All discussions about the desirability of policy reforms rest on judgements about their effects on individuals and societal well-being. Yet, suitable measures for assessing how well-being is changing over time or compares across countries are lacking. This problem is, of course, not new and...

This report looks at the effects on the distribution of household income of those government-provided services that confer a personal benefit to users. While most of the comparative evidence of the size and evolution of income inequalities in OECD countries relies on the concept of household...

This paper assesses if GDP per capita is an adequate proxy as a measure of wellbeing or whether other indicators are more suitable for this purpose. Within the national accounts framework, other better measures of economic resources exist, but they are closely correlated with GDP per capita and...

This paper looks at how the income distribution in countries changes when the value of publicly-provided services to households is included. We consider five major categories of public services: education, health care, social housing, childcare and elderly care. On average across OECD countries,...

The question of whether migration can be an equilibrating force in the labour market is an important criterion for an optimal currency area. It is of particular interest currently in the context of high and rising levels of labour market disparities, in particular within the Eurozone where there...

Public support to families with pre-school children can be in the form of cash benefits (e.g. child allowances) or of “in-kind” support (e.g. care services such as kindergartens). The mix of these support measures varies greatly across OECD countries, from a cash / in-kind composition of...

Evidence from many OECD countries shows that immigrants, in particular recent arrivals, tend to be especially affected by an economic downturn. The available tentative evidence on unemployment suggests that this is also the case in Norway in the current downturn, particularly with respect to the...

Switzerland is among the OECD countries with the largest immigrant populations – 27% of the working-age population are foreign-born – and the issue of immigration is high on both the policy agenda and in the public debate. Given the numerous debates around this issue in Switzerland, one...

With 17% of the working-age population in 2010 being foreign-born, Austria has one of the largest shares of working-age immigrants in the OECD. As in other European OECD countries, the migration landscape in Austria has been shaped by the recruitment of low-educated labour migrants prior to the...