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Economic Growth

Can we predict recessions using only unemployment data? Applying the Sahm rule to OECD countries

5 minute readThe accurate and early identification of economic turning points is a longstanding challenge. While in some countries, recession periods are formally determined by business cycle committees – as is the case in the United States – these processes are complex and often take considerable time to conclude. Yet policymakers, economists and financial market participants require more timely signals of shifting economic conditions to support effective and well-informed decision-making.

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Featured

MNE-thing is possible: New OECD-UNSD data release strengthens open evidence on multinational enterprises

5 minute readMultinational enterprises (MNEs) play an increasingly central role in the global economy. They influence trade patterns, investment flows, and production across countries, yet their complex organisational structures can be difficult to map out using traditional statistical sources. The Multinational Enterprise Information Platform (MEIP) was developed to help address this challenge by offering a clearer view of large MNEs and the cross-border networks through which they operate.

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Featured

The Re-Export Puzzle: How the OECD addresses the largest source of distortion in merchandise trade statistics

7 minute readInternational trade statistics offer a picture of trade flows between countries and play a critical role in shaping economic policy, guiding trade negotiations, and supporting evidence-based research and decision-making. These statistics are reported from two different perspectives: that of the exporter and that of the importer. Users expect the two numbers to match but this is not always the case. Addressing them is essential for achieving a coherent and accurate view of international trade.

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Featured, Globalisation, New Data, Trade

Monitoring global services trade: More granular insights from the updated OECD-WTO BaTIS dataset

4 minute readServices play an increasingly important role in international trade. In 2023, services trade accounted for approximately one quarter of global trade, up from one fifth a decade earlier. Explore how the refreshed OECD-WTO Balanced Trade in Services (BaTIS) dataset unveils nuanced patterns in global services trade. This new release offers richer details and improved consistency, enabling policymakers and analysts to pinpoint shifts across diverse sectors—from finance to digital services. By capturing bilateral flows at a finer level, BaTIS supports better monitoring of emerging trends, highlights competitive strengths, and informs strategic decisions in international trade.

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by oecdstatistics
Digitalisation, Featured, New Data, Well-being

How’s your digital well-being?

3 minute readThe digital revolution has transformed daily life, offering benefits like improved healthcare and remote work while introducing challenges such as excessive screen time, cyberbullying, and data privacy concerns. The OECD and Cisco have launched the Digital Well-being Hub to explore how technology affects well-being, bridging gaps in understanding beyond traditional statistics. With 40% of internet users lacking basic digital skills in OECD countries, the Hub aims to gather personal stories and data to inform policies that foster safer, more inclusive digital environments. Participate in the poll to share your experience and help shape a healthier digital future.

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by oecdstatistics
Featured, Globalisation, Multinationals, New Data

Monitoring multinational enterprises: How the OECD and UNSD are harnessing open data

4 minute readMultinational Enterprises (MNEs) are key actors in the global economy. In 2023, the top 500 MNEs generated over USD 21 trillion in revenues, greater than the  combined GDP of the European Union. To overcome this, the OECD and United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) developed the Multinational Enterprise Information Platform (MEIP). The Platform is updated annually, with the third release, covering the period to 31st December 2023, now available.

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by oecdstatistics
Economic indicators, Featured, Inflation

Does the slowdown in inflation mean that consumers are better off?

7 minute readRecent months brought positive news about declining inflation, with rates finally coming within reach of central banks’ targets and pre-pandemic inflation. This is especially welcome after the surge in inflation rates following the Covid pandemic, supply chain disruptions and start of war in Ukraine, in 2021-22, when in many OECD countries inflation reached figures not seen since the 1980s. However, declining inflation rates do not mean declining prices, only a slowdown in their increase. Average prices of consumer goods and services are now (as of September 2024) about a third higher for an average OECD country than they were in December 2019.

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by oecdstatistics
Education, Labour Market, New Data, Productivity

Measuring labour input: is it about quantity, quality, or both?

4 minute readHuman capital, the stock of knowledge and skills embodied in people, is a key input in economic production. Changes in both the “quantity” and the “quality” of a country’s human capital stock influence economic growth and productivity performance. Traditional measures of labour input in economic growth and productivity analyses, such as total hours worked, focus solely on changes in the quantity of labour input, ignoring changes in the skill composition of the workforce. For example, these measures equate an hour worked by a highly experienced surgeon and an hour worked by a junior retail salesperson, disregarding their vastly different experience and skills.

Firms recognise that workers with different skills and experience are not perfect substitutes by paying them different wages. It is therefore possible to account for differences between workers by weighting their hours worked by their respective shares in total wages. Such measures are often referred to as Composition Adjusted Labour Input (CALI), Labour Services, or Quality Adjusted Labour Input (QALI). CALI measures provide an improved understanding of whether the average “quality” of labour is increasing or decreasing over time.

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by oecdstatistics
Globalisation, Trade

Recent developments in international transport and insurance costs: insights from the OECD-ITIC Database

5 minute readTo understand international trade and set policy direction it is vital to understand the costs associated with transporting and insuring goods across borders. International transport and insurance costs, which correspond to the value of the transport and insurance services performed to deliver the goods from the border of the exporting country to the border of the importing country, have a direct and material impact on trade patterns and on a country’s competitiveness. Despite their importance, accessing quantitative information on these costs has long been a challenge for statisticians and policymakers alike. This article presents the OECD International Transport and Insurance Costs of merchandise trade (ITIC) database (Fiallos, Liberatore, & Cassimon, 2024), which helps to deepen our understanding of these aspects of global trade by providing both reported data and estimates on international transport and insurance costs on over 200 economies by partner and product.

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by oecdstatistics
Environment

Understanding datasets on greenhouse gas emissions

4 minute readReducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) is the key to mitigating climate change. It is essential to have reliable data on human-induced GHG emissions to analyse the trend of historical emissions, develop policies to reduce emissions and track the progress towards climate goals.

There are several datasets for GHG emissions and they serve different objectives. For example, there are “production-based” emissions and “demand-based” emissions datasets. The former cover GHG emissions generated from production activities in a country’s economy, whereas the latter (also called “consumption-based emissions” or “carbon footprints”) capture GHG emissions generated along global production chains to meet the demand of a country.

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by oecdstatistics
New Data, Prices

New purchasing power parities reveal large relative cost of living difference across the OECD in 2022

4 minute readComparing macroeconomic indicators across countries is a tricky issue, as it requires adjustment for differences in currencies and price levels to ensure a like-for-like comparison. Purchasing Power Parities (PPPs) are the right tool for this. This is possible because PPPs are calculated based on prices of a common and comprehensive basket of goods and services. As a result, PPPs are the go-to conversion rates to be used when comparing macroeconomic indicators, such as GDP or price levels, across countries.

The latest “flash” PPPs point to large variability across countries for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita in PPPs in 2023.

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by oecdstatistics
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