29-April-2015
English
Colombia has engaged in a sustained process of fiscal decentralisation over the past decades. Evidence is presented that the current framework is conducive to fiscal sustainability, especially after the reforms in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
30-March-2015
English
Money remitted by international migrants is a major source of income for many countries. Yet individual migrants and their families are often amongst the most vulnerable people in society, and many face significant barriers to the access and use of appropriate financial products. This paper looks at key challenges and how governments can take measures to support migrant workers and their families and improve their financial literacy.
16-March-2015
English
Recent episodes of large exchange rate movements, such as for Japan or the United Kingdom, have typically not been associated with large changes in trade balances and despite the polarisation of international investment positions large currency fluctuations during the global crisis of 2008-09 did not cause significant financial dislocations.
6-March-2015
English
The set of monetary policy instruments has expanded since the start of the global financial crisis in the many OECD economies. Against this background, this paper analyses whether some of the new instruments should be retained in the long term when broader financial stability objectives are likely to feature more prominently as monetary policy goals than prior to the crisis.
17-October-2014
English
This paper describes developments in real long-term interest rates in the main OECD economies and surveys their various determinants. Real long-term government bond yields declined from the 1980s to very low levels in the recent period, though they have not reached the historical lows of the 1970s.
17-October-2014
English
The downturn in fixed investment among advanced economies from the onset of the global crisis was unusually severe, widespread and long-lasting relative to comparable episodes in the past. As a result, investment gaps are large in many countries, not only in relation to past norms but also relative to projected future steady-state levels, with a gap of 2 percentage points of GDP or more in several countries.
17-October-2014
English
This paper investigates whether OECD countries are facing secular stagnation. Secular stagnation is defined as a situation when policy interest rates bounded at zero fail to stimulate demand sufficiently, due to low or negative neutral real interest rates and low inflation, and when ensuing prolonged and subdued growth undermines potential growth via labour hysteresis and discouraged investment.
16-October-2014
English
This paper analyses the effects of government policies on flows of private finance for investment in renewable energy. It also examines whether direct provision of public finance for a project increases the volume of private finance raised. The analysis covers 87 countries, six renewable energy sectors (wind, solar, biomass, small hydropower, marine and geothermal).
1-October-2014
English
This paper estimates potential output losses from the global financial crisis by comparing recent OECD published projections with a counter-factual assuming a continuation of pre-crisis productivity trends and a trend employment rate which is sensitive to demographic trends.
18-September-2014
English
Rising household debt has become a major policy concern in Korea. By the end of 2012, it had risen to 164% of disposable income, well above the OECD average of 133%.