Doing business in conflict areas is challenging for everyone, whether you are talking about mining or even brewing beer. In 2015 a group of 168 former workers of Heineken’s subsidiary Bralima in the Democratic Republic of Congo submitted a complaint to the Dutch National Contact Point (NCP), a grievance mechanism set up under the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, about the company’s conduct during the civil war in that country (1999-2003). More...

The world may be getting smaller, but for counterfeiters, there are still plenty of places to hide, suggests a new joint study from the OECD/EUIPO, Mapping the Real Trade Routes of Fake Goods. Globalisation, free trade zones, an interconnected planet and vastly uneven governance arrangements are boons for counterfeiters. More...

In a report issued in June 2017, the Trump administration laid out its proposal for overhauling some of the regulations President Obama had enacted with a view to avoiding a financial market meltdown of the kind we saw in 2008. But what do we actually know about how financial regulation has evolved around the world since the global financial crisis. More...

There are 45.8 million slaves in the world today according to the 2016 Global Slavery Index, nearly four times the total number of Africans sold in the Americas during the four centuries of the transatlantic slave trade. More...

When the subprime crisis started, most economists, and the policymakers they advised, thought it would only affect people who had bought homes they couldn’t afford. They didn’t expect that national problem to trigger a cascade of events that almost caused the collapse of the world financial system. More...

An Indonesian proverb says that a firm tree does not fear the storm. After the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/98, Asian economies recovered with strong economic growth (on average 4.2% annually), which over the past decade has contributed to a decline in “absolute poverty” – here defined as those with incomes of less than USD 2 per day. More...

Supply-use tables provide the key accounting mechanism to ensure coherence between the various sources of data and approaches countries use to estimate GDP–expenditure, output and income. They also have the potential to inform a wide range of policy areas. More...

The greatest concentration of potentially world-changing spending power does not lie in the hands of the global super-rich. It lies rather in the hands of public procurement staff working in national, regional and local governments around the world. More...

Today the debate rages about whether the decline in living standards is due to the effects of globalisation or to poor domestic policies. Both have surely played a role. More...

Ambitious action on climate is an imperative. The G20 leaders have a chance to reinforce the Paris Climate Agreement and raise ambition with concrete measures to ensure significant progress towards net zero economies and reap the benefits of investment now in jobs and economic growth. More...