Ireland leaves the EU/IMF programme

©REUTERS/Suzanne Plunkett

Ian Goldin, Professor of Globalisation and Development, and Director, Oxford Martin School, University of Oxford*

President Mandela stands in the pantheon of political leaders. He was blessed with an extraordinary ability, intelligence and memory, but it was his character that sets him head and shoulders above other leaders.

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Ireland leaves the EU/IMF programme

Eamon Gilmore, Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister), Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ireland

Ireland leaves the three-year EU/IMF programme of assistance this December. Our economy is growing, our finances have stabilised and unemployment is coming down. Our strategy is working in Ireland, and our people are getting back to work.

We are the first country in the euro area to exit such a programme and it is a significant moment, not just for Ireland, but for Europe. This crisis has been a test of national governments, of European solidarity and of the European project itself.  Our achievement today shows that while Europe needs to find answers to its critics, the critics must in turn recognise the real and substantial signs of progress, hard-won by our people.

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Case studies of specific products, particularly in the electronics industry, show that value creation along a global value chain tends to be unevenly distributed among activities. The highest value creation is found in upstream activities, such as the development of a new concept, research and development (R&D) and the manufacturing of key components. But it is also found in downstream activities, such as marketing, branding and customer service.

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Headline economic data

Data for OECD area. Latest update: 20 Dec 2013

Databank - Latest quarterly data by country

For details on these and other numbers, click titles or visit www.oecd.org/statistics

GDP, output, inflation, current account, unemployment, interest rates for 40 countries plus euro area, as published in OECD Observer. Just print it out and pin it up.

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© Hervé Cortinat/OECD

Interview with Vincent Peillon, Minister of Education, France

The results of the 2012 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) survey, which assesses competence of 15-years-old students in maths, reading and science in 65 countries, delivered a rather unsatisfactory report card for France. PISA lands at a time when the debate on the future of the French educational system has heated up, with key reforms in the pipeline. Will the 2012 PISA survey help? We asked Education Minister Vincent Peillon to highlight the main lessons.

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Andreas Schleicher, Special Advisor on Education Policy to the Secretary-General and Deputy Director, OECD Directorate for Education and Skills

In a global economy, the benchmark for educational success is no longer improvement by national standards alone, but the best performing school systems internationally. Latest results from the PISA assessment, the world’s metric for evaluating learning outcomes at school, issued 3 December, show striking changes in the world’s talent. 

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OECD Observer Crossword No.4 2013

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Latin America’s future as a region of innovation will be far from secure if investment in research and development (R&D) continues at current low levels.

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In 1994, a simple disagreement in a marketplace in Ghana over the price of a guinea fowl turned ugly. The quarrel led to the violent death of one person, which provoked subsequent killings and then escalated into a cycle of revenge attacks. The dispute quickly grew to become what is today known as the Guinea Fowl War. By the time the Ghanaian military restored order, more than 400 villages had been burned and over 15 000 people are thought to have been killed.

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Major events, like the Great East Japan earthquake or indeed the euro crisis, can have important ripple effects that spread well beyond the areas immediately concerned. More recently, the budget crisis that resulted in the shutdown of large parts of the US government and public services has raised the spectre of a default, the first in the country’s history.

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Climate change is, to a large extent, water change. Water is the predominant channel through which the impact of climate change will be felt. More torrential rains, floods and droughts can be expected in many parts of the world. Not only that–climate change is reshaping the future for freshwater on the planet. 

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The shortfalls of GDP that were already apparent before the crisis but made starker during it have led to a panoply of new initiatives to find metrics that can measure wellbeing rather than just economic growth. But while GDP has stood accused of overlooking the environment and human well-being, it has one advantage which policymakers and analysts appreciate: the methods are objective and clear. Whether measuring output or expenditure in an economy, GDP produces a single number that is easy to adjust and compare.

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