Carl Sagan, the late astronomer, raconteur and television personality, once wondered aloud how many books an individual could read in a normal lifetime. “From here, to here”, was his estimate, as he walked the length of a single, not very long, shelf of books in a US library. Sagan’s point was that our capacity to read was nothing compared with the vast volume of editions contained in a normal library.

Many factors can influence the quality of education, from teaching and tools to size and comfort of classrooms. As with cleverly laid out books, good design of schools can also stimulate behaviour and responsiveness and facilitate learning.

Some 3-3.5 million immigrants, including those already living in their new country on a temporary basis, became official long-term residents in OECD countries in 2004, according to the 2006 edition of International Migration Outlook, an annual report that analyses population movements and policies both overall in the OECD area and on a country-by-country basis.

If ever you are unsure about the advantages of open trade, why not take a lead from students in economics and consider the story of Robinson Crusoe. Generations of students have discovered how Crusoe, shipwrecked on a desert island and cut off from the outside world, improved his welfare as he became economically re-integrated into the wider world.

Switzerland’s health system is arguably one of the world’s best, but at what cost? This is a question raised in a new report produced jointly by the OECD and the World Health Organization (WHO).

Innovative design, use and management of physical infrastructure can contribute to the quality of education. This lesson is not all that new. For a decade now, the OECD Programme on Educational Building (PEB), has led an international jury in selecting a number of institutions that exemplify considerations of flexibility, community needs, sustainability, safety and security, and financing.

The fisheries sector in OECD countries receives around $6.4 billion a year in transfers from governments. Around 38% of the transfers are provided for the management, research and enforcement of fisheries while 35% is directed to the provision of fisheries infrastructure, from harbour and landing facilities, to navigation services, and search and rescue support.

Are older workers denied choice about when and how they retire? Certainly, the average number of years that workers across the OECD can expect to spend in retirement has risen sharply, from less than 11 years in 1970 to just under 18 years in 2004 for men, and from less than 14 years to just under 23 years for women.

Destination Europe is a slightly misleading title since its subject, the political development of Europe from 1945 to 2003, is a journey with a point of origin when Europe, which a generation earlier dominated the world, lay in ruins with no destination.

OECD governments have been more effective at bringing in reforms to raise labour productivity than at helping increase the number of people in work, according to this progress report on action taken over the past year to enhance economic growth in each of the 30 OECD member countries.

Jannat Bibi, who lives in a village in south Pakistan, was engaged to an older man at the age of three. In the circumstances, that would normally be the end of her story. Yet when she was 16, Jannat participated in the Girl Child Project, an initiative of UNICEF and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), whose workers encouraged Jannat not to rebel against her family but to convince her elders to support her own choices.

If secondary education died tomorrow, what would its epitaph be? This question was used as a springboard by school administrators in the Netherlands to rise above the distraction of today’s pressing needs and spur innovative ideas on what tomorrow’s schools should look like. Schooling for Tomorrow: Think Scenarios, Rethink Education points out that today’s educational thinking profoundly influences the lives of individuals and the health of whole communities for decades to come, yet much decision-making tends to deal with immediate issues.

When Irish government minister Liam Lawlor died tragically in an accident while being chauffeured along Moscow’s Leningrad Shosse in October 2005, local newspapers pointed out that high-speed crashes are common along such boulevards due to the often reckless driving of Muscovites. At a time when the rest of Europe tightens its seatbelts, Russia is only beginning to wake up to its alarming traffic accident statistics.

Waste processing is nothing new. In ancient Greek legend, Hercules is said to have charged a fee to clean out the Augean stables by diverting water from two rivers through a hole he created in the cattle yard, flushing the waste out the other end. Nowadays, processing waste is a major enterprise, but does it qualify as a good or as a service?

As hurricane Katrina subsided, the US banking authority, the FDIC, posted a page on its website for survivors looking for financial advice. On the Frequently Asked Questions list was a poignant query: “I received my debit card from FEMA, but I am not sure where I can use it or exactly what it is.”

How do multinational corporations put into practice the rather higher level concepts of sustainable development and still respect the bottom line? Environment and the OECD Guidelines for MNEs relates how a pharmaceutical company, Baxter International, saved energy but also saved $50 million in operations costs by switching to the most energy-efficient lightbulb.

