The paper examines the effects of demographic changes on government budgets and national savings. Most OECD countries will experience a rapid ageing of the population in the future and this development will put public pensions, health care systems and government budgets in general under...

Key indicators show Germany belonging to the countries in the OECD with strong innovation activity even though some weakening in Germany’s position relative to other OECD countries has occurred recently. While the redirection of resources towards unification-related spending as well as low...

Crude oil prices have trended up since the end of the 1990s, peaking at a historic high in mid-2008 that was followed by a steep price correction with a subsequent rebound. This paper considers major forces behind the evolution of the oil price, using a simple model of supply and demand...

Fiscal consolidation is required in most OECD countries. This is especially so in view of mediumand long-term spending pressures on public finances, related, inter alia, to ageing. Based on a dataset covering a large number of OECD fiscal consolidation episodes starting in the late 1970s, the...

This paper presents simulations of the impact of age-related public expenditures on overall government budget positions and on national savings for 20 countries. Using demographic projections prepared by the World Bank, models have been constructed for the evolution of public pension...

In several OECD countries, ongoing fiscal consolidation might have a negative impact on the static income distribution. However, this conclusion should be treated only as an approximate first step in the analysis. A full assessment of distributional effects of consolidation packages would need...

The management of government debt and assets has important implications for fiscal positions. Debt managers aim to secure non-interrupted funding at lowest medium-term costs subject to risks. Massive crisis-related increases in government debt in most OECD countries and increased risks on the...

Eckhard Wurzel, OECD, sieht im starken Rückgang der Bevölkerung im erwerbsfähigen Alter, in den Verschiebungen in der Altersstruktur und in den sich verstärkenden regionalen Ungleichgewichten der Bevölkerungsentwicklung eine neue große Herausforderung für die Wirtschafts- und...