Banks and investment companies are more than mere financial firms. They hold and manage assets, such as retirement income, on behalf of others, whether individuals, companies or governments. In short, they have a fiduciary role to fulfil, based on trust. So why have the beneficiaries not really benefitted?

Has the crisis driven up public interest in policies?

To be useful in helping countries to move out of the crisis, it is necessary for the OECD to look at its own history as an organisation and draw the right lessons for the future.

Where there's money, there's also time for relaxing.

Speech by Philippe Marland, Ambassador, Permanent Representative of France to the OECD, delivered at the OECD on 18 March to mark the 2009 Journée internationale de la Francophonie, a day dedicated to the French-speaking world.

I've no doubt that there will be a role for (fewer) newspapers in the years ahead, and that paper will continue to remain viable for specialist print applications ("Print screen", by Larry Kilman, World Association of Newspapers, in No. 268, July 2008). However, it is inevitable that online access and digital devices will displace a lot of paper in the long run.

Did you know that, even before the current recession and despite the economic boom of recent years, the gap between rich and poor and the number of people below the poverty line have grown over the past two decades?

The developing world needs millions of trained health workers immediately just to provide the most basic healthcare, yet doctors are leaving poor countries to go to richer ones.

Education is a long-term investment, though at the same time it is faced with pressures from constant social and economic change.

University league tables are fashionable, but should not be taken as accurate measures of the quality of education. The OECD is investigating other tools to measure performance, policymakers and educators heard at a recent conference.

The effect multinationals have on wages and working conditions can be positive, but there are conditions to bear in mind, not least for policymakers wishing to attract foreign direct investment.

While OECD countries compete to attract high-skilled immigrants, the 2008 International Migration Outlook finds that employers increasingly rely on immigrants for low-skilled work. Just a fifth on average of the low-educated workforce in 21 OECD countries in the report is foreign-born, whereas the EU25 average is 14.1%.

The pharmaceutical industry’s important role in the OECD economy is reflected in expenditure, with a total of US$569 billion on pharmaceuticals (excluding pharmaceuticals for in-patients) in 2005.

UK warned on corruption; Gender gap persists; Tax progress mixed; Economy; News shorts (healthcare, pollution, education, migration); Soundbites; Plus ça change…

The world has seen recent decades of rapid growth. This has been most obvious in newly-industrialising countries, notably China and India, but has been shared by OECD countries. Yet the fruits of this economic growth have not been equally divided–either between countries or within countries. As it is put in the introduction to a new OECD report, Growing Unequal?, “there is widespread concern that economic growth is not being shared fairly” (page 15, see references). A rising tide does not necessarily raise all boats. Or, to use another liquid metaphor, we cannot rely on trickle-down.

Ireland has been the OECD’s fastest growing economy for several years, driven by strong consumer demand, fixed investment and a buoyant global demand in areas like IT, pharmaceuticals and financial services.

Diabetes has become one of the most serious public health challenges of the 21st century. Over 150 million adults are affected worldwide, with the number expected to double in the next 25 years.

In 2002, the cost of diabetes in the United States was an estimated $92 billion in medical expenditures and $40 billion in lost productivity, according to the American Diabetes Federation.

Long ago I gave up trying to break through the so-called “glass ceiling” that has kept women like me out of higher management. Instead I decided to create new enterprises in which management could be reinvented by women. On 8 March 2005, I launched a business incubator devoted exclusively to projects by female entrepreneurs.

Just how significant is international migration in the light of other globalisation developments? One obvious starting point for answering the question is to ask how many of the current world population of 6.7 billion people are international migrants, defined as persons living outside their country of birth.

Ageing, migration, climate change, healthcare, poverty: these all form part of the lengthening list of pressing public policy challenges for the 21st century. But what about infrastructure?

Did you know that over three quarters of a million people die prematurely around the world every year because of outdoor air pollution? Many of these deaths and their related costs may be avoided with appropriate environmental policies.

Making pension systems financially sustainable in the face of population ageing has obliged governments to carry out reforms. This has meant finding savings, but also lower retirement incomes. According to the latest edition of Pensions at a Glance, most of the OECD countries surveyed saw a decline in benefits as a result of pension reforms, affecting retirement incomes of average earners, but also the poorest pensioners (see graph).

Ageing will boost demand for healthcare, but at a time when healthcare professionals are themselves ageing, how can that demand be met? Suppose a scenario with no growth in the demand for doctors in a country, and no migration either.

In October 2006, 16-year-old Lisa Norris died at home in Scotland after receiving 17 overdoses of radiation treatment for a brain tumour. Nearly 200,000 people could be dying each year in the US because of in-hospital medical errors, suggests a 2004 study by healthcare company Health Grades. According to a recent survey conducted for the European Commission by Eurobarometer, four out of five Europeans think that medical error is an important issue in their country, and nearly one in four said that they or a member of their family had been personally affected by clinical mistakes.

Whole communities in the developing world are being crippled by neglected infectious diseases. Changing the way intellectual property rights are managed is vital for attracting the pharmaceutical investment needed to tackle them. Every eight months a new infectious disease appears, joining the roster of those that already affect one in six people on earth. The vast majority of those infected live in developing nations.

How happy are you? Economists generally rely on monetary measures like GDP per capita to answer such questions. After all, satisfying wants is a function of what we consume, and so using per capita income as a proxy for well-being makes sense.

Traditionally a male bastion in many countries, the medical profession has seen the proportion of female doctors steadily increasing, accounting now for an average of 38% of all doctors in OECD countries, up from 24% a quarter of a century ago.

Driving a car is a common, everyday activity for adults of all ages. Yet, every year in OECD countries, road crashes kill about 25,000 young people between the ages of 15-24. Can anything be done to stop this waste?

The performance of health care systems is under scrutiny. The Health Care Quality Indicator Project can help identify what works and what does not. And that will help policy decisions too.

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).

The public cost of health and long-term care in OECD countries will double by 2050 if current trends continue, a new OECD report finds. The rising medical demands of ageing and wealthier populations could send average health costs in the OECD area up from 6.7% of GDP to 12.8%. Even if governments manage to contain that rise, spending would still reach the equivalent of around 10% of GDP by the middle of the century.

Work may drive growth, but for most people, more free time contributes to well-being, as long as it is not accompanied by lower income. Still, one often-heard remark about the gap in economic performance between OECD countries is that US workers may earn more money but they work longer hours, whereas Europeans prefer more leisure to more work, or indeed, more money, and so are better off.

Is there a connection between health spending and life expectancy? Not necessarily. As the latest edition of the OECD in Figures 2005 points out, the Japanese have the highest life expectancy in the OECD area, but their health spending, at nearly 8% of GDP, is far from being the highest. The US on the other hand has the highest health spending at some 15%, yet it clocks in at just 22nd when it comes to life expectancy–Americans can nevertheless expect to live past 77. The lowest spender is Korea (5.6% of GDP), with a life expectancy also of 77 years.

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%.

Could it be that the revolution in communications technology is reaffirming the pre-eminence of one of civilisation’s oldest tools: the written word? Matters that barely a decade ago would have been dealt with orally by telephone, for instance, now transit via e-mail or text messages.

Suicide rates have fallen in most OECD countries, but have risen sharply in others. The highest rates occur in Hungary, Finland, Japan and Korea, with the lowest in Spain, UK, Italy and Greece. Some 130,000 deaths occurred in OECD countries in 2002. Suicides are up to four times greater among men than women.