This paper examines the main determinants of the decision to retire from the labour market in OECD countries, and in particular the role of social security systems in driving down the labour-force participation rate of older people in recent decades. It demonstrates that old-age pension systems...

Le présent document porte sur divers aspects de l’équité et de l’efficience qui sont liés à l’acquisition de qualifications par les jeunes et les adultes relativement âgés. L’analyse donne à penser que ce type d’investissement dans le capital humain procure aux personnes...

This article examines various efficiency and equity aspects related to the skill acquisition of young people and older adults. The analysis suggests that human capital investment is associated with significant labour-market gains for individuals, including higher post-tax earnings and better...

This paper reviews the role of house prices in influencing private consumption and residential investment in OECD countries. Deregulation of the mortgage markets in most OECD countries since the 1970s has made it easier for households to borrow for current consumption on the basis of their...

This paper summarises key points of the recent extensive discussion of the factors behind the volatility of cross-border capital flows in emerging market countries and possible corrective measures. The root cause of the recent volatility of capital flows seems to have been excessive credit and...

This paper examines various efficiency and equity aspects related to the skill acquisition of young people and older adults. The analysis suggests that such human capital investment is associated with significant labour-market gains for individuals, including higher post-tax earnings and better...

This paper examines the hypothesis that commodity price trends are useful indicators of OECD price developments. After a discussion of statistical techniques to assess the time series properties of individual price indices, integration and cointegration tests are conducted on a wide set of...

More than a decade has passed since the introduction of comprehensive macroeconomic stabilization packages and trade, fiscal, and financial market reforms in Latin America and the Caribbean. However, growth prospects remain disappointing; labor markets show lackluster performance, with low...

The OECD labor market has undergone major changes over the past two decades. The most evident of these changes is the rise in the number of job-seekers. In 1997, there were more than 35 million people unemployed in the OECD area as a whole, some 6 million more than in the mid-1980s and almost 25...