Which came first, working mothers or day care centres? More mothers in the workforce generally spur the development of childcare facilities. In this study of four of the wealthier OECD countries–Canada, Finland, Sweden and the UK–where three out of four women between the ages of 25 and 54 hold down jobs, the Swedish experience suggests that without publicly-assisted childcare, the upper limit for female employment would be around 60%.

In Mexico, 80% of the population lives in relatively dry and hot areas and subterranean resources are being slowly exhausted. Access to water is increasingly becoming an issue in some of the most active and industrialised parts of the country. Yet, says the OECD’s 2004 review of regulatory reform in Mexico, rapid demographic growth and industrial development have increased the overall demand for water.

Planning next year’s studies? Why not consider reading E-Learning in Tertiary Education: Where Do We Stand? This latest report from the OECD Centre for Educational Research and Innovation (CERI) says that in addition to lifting constraints of time and place, electronic learning can be more personalised, flexible and even less expensive than conventional learning places.

An anti-globalisation activist took the microphone at a 1999 protest in Washington and, after decrying corporate greed and forced child labour in third world sweatshops, she demanded, “Who made your T-shirt?” One of the observers, Pietra Rivoli, an economics professor at Georgetown University in the US, chose to pick up that gauntlet. She expected to prove both “the undeniable benefits of global free trade and the misguided tenets of the anti-globalisation movement”.

Can technology bring better government? Anyone who has filled a tax return online would probably answer yes. But is that enough? The answer is, probably not. A new report, E-Government for Better Government, the second phase of an OECD project launched in 2001, suggests that while in principle, e-government instruments can improve efficiency, increase citizen awareness and help promote new initiatives, it is not enough just to open a website. The basic key challenges remain the same in the real world as in the virtual one: how to be more agile, responsive and accountable.

Energy planning is not easy, and when governments shop around for energy sources, they must balance costs and benefits of available options.
Whether fossil fuels, nuclear energy or alternative sources, a sensible energy policy must also take into account a reliable mix of energy generation to support economic growth, promote the environment and also reduce dependence on imported fuels from possibly unstable exporting countries.

Free trade for agriculture is all very well, but what if the produce you are importing is not up to scratch? Who decides whether a mushroom is sold as Extra, Class I or Class II? How can farmers be sure their produce is priced in the right category, and consumers be protected from buying kilos of overripe gariguette strawberries?

Insurance policies, whether covering travel, housing or business, increasingly carry fine print that carefully spells out whether or not they cover or exclude losses due to terrorism. Acts of “mega” terrorism, like the 9/11 attacks, or the bombings in Bali or Madrid, have overwhelmed insurance companies with claims, and insurers have since waived sole responsibility.

When the lights go out, our usual solution is to check the light bulbs, the connections, the fuse box, and often relieve the overload by switching something off. Likewise, when a blackout occurs because of a drag on the grid, a quick fix means cutting consumption.

One of the most striking paradoxes of today’s OECD societies is that, although people live longer and healthier, they also tend to retire earlier and younger. The trend in the US is not as marked as in some countries, but it is there nonetheless. By 2030, almost a fifth of the American population is projected to be aged 65 and over, compared with around an eighth only five years ago.

“Cyclists must adopt a moderate pace when passing through streets, crossways or turnings. In Paris, even in the least populous quarters, a rate of 16km an hour is considered excessive. Cyclists must stop if at their approach a horse becomes frightened.” This advice, from Cook’s Guide to Paris, 1908, is as appropriate today as it was a hundred years ago, when the French dubbed the bicycle “la petite reine” (little queen).

The OECD Factbook 2005, the OECD’s first annual digest of economic, environmental and social statistics covering the OECD’s 30 member nations, brings together in a single publication 100 indicators that are essential to evaluating the relative position of any OECD country, both at a given moment and over time, with historical data going back at least 10 years.

There are no easy answers to the intractable social questions of our time, like poverty, exclusion and violence. However, Society at a Glance, the OECD’s bi-annual compendium of social indicators, helps by elucidating some of the facts.

The International Monetary Fund, which turned 60 in 2004, is both one of the most important and most criticised global institutions in today’s world. For some, it is a rigid organisation which has frequently obstructed development in poor countries, and which bears heavy responsibility for the severity of the east Asian and Russian crises.

