This paper takes a fresh look at the nature of financial and real business cycles in OECD countries using annual data series and shorter quarterly and monthly economic indicators. It first analyses the main characteristics of the cycle, including the length, amplitude, asymmetry and changes of...

This paper provides a new measure of human capital using PISA and PIAAC surveys, and mean years of schooling. The new measure is a cohort-weighted average of past PISA scores (representing the quality of education) of the working age population and the corresponding mean years of schooling...

Resolving stark differences between rich and poor countries in vaccine coverage against COVID is a global policy priority for 2022. However, even among OECD countries, there currently remain surprisingly large differences in vaccine coverage and this paper attempts to explain these differences,...

As countries implement stricter environmental policies, the need for tools to compare countries’ environmental policy stringency is becoming more pressing. The OECD Environmental Policy Stringency (EPS) index has become a widely used tool for policy analysis since its creation in 2014. This...

This paper examines the recent literature on economic growth with a focus on policy issues and evidence relevant to OECD countries. The review begins with an overview of developments in the theory of economic growth and also comments generally on the nature of evidence exploring the influences...

This paper examines the characteristics of downturns and subsequent recoveries following past banking crises in OECD countries as well as evidence of any effects on potential output growth. It is differentiated from previous analyses because it makes use of OECD measures of the output gap and...

In recent years the behaviour of the income velocity of money in major OECD economies has displayed considerable volatility for both narrow and broad monetary aggregates (Table 1). Velocity in a number of large OECD economies, for example, fell sharply in 1982. Most notably, declines in the...

This paper analyses the reaction of fiscal policy to the cycle in OECD countries. The results suggest that while overall government balances were counter-cyclical in the past and more so in economic downturns than in upswings, discretionary fiscal policy was neutral on average. However,...

This paper presents a new system for the consistent determination of import and export prices of manufactured products for use in the world trade block of the OECD INTERLINK model. It uses a system design which directly couples the bilateral determinants of export prices with the bilateral...

National saving ratios are generally lower now than in the 1960s or 1970s. This paper first reviews developments in national and international saving and investment trends in OECD countries since the 1960s. It then examines sectoral saving trends and considers the links between them. There are...