Transcript The 2006 OECD Factbook

The 2006 OECD Factbook
Enrico Giovannini
OECD Chief Statistician
March 2006
The inspiration





Information is not knowledge (Albert Einstein)
Today we are bombarded by information (Jean-Claude
Trichet)
An investment in knowledge pays the best interest
(Benjamin Franklin)
Beware of false knowledge: it is more dangerous than
ignorance (George Bernard Shaw)
By adopting key indicator systems, we will be able to
generate quality information that can help individuals,
institutions and nations accelerate progress and make
better choices (David Walker)
2
Risks coming from uniformed decisions



Citizens: “people often use ideology as a short-cut heuristic
for deciding what position to take, when properly informing
oneself is difficult“ (Blinder and Krueger, 2004)
Businesses: New economy “bubble” started with public
statements based on wrong facts about the importance of
Internet and e-commerce: “Internet traffic is doubling every
100 days (2000); “E-commerce: a digital tsunami (1997)
Policy makers: “I saw some statistics which show the bad
performances of our schooling system. I do not know if they
are true or not and I do not care. However, I decided to
address this important issue”
3
Demand for quality statistical information
about the performance of countries





A lot of information is available
Very uneven quality
Users are not fully able to distinguish between good and
bad quality information
Need to go beyond the measurement of economic
performances (GDP)
Participation of the civil society in defining society’s goals
Three main approaches:
 Integrated economic/environmental and social accounts
 Composite Indicators
 Key Indicators
4
The first OECD World Forum on
“Statistics, Knowledge and Policy”
(Palermo, November 2004)
(see www.oecd.org/oecdworldforum)
The Forum addressed key issues for the
development of modern democracies:




the transparency and accountability of public policies;
people’s capacity for understanding the characteristics
and the evolution of the economies and societies in which
they are living;
the role of statisticians, media, civil society, etc. in
contributing to the development of a common facts-based
knowledge among citizens;
the measurement of overall progress of a
5
country/region/community.
World Forum follow-up
The Forum asked the OECD to:
 launch a medium-term process on key indicators, through
electronic discussion groups, specialised workshops, etc.;
 organise a second World Forum in two-three years time.
To respond to this request, the OECD has:
 Developed the OECD Factbook;
 Designed a horizontal project on “Indicators for measuring
progress and indicators for policy making”;
 Commenced the preparation of the second World Forum
(Turkey, June 2007).
6
The OECD Factbook (1)

The Factbook presents, in an integrated way, a carefully
selected range of more than 150 indicators covering 10
broad thematic areas:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
–

Population and migration,
Macroeconomic trends,
Prices,
Labour market,
Science and technology,
Environment,
Education,
Public policies,
Quality of life.
Special chapter (energy in 2005, economic globalisation in
2006)
7
The OECD Factbook (2)





Tables and graphs illustrating in a user-friendly manner
long-term trends and the relative ranking of countries
Definitions of the indicators and comments on their
comparability, thus enabling users to evaluate the
relevance and value of specific data
Portal to other OECD statistical and analytic publications
useful for further research and understanding
Factbook data are also used to prepare individual Country
Statistical Profiles, available in the new “country pages”
of the OECD Web site.
The Factbook provides tables and charts organised by
topic; Country Statistical Profiles present the same
information by country.
8
The OECD Factbook: A great success

Paper version available in:
– English, French, German, Japanese
– Soon also in Spanish and Portuguese

The online version of the Factbook is available for free

Visits and hits
– 25,000 monthly downloads of Factbook tables
– 30,000 monthly visits to Country Statistical profiles
– The most visited “special” OECD site
– 3,500 paper copies sold
9
The 2006 OECD Factbook: new features

More tables, improved chapters (especially Quality
of Life)

Data for Brazil, China, India, Russian Federation,
South Africa

Longer time series in the on-line version

More metadata (footnotes) in the on-line version
10
And now, let’s look at some tables
11
Page 14
12
Page 19
13
Page 27
14
Page 33
15
Page 37
16
Page 51
17
Page 63
18
Page 80
19
Page 239
20
Page 243
21
Page 87
22
Page 103
23
Page 123
24
Page 125
25
Page 129
26
Page 143
27
Page 163
28
Page 168
29
Page 181
30
Page 197
31
Page 201
32
Page 207
33
Page 215
34