This Handbook aims to provide a guide for constructing and using composite indicators for policy makers, academics, the media and other interested parties. While there are several types of composite indicators, this Handbook is concerned with those which compare and rank country performance in...

The first releases of official statistics are often revised in subsequent releases, sometimes substantially. Such revisions can impact on policy decisions, as revisions to first published data may alter the previous assessment of the state of the economy. This may occur through a changed...

This working paper has been written as a contribution to the OECD e-government project launched in 2001, which explores how governments can best exploit information and communication technologies (ICT) to enhance good governance principles and achieve public policy goals. The paper highlights...

This paper sets out definitions of the entrepreneur, entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial activity for the purpose of supporting the development of related indicators. The paper recognises the long history in this area and the contention and differences that have existed, and that continue to...

This statistical working paper is the exact copy of the report of the joint OECD/Eurostat task force that was presented at the October 2002 OECD National Accounts Expert Meeting. The report confirms that current estimates of software investment differ significantly between countries for pure...

Services are increasingly important in modern economies contributing about 68% of world economy value added in 2002 and, although at a much lower level, are increasingly traded internationally (see Table 1). These patterns of increasing importance of services are observed in the generality of...

This paper examines how measurement problems affect international comparisons of labour productivity. It suggests that these measurement problems do not significantly affect the assessment of aggregate productivity patterns in the OECD area. However, these problems do influence the more detailed...

Growing political and academic interest in entrepreneurship and business demography, and particularly the role and value of new businesses in national economies, is prompting various research projects on these topics. One of the main issues faced by researchers and policy makers is the current...

Using new sectoral data on investment and capital services we carry out a growth accounting exercise on Spain 1985-2002. We compute the contribution to output and labour productivity growth of employment, non-ICT and ICT capital, labour qualification and Total Factor Productivity. Results are...

This paper presents a general overview of recent work on sustainable development indicators in OECD countries. It provides an overview of on-going work for developing “agreed” indicators that measure progress across the three dimensions of sustainable development (economic, social and...