All good dictionaries are an education in themselves, but one of the most useful and entertaining yet has to be the OECD Glossary of Statistical Terms. Some will cringe, others will delight in thumbing a dictionary that defines historic monuments as “fixed assets” and lemons as “defective capital goods”.

When the giant Airbus A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, makes its first commercial landing in 2006, runways will have been extended and ways of quickly and safely disembarking 555 passengers will have been worked out. But once off the plane, how easily will all these travellers get home? Can existing transport modes handle the surge?

On 21 October, 1966, a slag heap in south Wales slid down a mountain and engulfed the village school, killing 144 people, 116 of them children. The 1995 terrorist bombing outside a school near Lyon, France, wounded three children and 11 adults. Fourteen students died in the 1999 gun and bomb assault at Columbine High School in Colorado, and an earthquake in southern Italy in 2002 destroyed a schoolhouse, killing 26 children.

Choosing the career track versus the family track is a personal choice that has become a global concern. Family-friendly policies are essential, says Babies and Bosses - Reconciling Work and Family Life, not only to promote child development and family wellbeing, but to reduce poverty, underpin productivity and bolster employment in our ageing societies.

Many experts argue that OECD’s Principles of Corporate Governance are not relevant to the issues faced by developing and emerging market economies. Cases such as Parmalat or Enron belong to the rich world, and their affairs to those of wealthy OECD countries. But if poor governance of corporations can ruinously affect a nation’s economic growth – in addition to the lives of millions of individuals – shouldn’t developing countries take notice?

Mexico celebrates its tenth anniversary at the OECD this year, and an eventful 10 years it has been. Apart from the creation of NAFTA in 1994, there were the currency runs on the peso and, of course, recent debates about international investment, labour and outsourcing. Since joining the OECD, many of the achievements of Mexico’s regulatory programme have dealt with strengthening political transition and economic resilience and growth.

Sweden’s good reputation for a clean environment may be deserved, but there are murky spots. True, it gained high marks in the recent OECD Environmental Performance Review of Sweden. It was one of the first OECD countries to cut its use of environmentally harmful chemicals, and is one of the few OECD countries on track to meet their commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

In 2002, the textiles and clothing industry accounted for US$350 billion or 5.6% of total merchandise exports. The industry employs tens of millions of people, primarily in developing countries. But dramatic changes are afoot, with new regulations set to come into force in January 2005.

High-tech security tools may well be making the world safer, but they are also a lucrative business. Estimates from The Security Economy put the security industry’s value at between US$100 billion and $120 billion worldwide, and growing. The largest share is accounted for by the US at $40 billion, while in Germany the figure is approximately $4 billion, followed by France and the UK at around $3 billion each.

Nuclear energy generation has come a long way since the first large-scale nuclear power plant flipped the switch in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in December 1957. Today, nuclear energy generates about 16% of the world’s electricity.

Terrorism is deadly and criminal, yet, it is a business. Agents are paid, their weapons are purchased, and their plots are financed. Their organisations raise, transfer, invest and spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year, whether investing it or laundering it. Whatever the political or ideological motivations, terrorism requires money.

Did you know that the biggest killer of children in many OECD countries is road-related crashes? Keeping Children safe in Traffic notes that seatbelts remain one of the most effective crash protection devices ever installed in motor vehicles.

We all now know that weak corporate governance can have a real impact on investors, savers, retirees, creditors, employees and consumers, as well as on entire economies. Corporate failures from the US to Italy have demonstrated this. But what would the effects be on developing countries?

Violent conflict plus widespread public insecurity and fear are primary causes of poverty, says the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee. Yet poverty itself is fertile ground for terrorism. In fact, terrorists often cite development problems as justification for their acts, says A Development Cooperation Lens on Terrorism Prevention.

“The end of World War II marked the beginning of a long period of prosperity in most countries now members of the OECD… and in many countries per capita incomes tended to catch up with American levels,” OECD Chief Economist Jean-Philippe Cotis observes in his foreword to Understanding Economic Growth.

Russia is on a fast track to reform its transport system, reports Regulatory Reform of Russian Railways. While the Trans-Siberian highway from Moscow to Vladivostok – the longest road in the world at nearly 10,000 kilometres – had its final gaps filled in as of March this year, it will not be completely paved before 2008.

