Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development

The OECD Economic Outlook analyzes the major economic trends over the coming 2 years. It provides in-depth coverage of the main economic issues and the policy measures required to foster growth in each member country. Forthcoming developments in major non-OECD economies are also evaluated in detail. Each edition of the Outlook provides a unique resource to keep abreast of world economic developments. The OECD Economic Outlook database is a comprehensive and consistent macroeconomic database of the OECD economies, covering expenditures, foreign trade, output, labor markets, interest and exchange rates, balance of payments and government debt. For the non-OECD regions, foreign trade and current account series are available. Variables are defined in such a way that they are as homogenous as possible for the countries covered. Breaks in underlying series are corrected as far as possible. Sources for the historical data are publications of national statistical agencies and OECD data bases such as Quarterly National Accounts, Annual National Accounts, Labor Force Statistics and Main Economic Indicators. The cut-off date for information used in the compilation of the projections was June 1, 2023. The aggregation of world trade takes into account the projections made for the main non-OECD economies. Thus, besides OECD and the OECD euro area, the following regions are available: Dynamic Asian Economies (Chinese Taipei, Hong Kong, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam); Oil Producers (Algeria, Angola, Azerbaijan Bahrain, Brunei, Chad, Rep. of Congo, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Gabon, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Libya, Nigeria, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Timor-Leste , Trinidad and Tobago, Turkmenistan, United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Venezuela); with the remaining countries in a residual 'Rest of the World' group.

Productivity is a key driver of economic growth and changes in living standards. Labour productivity growth implies a higher level of output for unit of labour input (hours worked or persons employed). This can be achieved if more capital is used in production or through improved overall efficiency with which labour and capital are used together, i.e., higher multifactor productivity growth (MFP). Productivity is also a key driver of international competitiveness, e.g. as measured by Unit Labour Costs (ULC).   The OECD Productivity Database aims at providing users with the most comprehensive and the latest productivity estimates. The update cycle is on a rolling basis, i.e. each variable in the dataset is made publicly available as soon as it is updated in the sources databases. However, some time lag may arise which affects individual series and/or countries for two reasons: first, hours worked data from the OECD Employment Outlook are typically updated less frequently than the OECD Annual National Accounts Database; second, source data for capital services are typically available in annual national accounts later than source data for labour productivity and ULCs.   Note to users: The OECD Productivity Database accounts for the methodological changes in national accounts' statistics, such as the implementation of the System of National Accounts 2008 (2008 SNA) and the implementation of the international industrial classification ISIC Rev.4. These changes had an impact on output, labour and capital measurement. For Chile, China, Colombia, India, Japan, Turkey and the Russian Federation the indicators are in line with the System of National Accounts 1993 (1993 SNA); for all other countries, the indicators presented are based on the 2008 SNA

The productivity and income estimates presented in this dataset are mainly based on GDP, population and employment data from the OECD Annual National Accounts. Hours worked are sourced from the OECD Annual National Accounts, the OECD Employment Outlook and national sources. The OECD Productivity Database aims at providing users with the most comprehensive and the latest productivity estimates. The update cycle is on a rolling basis, i.e. each variable in the dataset is made publicly available as soon as it is updated in the sources databases. However, timely data issues may arise and affect individual series and/or individual countries. In particular, annual hours worked estimates from the OECD Employment Outlook are typically updated less frequently (once a year, in the summer) than series of hours worked from the OECD Annual National Accounts.

The OECD Long-Term Baseline is a projection of some major economic variables beyond the short-term horizon of the OECD Economic Outlook. It covers all OECD economies, non-OECD G20 economies and selected key partners. The projection horizon is currently 2060. For the historical period and the short-run projection horizon, the series are consistent with those of the OECD Economic Outlook number 114. The definitions, sources and methods are also generally the same. For more details on the methodology, please see boxes and Annex in Guillemette, Y. and J. Château (2023), 'Long-Term Scenarios: Incorporating the Energy Transition', OECD Economic Policy Papers, No. 33, OECD Publishing, Paris, and references therein. The baseline scenario is a projection conditional on a number of assumptions, notably that countries do not carry out institutional and policy reforms (see section 2 of the reference cited above). It is used as a reference point to illustrate the potential impact of structural reforms in alternative scenarios. The energy transition scenario is an alternative scenario with accelerated energy transition broadly consistent with net zero GHG emissions by 2050 (see section 3 of the reference cited above).

Main Economic Indicators (MEI) provides a wide range of indicators on recent economic developments in the 35 OECD member countries and 15 non-member countries. The indicators published in MEI have been prepared by national statistical agencies primarily to meet the requirements of users within their own country. In most instances, the indicators are compiled in accordance with international statistical guidelines and recommendations. However, national practices may depart from these guidelines, and these departures may impact on comparability between countries.

