Taxes and other fiscal measures on health-related commodities are in widespread use. Alcoholic beverages and tobacco products have been subjected to taxation for a long time in most countries. Several OECD governments have passed legislation to increase existing taxes or to introduce new taxes...

This Working Paper examines income-related inequalities in health care service utilisation in OECD countries. It extends a previous analysis (Van Doorslaer and Masseria, 2004) to 2008-2009 for 13 countries, and adds new results for 6 countries, for doctor and dentist visits, and cancer...

This paper investigates the role of policies and institutions for aggregate labour market dynamics during the global financial crisis using firm-level data. The use of firm-level data is important if firms are heterogeneous in their labour input adjustment technologies. In this case,...

This paper analyses the impact of unemployment insurance and severance pay on the duration of nonemployment and transitions from non-employment to formal salaried employment, informal salaried employment and self-employment. It makes use of panel data from the Pesquisa Mensal de Emgrego, a...

This study assesses the potential of the concept of “mortality amenable to health care” as an indicator of outcome for health care systems. It presents estimates of the mortality amenable to health care in 31 OECD countries for the period 1997-2007. It measures the sensitivity of this...

Alcohol policies have significant potential to curb alcohol-related harms, improve health, increase productivity, reduce crime and violence, and cut government expenditure. The WHO Global Strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol provides a menu of policy options based on international...

Harmful alcohol consumption is one of the leading causes of ill health and premature mortality worldwide. This paper illustrates trends and social disparities in alcohol consumption and harmful drinking in 20 OECD countries. Analyses are based on individual-level data from national health and...

There has been a strong interest in short-time work (STW) schemes during the global financial crisis. Using data for 23 OECD countries for the period 2004 Q1 to 2010 Q4, this paper analyses the quantitative effects of STW programmes on labour market outcomes by exploiting the country and time...

This paper analyses the impact of employment protection (EP) on the composition of the workforce and worker turnover using a unique firm-level dataset for Italy. The impact of employment protection is analysed by means of a regression discontinuity design (RDD) that exploits the variation in EP...

This report tries to explain observed changes in fertility rates across OECD countries, with an emphasis on socio-economic considerations. It aims to extend the understanding of fertility-related behaviours in different ways: first, by explaining recent developments in fertility rates and their...