We live in a consumer society, but also a wasteful one. The EU will produce approximately 1.3 billion tonnes of waste this year. This is about 3.5 tonnes of solid waste for every man, woman and child.

Does privatisation work for some of the world’s poorest countries? Privatisation in Sub-Saharan Africa: Where Do We Stand? looks at the last decade of privatisation in Africa and discusses its successes and failures in terms of public finance, economic efficiency, pricing and local markets.

Disasters seem to have taken on an unprecedented scale in recent years, from major terrorist attacks to natural disasters, like the recent earthquakes in Iran and Morocco. But, says Lessons Learned from Large-Scale Disasters, today governments should be ready to deal more efficiently with the less obvious ramifications, such as uninsured losses, closed schools and businesses, medical costs, damaged transport infrastructure and labour problems.

Insuring the environment is a high-risk business; not only is it a gamble on whether and how one’s client will pollute, it also means having to pay increasingly high costs for cleaning up oil spills, detoxifying chemical leaks and decontaminating groundwater. Can insurance companies continue to afford such coverage?

Finding a satisfying career is like searching for a needle in a haystack. Nor is it easy in modern, complex labour markets: job content changes, new occupations grow, other occupations decline. Yet, if people can find the work they want, then both human happiness and the efficiency of the labour market increase. Where to start?

When Junichiro Koizumi, Japan’s prime minister, appointed five women to his cabinet in 2001, he was making history by creating his country’s most female government ever. Whether the corporate world follows suit is another matter.

Road safety technology has come a long way since the first illuminated traffic signal was installed in London in 1868 – whose gas lamps unfortunately blew up shortly after inauguration, killing a policeman. Today intelligent transportation systems are being developed to save lives, with such technology as speed control, collision avoidance and vision enhancement.

Predicting the future is all very well, but how much will it cost to keep the world’s engines running? This publication is the first-ever attempt to comprehensively examine future investment needs, worldwide, in all parts of the energy-supply chain.

The archipelago that makes up Japan is two-thirds mountains, with few indigenous energy resources. As the fourth largest energy consumer in the world, with relatively high energy prices, the most important energy challenge for Japan is security of supply.

Education may be a competitive business these days, though not just for course work, degrees and diplomas. Rather, universities are discovering that innovations from their science departments can have market value.

After the recent North American blackouts, US energy secretary Bill Richard told CNN that “the United States is a world power, but it has the electricity grid of a third world country”. Slate.com begged to differ, observing that third world countries can generally put up with frequent minor blackouts, whereas OECD countries require a very reliable, interconnected, very first world grid.

The efficiency of power grids may be in the spotlight now, but the availability of energy resources is also a burning and divisive question. Renewables Information 2003, from the International Energy Agency, shows that in the past decade, renewable energy sources, such as solar power, hydro, wind and combustible biomass resources have been gaining ground.

Pigs have their fans and their detractors. Winston Churchill was fond of them because, while dogs looked up to us and cats looked down, pigs treated us as equals. But in Animal Farm, George Orwell saw them as clever, manipulative, beasts that were simply more equal than every one else. Pigs also divide opinion on another question: if, as is widely claimed, pigs are naturally clean, odourless, animals, how come they are at the root of some quite intractable environmental problems? Agriculture, Trade and the Environment: The Pig Sector, which examines how trade policies in the pig industry affect the environment, has some of the answers.

While bemoaning the global impact of rich countries’ subsidies on poorer economies, environmentalists are taking a closer look at how the elimination of some subsidies may be detrimental to the environment.

Can technology bring better government? Education, healthcare and employment take precedence for most citizens over the simple question of whether they can email their senator or member of parliament. But government websites have changed from simply being static showcases to providing a virtual kiosk of essential government services.

How do you manage transport in a rapidly growing country of over 1 billion people? Developing the railways may be the simple answer. Increasing demands are being placed on China’s transport infrastructure, and the OECD’s Railway Reform in China suggests that the development of an efficient, innovative and market-oriented rail network would facilitate investment and modernisation, alleviate the growing income gap and spread the benefits of economic reform more widely.

Hammering out the multilateral negotiations at Cancún in September will take the present WTO trade round only halfway to its January 2005 deadline. Meanwhile, the percentage of world trade accounted for by preferential regional trade agreements (RTAs) is expected to grow from 43% at present to 55% by 2005 if all expected RTAs are realised. The EU, NAFTA, APEC and MERCOSUR are all examples of regional initiatives. Is smaller better?

