The People pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development focuses on quality of life in all its dimensions, and emphasises the international community’s commitment to ensuring all human beings can fulfil their potential in dignity, equality and good health. Thailand’s path from a...

The Partnerships pillar of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development cuts across all the goals focusing on the mobilisation of resources needed to implement the agenda. Thailand’s “sufficiency economy philosophy” encourages the prioritisation of long-term sustainability over short-term...

Slovenia’s population is set to age rapidly in the coming decades. This demographic trend will increasingly put pressure on already fragile public finances as age related expenditure is projected to rise by 3 percentage points of GDP by the year 2030. Ensuring debt sustainability and...

Taxes and cash transfers reduce income inequality more in France than elsewhere in the OECD, because of the large size of the flows involved. But the system is complex overall. Its effectiveness could be enhanced in many ways, for example so as to achieve the same amount of redistribution at...

Under the Universal Credit reform, the main means-tested benefits except the Council Tax Benefit will be pooled into one single benefit with one single taper rate. The reform will give people better incentives to work, reduce complexity and contribute to reducing poverty. The reform could reduce...

Despite a deep recession in 2009 and weak growth in subsequent years, Hungary’s fiscal position compares favourably with many other OECD countries. Nonetheless, the underlying fiscal balance started deteriorating in 2010 and 2011. Recognising this, Hungary’s government launched an ambitious...

Finland’s population is set to age rapidly in the coming decades. This will put pressure on public finances, while shrinking labour resources. Nonetheless, solutions exist to alleviate those pressures. Adjusting the pension age in line with the rise in life expectancy would reduce pension...

This paper provides a framework for comparing a defined benefit (DB) and a defined contribution (DC) point schemes, which are both pay-as-you go (PAYG) financed. Two stylised PAYG pension schemes are modelled and simulated to compare their robustness to shocks. The same demographic developments...

Demographic developments are unfavourable for the financing of pension schemes in most OECD countries, implying continued growth in pension expenditure in virtually all OECD countries. This paper examines the vulnerability of pension systems, with an emphasis on financial sustainability and...

Reducing poverty remains an important challenge, and the COVID-19-crisis may further reinforce social vulnerabilities. Although it has declined lately, relative poverty remains high in international comparison and is distributed unevenly across population groups with the elderly, people with...