourages households and businesses to take more responsibility would improve resilience and reduce future economic losses, a new OECD report says.

Life is quite good in the United States compared to other OECD countries, thanks to strong economic growth and technological progress having lifted average income to high levels. Nonetheless, there is evidence that the benefits from growth have not been sufficiently broad based.

With India’s low life expectancy largely reflecting deaths from preventable diseases, the most significant gains in health would come from population-wide preventive measures.

Russia faces very large challenges in modernising its large transport system. Promoting competition in the transport sector is essential, in particular by effectively opening the railway freight market to independent operators.

Improving the labour market performance of immigrants requires a two-fold strategy. First, policies specific to migrants need to be enhanced. Second, general reforms to improve the functioning of the economy, desirable in any case, could also have a significant positive impact on immigrants.

Global growth will gradually strengthen towards its pre-crisis trend rate by late 2016 as activity becomes more evenly shared across the major economies and overall external imbalances are less marked than in the run-up to 2007, according to the OECD’s latest Economic Outlook.

The United Kingdom (UK) has spent less on infrastructure compared to other OECD countries over the past three decades. The perceived quality of UK infrastructure assets is close to the OECD average but lower than in other G7 countries.

A long period of economic expansion in Chile has raised living standards and dramatically reduced poverty, but more needs to be done now to ensure that the country is in a position to move to a stronger, more inclusive and sustainable growth path, according to the latest OECD Economic Survey of Chile.

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

Improving local infrastructure investments in Poland

Over the last decade, Poland has significantly upgraded its infrastructure network, and public investment has risen rapidly. However, bottlenecks still weigh on productivity growth and environmental and health outcomes, and the perceived quality of transport and energy infrastructure remains lower than in most OECD countries.

Improving opportunities for women in the United States

Turkey’s manufacturing sector has expanded considerably but not efficiently and competitively enough.

Turkey’s manufacturing sector has expanded considerably but not efficiently and competitively enough.

The government has put a heavy emphasis on improving the business climate, thereby promoting a competitive, innovative and dynamic private business sector.

Portugal’s economy has successfully recovered from the strong recession that lasted until 2014. Nonetheless, the economy’s still low investment, which has declined far more than in other Euro area countries, remains a source of concern.

Despite improvements over the past few decades, Slovak health outcomes remains poor compared with most other OECD countries, even after controlling for differences in per capita income and other social, cultural and lifestyle factors.

Economic growth is strengthening in France, supported by consumption and investment, and the labour market is gradually recovering, as past reductions of comparatively high labour and business taxes are starting to take effect. However, GDP and employment growth are still lagging relative to the euro-area average.

New Zealand ranks highly on most indicators of well-being, but incomes are below the OECD average due to low labour productivity.

While overall poverty is relatively low in France, it can be highly concentrated at the neighbourhood level.

France’s health-care system offers high-quality care. Average health outcomes are good, public satisfaction with the health-care system is high, and average household out-of-pocket expenditures are low.

More than a quarter of adults in the United Kingdom have low basic skills, which has a negative impact on career prospects, job quality and productivity growth.

Norway makes substantial public investment in transport and this has intensified in recent years. There is potentially large economic benefit from such investment, particularly as good transport infrastructure can help Norway’s transition away from oil-related activities.

The Irish economy is booming and is expected to continue expanding at healthy rates over the next few years.

Greece’s recovery from deep economic depression is finally gaining traction, according to the OECD. Economic growth has started to pick up led by a rise in exports while labour market reforms have improved competitiveness and are helping to create jobs.

As discussed in the latest OECD Economic Outlook, the prolonged undershooting of inflation targets, despite massive monetary policy stimulus and stronger economic growth and lower unemployment, raises issues about the appropriateness of current inflation targeting frameworks in advanced economies. While the frameworks differ in detail and implementation, they are principally based on medium-term inflation objectives of 2%.

Turkey’s business sector exhibits one of the highest investment rates among OECD countries.

Canada is one of the OECD economies delivering the best outcomes for its citizens, especially in regards to self-reported well-being, personal security and health status. Canada is also undertaking several programmes to foster inclusive growth – with respect to childcare benefits, gender equality and social housing.

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.

In Latin American and Caribbean countries the population is growing faster than the world average, intensifying land use and increasing urbanisation. The region is also prone to the negative impact of climate change and natural disasters, putting further pressure on natural resources.

OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría today welcomed Brazil’s further engagement with the Organisation’s world-leading global education assessment programme (PISA) during a signing ceremony in Brasilia with Brazil’s Minister for Education Aloízio Mercadante.

Brazil’s strong economic growth has helped cut the youth unemployment rate over the past decade to levels below those of most OECD countries. Increased investment in education and vocational training is also helping young people get a foot in the jobs market, according to a new OECD report.

Brazil has made significant progress in building a reputation for sound fiscal policy since it passed the Fiscal Responsibility Law in 2000. In recent years, however, the fiscal situation has become more difficult as public spending and gross debt have risen.

This Guide provides concrete recommendations of high impact reforms to simplify the processes of business start ups, construction permits, property registration, procurement, and to upgrade regulatory transparency and efficiency in the management of formalities in Mexico.

Indonesia has improved its macro-economic and structural policies over the last 15 years. Its economy, with strong and stable growth rates of 5–6.6%, is catching up with other countries in the region and allowing Indonesia to focus on its development agenda.

Indonesia has come a long way in improving its tax system over the last decade, both in terms of revenues raised and administrative efficiency. Nonetheless, the tax take is still low, given the need for more spending on infrastructure and social protection.