Rachid is the first in line to apply for work when the factory comes to town. He is hired, along with a few of his friends. So far so good.

Measuring the value of health care is a tricky business. Traditional data, for instance, might give the number of hospital beds or doctors per 100,000 inhabitants, but what if some people using health care are getting better while others are not? Or what if they are getting better but at much greater expense than in other countries?

A cry for transparency always accompanies any WTO trade round, and Doha is no exception. Yet trade talks remain clogged with terms of reference, jargon and ambiguities. Trade and Competition: From Doha to Cancún tries to respond to this problem, coming as it does out of a meeting of trade and competition experts from developed and developing countries who met to explore and clarify some key themes in the Doha Declaration.

Did you think twice before you switched on the air conditioning this summer? For many living in hot, humid cities and regions, air conditioning is seen as the greatest invention of all time. But being slightly cooler has a high price as far as energy consumption is concerned.

Energy technologies might revolutionise society. Trouble is, where’s the market? A handbook for policymakers, Creating Markets for Energy Technologies, shows how “deployment” marketing can transform a once-unheard of technology into commercial success. Using 22 case studies of alternative technologies, the study demonstrates how marketing tactics can essentially create demand.

African Economic Outlook: Regional conflicts, the global slowdown and the crisis in the Middle East are taking their toll on the African economy, even if there may be short-term gains: Cameroon and Ghana may be reaping the benefits of higher cocoa prices due to the civil war in Côte d’Ivoire.

The 21st century was kicked off with a global scare, the “millennium bug”, that threatened to destroy computers worldwide, along with all their dependent technology, affecting air traffic control systems, hospital emergency rooms and the stock market. These consequences were avoided. However, the SARS virus has more recently frightened the world with the rapidity of its contagion, while the fear of chemical attack contributed to sales of gasmasks right across the United States.

How can we assess the economic and social importance of non-profit groups? Attention is increasingly being turned to measuring and acknowledging the impact of this “third sector”, a huge swath of organisations and activities that both overlap and slide between government and regular business.

In 1995 the UN estimated the value of mothering worldwide at approximately US$11 trillion. The Wall Street Journal reported in 1999 that a mother’s “multi-tasking” is worth US$500,000 a year. Behind those figures lies the fact that, 30 years after women around the world clamoured for equal rights, Mom is still the parent who runs the home and brings up the kids.

How would Finland perform without Nokia? Such a question could be levelled at several countries, including some large ones. But Nokia, a leading mobile phone company, accounts for almost a quarter of total Finnish exports. However, while Nokia has a substantial impact on Finnish growth, exports and R&D, its direct impact on employment is much smaller. In 2001, the number of Nokia employees in Finland fell marginally to 23,700, around 2% of total employees in the business sector.

In a recent review* of employment in China, the headline read “Take Our Workers, Please”. It aptly described efforts by Chinese officials to provide jobs for a hard-hit rural province. But the government is also using the global dotcom slowdown to draw back some of the 400,000 to 500,000 Chinese who studied, worked and stayed abroad in the last 25 years.

The 2002/2003 edition of the joint African Development Bank/OECD Development Centre African Economic Outlook (AEO) was launched at OECD Headquarters in Paris on 3 March in unusually dramatic circumstances. The launch was initially planned for the fourth International Forum on African Perspectives which should have been held by the two institutions on 3-4 March in the premises of the French Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry.

More than 40 years ago, the OECD spelled out the code of conduct for freeing up the flow of international capital, and today it stands as an achievement. But what has experience taught us? After the strong booms in private capital flows around the world, spectacular reversals marked both the Mexican peso crisis in 1994 and the Asian crisis in 1997. Malaysia made headlines when it shrugged off the IMF’s advice and clamped controls on its capital movements.

Governments produce mountains of paper every year. But one document can reasonably claim to be more important than all the rest: the budget. Government accounts for over half of GDP in some OECD countries. The budget sends out essential economic signals about broad public policy directions and so has an influence on market behaviour.

Big businesses go out with a bang, but small businesses come and go like winter snow. Yet, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) represent 95% of all businesses in most OECD countries, and are often seen as the dynamic drivers of the economy, including for innovation. They are the laboratories of “creative destruction”.

