Statistics have always been at the heart of OECD work. Since its creation 50 years ago, the Organisation has been providing statistics to assess and benchmark the performance of its member countries. It has also been continuously pushing forward the frontiers of statistical knowledge by developing new tools to measure the economic and social challenges of the day. Over the past 50 years, the OECD has produced reliable, comparable, timely and respected statistics that lay the foundations of the policy advice provided by the Organisation to its member countries and to countries in the rest of the world. The compilation and dissemination of such statistics has brought the OECD to the forefront of international statistical providers and intrinsically linked its name with that of a trustworthy producer of statistics.

Population growth is measured as the difference between births, deaths and net migration. During the last 50 years population growth in the OECD area has fallen to almost zero in 2011. The world population has more than doubled over the past 50 years. Projections for the next four decades show that world population will exceed 9 billion people in the 2040s while the population for the OECD total (if the OECD remains at 34 members) will reach 1.4 billion, i.e. around 15% of the world total.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) combines in a single figure the value added created by economic actors in a given economy (i.e. firms, non-profit institutions, government bodies and households) during a given period. Since its official establishment in 1961, the OECD has recorded the effects of diverse economic and financial shocks (for example due to wars, oil price movements, financial crises, etc.) on the evolution of GDP for OECD countries over these last 50 years.

Trade, defined as the transfer of goods and services across countries, represents a fundamental component of economic activity and is an indicator of globalisation. The progressive reduction of trade barriers over the past decades has boosted international trade and encouraged economic integration (e.g. in the European Union). In most OECD countries, international trade in goods and services, calculated as a share of GDP, expanded between the 1970s and the 2000s.

Inflation represents the increase of the price level of goods and services over a certain period of time. In order to measure inflation for a basket of goods and services, a range of different price indices exist such as consumer price indices (CPI), producer price indices (PPI) and GDP deflators. The OECD has long contributed to the harmonised measurement of price statistics by providing a platform where countries have been able to share views and best practices on price measures.

Labour is one of the most important aspects influencing our daily lives and well-being. Indeed, people spend a large part of their lives at work, with earnings representing the main source of their sustenance and the workplace also being a site where individuals socially interact.

In the last 50 years, OECD countries have transformed their views on educational outcomes, moving past the simplistic “more is better” approach to one that takes into account the quality of the competencies that the students acquire during their education. Since its inception, the OECD has emphasised the role of education and human capital in helping to drive both economic and social development. This focus has seen the pool of human capital expand and develop significantly in OECD countries since 1961.