The Financial Statistics dataset contains predominantly monthly statistics, and associated statistical methodological information, for the 36 OECD member countries and some selected other countries. The dataset itself contains financial statistics on 4 separate subjects: Monetary Aggregates, Interest Rates, Exchange Rates, and Share Prices. The data series presented within these subjects have been chosen as the most relevant financial statistics for which comparable data across countries is available. In all cases a lot of effort has been made to ensure that the data are internationally comparable across all countries presented and that all the subjects have good historical time-series’ data to aid with analysis. All data are available monthly, and are presented as either an index (where the year 2015 is the base year) or as a level depending on which measure is seen as the most appropriate and/or useful in the economic analysis context.

It presents the three approaches of the GDP: expenditure based, output based and income based. It has been prepared from statistics reported to the OECD by Member countries in their answers to annual national accounts questionnaire. This questionnaire is designed to collect internationally comparable data according to the 1993 SNA.

The OECD Weekly Tracker of GDP growth provides a real-time high-frequency indicator of economic activity using machine learning and Google Trends data. It has a wide country coverage of OECD and G20 countries. The Tracker is thus particularly well suited to assessing activity during the turbulent period of the current global pandemic. It applies a machine learning model to a panel of Google Trends data for 46 countries, and aggregates together information about search behaviour related to consumption, labour markets, housing, trade, industrial activity and economic uncertainty.   The Weekly Tracker proxies the percent change in weekly GDP levels from the pre-crisis trend. The pre-crisis trend is taken from OECD forecasts made prior to the crisis (in the November 2019 Economic Outlook). Two other flavours of the Tracker are also available in the datafiles: a Tracker of weekly GDP growth year-on-year (that is, the percent change in weekly GDP from the same week in the past year), and a Tracker of weekly GDP growth year-on-two-year (the percent change in weekly GDP from the same week two years earlier). 

DUE TO CHANGES IN THE METHODOLOGY THE 2018 PMR VALUES CANNOT BE COMPARED WITH PREVIOUS VINTAGES. The 2018 OECD Indicators of Product Market Regulation (PMR) are a comprehensive and internationally-comparable set of indicators that measure the degree to which laws and policies promote or inhibit competition in areas of the product and service market where competition is viable. These indicators measure the de iure regulatory environments in 34 OECD countries and in a set of non-OECD countries in 2018. The economy-wide indicators cover the extent to which the involvement of the state in the economy can generate distortions to competition and the level of the barriers to entry and expansion to domestic and foreign firms in different sectors of the economy. Users of the data must be aware that they may no longer fully reflect the current situation in fast reforming countries.

The OECD's quarterly national accounts (QNA) dataset presents data collected from all the OECD member countries and some other major economies on the basis of a standardised questionnaire. It contains a wide selection of generally seasonally adjusted quarterly series most widely used for economic analysis from 1960 or whenever available:

The Regional database contains annual data from 1995 to the most recent available year (generally 2018 for demographic and labor market data, 2017 for regional accounts, innovation and social statistics). The data collection is undertaken by the Center for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions and Cities (CFE). Statistics are collected through an annual questionnaire sent to the delegates of the Working Party on Territorial Indicators (WPTI), and via downloads from the web-sites of National Statistical Offices and Eurostat

The OECD cross-section sectoral indicators measure regulatory conditions in the professional services and retail distribution sectors. The retail indicators cover barriers to entry, operational restrictions, and price controls. These indicators were updated and revised; they are now estimated for 34 OECD countries for the years 1998, 2003, around 2008 and 2013 and for another set of non-OECD countries for 2013. Users of the data must be aware that they may no longer fully reflect the current situation in fast reforming countries. Not all data are available for all countries for all years.

Because of the limited availability of official statistics on national supply-use and input-output tables in recent years – reflecting the fact that these are only typically available at best two or three years after the reference period to which they refer – TiVA indicators for the most recent years, as displayed in this dataset, are estimated using now-casting techniques. The approach (described in more detail in the accompanying methodological note) in essence estimates national input-output tables by projecting relationships observed in the latest TiVA benchmark year (currently 2011) into nowcast years (currently 2012-2014) but constrained to official estimates of gross output and value-added by industry and national accounts main aggregates of demand and trade, and supplemented by bilateral trade statistics, all of which are available throughout the nowcast period. Importantly, the projections of relationships in 2011 into 2012 are determined using a volume approach, to account for possible distortions that might be introduced – by for example differential price movements in imports and domestic production – if projections were made using nominal relationships. These estimates are then reflated into current prices, and simultaneously balanced – consistent with official volume and current price estimates of trade, demand and activity – to arrive at a balanced national input-output table in 2012, in nominal terms as well as in prices of 2011. Estimates for 2013 and 2014 are calculated in the same manner but using, respectively, the 2012 and 2013 relationships as the starting point.