Two decades of agricultural reform have reduced poverty in rural China and incomes are still rising – last year, with an estimated upswing of 4.2%. But city dwellers are moving ahead much faster than their country cousins. In 1985, rural incomes were 54% of the level of their urban counterparts: today, they are less than one-third. The accession of China to the WTO and its integration into the global trading system will introduce further pressures on the farm market.

In the world of education, students and teachers are on the move. More students attend universities and schools abroad, while teachers too have become more internationally mobile. In some ways, education has many of the characteristics of a large global business. This year’s Education at a Glance, published in October, shows that within the OECD area, Australia, France, Germany, the UK and the US attract seven out of ten foreign students studying abroad.

Good fences make good neighbours, but fences can only work if they are constantly monitored and maintained. In the past 20 years, OECD countries have started taking a good look at how their national and local governments make and manage rules and regulations, and this publication serves as both an overview and a guide.

Biodiversity conservation is often hard to implement as a policy priority simply because there are measurement and valuation problems – it defies easy description and quantification and cannot easily be built into, say, measurements of GDP. Increasing development pressures have led to an unprecedented rate of biodiversity loss, yet what cannot be quantified is all too easy to disregard.

Can technology help to reduce hunger and eventually poverty, and if so, under what conditions? When Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe refused to accept 20,000 tonnes of maize from the US to feed his starving people, the world collectively gasped. The problem, of course, was that it was genetically modified.

“Our competitors are our friends, our customers are the enemy.” Whether or not this sums up the cavalier attitude of cartels to business, they certainly appear to lack the service-oriented, open mentality today’s society expects.

By 2020 transport will account for more than half the world’s oil demand, and will generate nearly a quarter of the world’s energy-related CO2 emissions. According to projections in this book from the International Energy Agency, a sister organisation of the OECD, the rate of increase in transportation oil use is expected to be three times higher in developing countries than in the OECD, though the latter will still account for the lion’s share of emissions.

The impact of households on air and water pollution, waste generation and climate change has worsened over the last three decades and, without radical change, are expected to intensify even more in the next 20 years, according to this OECD report.

It shouldn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out why some people can’t read. But teachers and policymakers now concede that it might help to consult one. Three years ago, OECD’s Centre for Educational Research and Innovations (CERI) launched a project on “Learning Science and Brain Research” that brings the hardware of brain science to bear on the software of learning. Neuroscientists, policymakers and educators are now all looking hard at questions like the use of mental imagery in learning and the role of age-related deterioration of brain cells.

India’s electricity supply industry is mainly owned and operated by the public sector, and is currently running a growing risk of bankruptcy. While India is the third-largest producer of hard coal after China and the US, it imports around 1.4 million barrels of oil per day, 60% of its total needs. According to the US Energy Information Administration, India has a shortfall of roughly 13,000 megawatts of electricity.

Economic development cannot occur in isolation. This has been the mantra of the European community for the past 50 years, the force behind the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and a call to action for East Asia. But although Africa has a long track record in regional integration initiatives, the results have been by and large rather disappointing.

When the Russian Academy of Sciences singled out the IEA’s World Energy Outlook 2001 for a special award in 2001, they praised it for the breadth of its coverage, the objectivity of its analysis and its balanced geographical treatment. Testimony indeed for anyone keeping track of global energy questions that the World Energy Outlook reference books are essential.

Russia is enormously rich in natural resources. An estimated one-third of the world’s natural gas reserves remain in Russia’s super-giant fields and smaller adjacent fields, which ensure the availability of future supply. The IEA’s Russia Energy Survey 2002 says that Russia also has a range of opportunities to import gas on commercially attractive terms from Central Asian and Caspian countries through established pipeline networks.

Opening European borders to trade and travellers has also cleared the roads for travelling criminals. Road transport crime is a serious and growing problem. In some European countries up to 1% of goods vehicles are stolen each year; that is, tens of thousands of commercial vehicles, costing many millions of euros. For the past seven years, the trend has been increasing by up to 50% for some countries, and focusing on high-tech cargo. According to a recent survey over a period of 15 months, computer equipment and related peripherals, or mobile telephones, constituted the highest number of goods stolen during transport, and 25% of these were from hijacked vehicles.

