The review analyses key areas of public governance in Costa Rica and identifies opportunities to improve the performance of the state in order to ensure more effective and efficient service delivery for all citizens. It examines co-ordination at the centre of government, public policy monitoring and evaluation and the use of the budget framework for strategic planning. It also looks at human resource management, integrity policies and public procurement, and multi-level governance. The review provides recommendations to assist the government in strengthening the capacity of the public sector to support social and economic development.

As data become an important resource for the global economy, it is important to strengthen trust to facilitate data sharing domestically and across borders. Significant momentum for related policies in the G7, and G20, has gone hand in hand with a wide range of – often complementary – national and international initiatives and the development of technological and organisational measures. Advancing a common understanding and dialogue among G7 countries and beyond is crucial to support coordinated and coherent progress in policy and regulatory approaches that leverage the full potential of data for global economic and social prosperity. This report takes stock of key policies and initiatives on cross-border data flows to inform and support G7 countries’ engagement on this policy agenda.

This review introduces the background to and issues at stake in promoting equal partnerships in families in Germany.  It encourages German policy makers to build on the important reforms since the mid-2000s to enable both fathers and mothers to have careers and children, and urges families to “dare to share”. To those ends it places Germany’s experience in an international comparison, and draws from the experience in, for example, France and the Nordic countries which have longstanding policies to support work-life balance and strengthen gender equality. The review starts with an overview chapter also explaining why and how equal sharing pays for families, children, the economy and society as a whole. The book presents current outcomes, policy trends, as well as detailed analysis of the drivers of paid and unpaid work and how more equal partnerships in families may help sustain fertility rates.  The book examines policies to promote partnership, looking both at persistent shortcomings and progress achieved through reform since the mid-2000s. The book includes a set of policy recommendations designed to enable parents to share work and family responsibilities more equally.

The OECD’s New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) initiative invited experts from inside and outside the Organisation to discuss complexity theory as a means to better understand the interconnected nature of the trends and influences shaping our socio-economic environment. Their contributions, brought together here, examine the assumptions, strengths and shortcomings of traditional models, and propose a way to build new ones that would take into account factors such as psychology, history and culture neglected by these models. The authors concentrate on the discipline of economics as such; the financial system; and applications of complexity theory to policy making and governance. They argue that a new narrative is needed to integrate the hopes, values, attitudes and behaviours of people into economics along with the facts and data economists are more used to dealing with.

To capitalise on the new international resolve epitomised by COP21 and the agreement on the universal Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) requires a renewed effort to promote new policy thinking and new approaches to the great challenges ahead. Responding to new challenges means we have to adopt more ambitious frameworks, design more effective tools, and propose more precise policies that will take account of the complex and multidimensional nature of the challenges. The goal is to develop a better sense of how economies really work and to articulate strategies which reflect this understanding. The OECD’s New Approaches to Economic Challenges (NAEC) exercise challenges our assumptions and our understanding about the workings of the economy. This collection from OECD Insights summarises opinions from inside and outside the Organisation on how NAEC can contribute to achieving the SDGs, and describes how the OECD is placing its statistical, monitoring and analytical capacities at the service of the international community. The authors also consider the transformation of the world economy that will be needed and the long-term “tectonic shifts” that are affecting people, the planet, global productivity, and institutions.

In spite of progress made to date and the significant long-term ambition announced by many countries, climate policy actions remain insufficient to meet the Paris Agreement objectives. While several international initiatives aim to track and monitor climate policies, there is not yet a “go to” place for a comprehensive inventory of policy actions and best practices worldwide. Such a platform would also ideally serve to compare policies’ effectiveness reflecting the diversity of country circumstances. Progress in this direction would help to promote an ambitious but globally more coherent and better-coordinated approach to emission reductions through a broad range of policies. This report lays out a roadmap for data and analytical work to support this aim, with a view to enhancing global dialogue and building trust on issues spanning climate change mitigation policies and their macro-economic repercussions. Key elements to strengthen the assessment and comparison of countries’ climate change mitigation policies across countries include: broadening and deepening the stocktaking of mitigation policies; extending and agreeing on an operational methodology for estimating the impact of these policies on emissions and on potential metrics to compare them; and assessing the broader economic effects of different climate policies.

