In view of the growing congestion of inland transport infrastructure, both road and rail, short sea shipping clearly warrants consideration as a valuable alternative. It is, in fact, a branch of transport activity that has attracted little attention, so its potential is still to be assessed....

Vocational education and training (VET) is an important part of education systems around the world. VET systems differ widely between countries in how programmes are designed and delivered. Moreover, countries differ in terms of the types of providers that deliver VET. This report looks at the...

This STI Working Paper deals with this group of rapidly expanding firms. It does so by placing the discussion into a context of entrepreneurship, arguing that there are two main aspects to this notion: one of business start-ups and market entry, and another one of innovation. Evidence is based...

This study examines the dynamics of poverty for four OECD countries (Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States). It provides information on patterns of poverty, which groups stay in poverty the longest, and household/individual characteristics and life-course events which appear...

This paper analyses the postponement of first births of the 1990s compared to the 1980s, using panel data from four countries, namely, Germany (GSOEP), Great Britain (BHPS), the Netherlands (OSA) and Sweden (HUS). We find substantial postponement of maternity in all four countries for all...

There is growing interest in improving the performance of health systems in OECD countries. Many countries are developing initiatives to measure performance to guide and inform the improvement process. Indeed, measurement and improvement are increasingly linked, as is indicated by familiar...

This report focuses on demand for renewable energy and energy efficiency. It presents the results of follow-up of econometric analysis of the 2011 OECD Survey on Environmental Policy and Individual Behaviour Change (EPIC). The report complements the overview of the survey data provided in the...

The report links the results from the OECD PISA 2000 survey to qualitative evidence on important public policy measures in six countries that performed well in PISA. These measures included strategies for educational reform and innovation; issues of governance and resource allocation; national...

The OECD has undertaken a comparison of the resources of older people in nine OECD countries – Canada, Finland, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States – and has examined how the incomes of older people are influenced, directly and indirectly,...

This paper contains a first analysis of trends in private social benefits within a comparative framework. There is growing interest in the role of the private sector in the provision of social support in the light of concerns about the high level of public social spending. However, up to now,...