This study presents a broad overview of health-system reforms in OECD countries over the past several decades. Reforms are assessed according to their impact on the following policy goals: ensuring access to needed health-care services; improving the quality of health care and its outcomes;...

This paper provides new projections on the fiscal impact of age-related spending for OECD countries over the next half century. These results are based on national models using an agreed upon set of assumptions about macroeconomic and demographic developments for all countries. Recent reforms to...

Since the early 1980s, most OECD countries have embarked on medium-term strategies to restore greater balance to the public finances and to wind back government intervention in the economy. The attached paper examines the progress so far. It also reviews and evaluates some of the changes to...

In Finland, as in most OECD countries, the ageing of the population is one of the major long-term policy challenges. This paper first explores the scale of the demographic changes in Finland, the relevant institutions and their effect on the decision to retire. In light of the increase in the...

This study examines the dynamics of poverty for four OECD countries (Canada, Germany, the United Kingdom and the United States). It provides information on patterns of poverty, which groups stay in poverty the longest, and household/individual characteristics and life-course events which appear...

This report attempts to assess whether -- and to what degree - better care coordination can improve health system performance in terms of quality and cost-efficiency. Coordination of care refers to policies that help create patient-centred care that is more coherent both within and across care...

The paper reviews trends in health-care expenditure and assesses the main forces underlying the increase since 1960. It then describes and evaluates various health-care reforms. The report argues that top-down budget controls appear to have had some success in reducing the growth in health-care...