When the euro became legal tender at midnight on 31 December, line-ups for cash immediately formed not at the shut doors of European banks, but at the electronic tellers, the ATMs. The new currency virtually eased into circulation, fuelling the prediction this report spells out, that money’s destiny is to become digital.

Countries in Europe and the southern Mediterranean have been forging financial ties that will hopefully stimulate good relations as well as open markets on both sides of the sea.

When electricity shortages blacked out much of California last year, those countries and industries investing in wind and solar-powered energy must have felt a glow of excitement. After the lights came back on, energy experts were boldly predicting that the solar power industry would double its profits by 2005. Nevertheless, according to the latest World Energy Outlook, while its potential is huge, the share of alternative energy sources in the global energy mix is expected to remain small over the next 20 years.

Women have traditionally been the “trailing spouse” when it comes to leaving their country.

“What we have to fight against is a company judging the whole of Africa by what is happening in a single country,” OECD Development Centre president, Jorge Braga de Macedo, told a news conference after the third International Forum on African Perspectives at the OECD in Paris in early February. Senegal’s president, Abdoulaye Wade, the first African president to take part in a meeting at the OECD, urged investors at the meeting to take a new – and more informed – look at Africa. President Wade said that it was time for “a new approach, a regional approach” but one that recognised African countries are changing.

Except for the high-speed networks, there are few, if any, of successful state-run rail services in Europe. Deregulation has not proved a panacea either.

The US withdrawal from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on climate change may have been a political blow, but economically, it might make it easier for the 178 nations that stuck with the agreement in Bonn to achieve their individual emission-reduction targets.

The creation of a new Scottish Parliament two years ago was more than just a case of constitutional reform. By devolving local decision-making powers to Scotland, the UK was responding to the need for innovative governance brought on by the forces of globalisation.

A common complaint heard at this time of the year is about the state of our education. Yet, spending on schools grew as fast as GDP in most OECD countries from 1990 to 1997, to an average of 6.1% of GDP. Nevertheless, while more than 60% of the working age population have completed at least upper secondary education, less than 10% of adults in Italy, Portugal and Turkey have a university diploma.

In 2000 commentators everywhere were hailing the boom in some western economies as the dawn of a new economy. In 2001, with a slowdown biting in the US economy, dot.coms folding and information and communications technology firms feeling the pinch globally, the headline writers have swung the other way, saying that it was all a myth. Was it?

Empires rise and fall while the economic wheel keeps turning. The last millennium saw the west gain ascendancy – but our decline is inevitable.

The world’s population has risen 22- fold since the year 1000, while per capita gross domestic product has increased 13-fold and world GDP nearly 300-fold, with the biggest gains occurring in the rich countries of today (Western Europe, North America, Australasia and Japan).

The chemicals industry is an important part of the world economy. With an estimated 1,500 billion US dollars in sales in 1998, it accounts for 7% of global income and 9% of global trade, and employs more than 10 million people worldwide.

Nuclear power today is an important part of the current energy mix, providing nearly a quarter of power generation. However, its future is uncertain, according to a new book published by the International Energy Agency, Nuclear Power in the OECD Countries, which reviews the status and prospects for nuclear power generation in OECD countries.

Learning your ABC is no longer enough; you can now add a D for digital, as well as an E for electronic. But while information technology has changed society, school has changed hardly at all.

Tunnel safety has been a major issue in recent years, with serious incidents at Mont Blanc and in Austria, not to mention the Channel tunnel fire. With advances in tunnelling technology and greater use of tunnels for road construction, the question is: how do we make our tunnels safer?

Filling in government forms, filing official documents and sorting out red tape can be confusing, tedious and time-consuming. But imagine being asked to fill in a form about the administrators, rule-enforcers and bureaucrats themselves. This was the task set to the managers of 8 000 small and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) in 11 OECD countries, and their feedback is not merely paperwork.

There are a number of ways to influence environmental good conduct – one is to make sound practices profitable, another is to make bad practices taxable. This OECD report by environmental experts and fiscal specialists shows how.

Since launching its policy of openness and reform some twenty years ago, China has demonstrated a special ability to develop its relations with the outside world, this being reflected in both the volume of visible trade and the amount of foreign capital inflows. As a result, since 1993 China has been the leading recipient of foreign direct investment (FDI) among developing countries.