Since joining the OECD in 1996, Korea has made impressive progress in raising living standards. Over 1996-2016, the country closed the gross domestic product (GDP) per capita gap with the OECD average by 26 percentage points. Vibrant exports underpinned strong economic growth, with Korea becoming the eighth largest exporter in the world. The country’s focus on innovation (its R&D spending is the second highest in the OECD) combined with its highly skilled population (it is among the top performers in the OECD’s Programme of International Student Assessment) supported this success. However, the convergence of Korea’s living standards to those in the most advanced countries has stalled in recent years. Output growth has slowed from 4.4% annually over 2001-10 to 2.8% since 2011. The country faces strong competition from emerging economies, notably the People’s Republic of China in low- and medium-end markets, and with advanced economies in high-end markets. This makes it more difficult for Korea to further expand its global market share.

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2008. 

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups. It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually. It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2009. 

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2010. 

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2011.

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2012.

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2006. 

This directory provides official information on the mandates, dates of creation and durations of current mandates, composition of member countries and observers, and chairmanship of the OECD Council and its related committees, sub-committees, working groups, expert groups, and ad hoc groups.  It includes coverage of the International Energy Agency and the OECD Nuclear Energy Agency and is updated annually.  It is, in effect, a guide to country participation in the many activities of the OECD for the year 2007. 

Europe's single currency was launched a bit more than a year ago for eleven of the fifteen countries of the Union. This study assesses economic developments and policies during the inaugural year of the new regime. It analyses the economic performance and prospects of the euro area as a whole, and highlights to what extent aggregate trends are shaped by convergence or divergence at national or regional levels. Macroeconomic policies are discussed in depth. The common monetary policy carried out by the Eurosystem and the underlying framework are scrutinised, as is the co-ordination of national fiscal policies against the background of the Stability and Growth Pact. A special chapter is devoted to the links between structural features and policies on the one hand and macroeconomic performance on the other. It argues that broad-based and properly designed structural reforms would boost Europe's economic potential significantly and ease macroeconomic policy trade-offs. A number of highly topical issues are addressed, such as: - How fast is growth picking up and unemployment declining in the euro area? - Why did the euro weaken in 1999 and does it matter? - How effectively was monetary policy conducted? - What degree of fiscal prudence is needed over the next few years? - Which rigidities continue to stunt growth in Europe? This is the second OECD study on EMU, following the one published in early 1999 under the title EMU: Facts, Challenges and Policies.

The launch of the euro reinforces the foundations for unprecedented economic integration encompassing 11 countries, 16 per cent of world GDP and 290 million people. For the first time, the OECD has studied the euro-area as a fully-fledged economic entity and has analysed the intensive preparations that led to the single currency, as well as the economic issues raised by its introduction. Despite the macroeconomic convergence already achieved and the institutional framework that has been established, the fact is that many uncertainties remain. An approach to co-ordinating monetary and budgetary policies that is up to the issues at stake has still to be fully defined. And the euro area's ability to absorb economic shocks must be assessed and strengthened. In this respect it is vital for labour markets to become more flexible and adaptable if they are to compensate for the loss of national monetary autonomy which EMU implies and if adjustment is not to be at the expense of jobs. A special chapter discusses the obstacles to geographic labour mobility and the rigidity of wage setting mechanisms. These are some of the challenges that must be faced in the years to come, and this study discusses them in the light of the most penetrating and informative analysis today’s economists can provide. It does not prescribe set remedies, but drawing on analyses and figures never published before, attempts to identify the best policies for ensuring the success of the monetary union. This is a complex study that takes a hard look at the issues and will be of great interest to anyone wishing to understand the economic mechanisms at work.