Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD)

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is an international forum for the coordination of economic and environmental policies among most (but not all) of the world's largest economies. Its mission is to help policymakers facilitate economic investment, growth, and trade among member states, maintain financial stability, enhance democratic governance, and promote market-oriented development. Other goals involve fighting corruption, monitoring corporate abuse, enhancing transparency, and improving public administration. At times, it is a forum for the application of international moral suasion. Founded as the Organisation for European Economic Co-operation in 1948 as part of the post–World War II endeavor to administer the Marshall Plan funds, it became the OECD in 1961. It is headquartered in Paris. As the number of member states grew, reaching 30 at present (Figure 1), it incorporated non-European countries as well. Today it includes most of Europe, Turkey, the United States, Mexico, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Given that these countries collectively dominate the world's economy, the OECD exerts an important influence over much of the planet. Another 25 countries have observer status, and the organization has working relations with 70 others. The OECD also maintains relations with various labor unions and nongovernmental organizations.

The primary role of the OECD is to facilitate flows of information among its member states. It has been called a think tank, monitoring agency, and “nonacademic university.” Toward that end, it collects internationally comparable statistics, publishes books and articles on numerous topics, issues guidelines and forecasts, monitors trends, and hosts an annual meeting in which 40,000 delegates attend. It also has a series of secretariats, directorates, and centers oriented to specific issues such as education, health care, energy, agriculture, labor and employment, technological change, fiscal policy, taxation, and so on. Representative examples of recent analyses include biofuels, global climate change, reforms of troubled financial markets, immigration and the globalization of labor markets, aging workers, uses of nan-otechnology, the digital divide of Internet access, spam minimization, and offshore tax evasion. The goal of such efforts is to identify best practices, compare policy experiences, and find answers to common problems. Although its role is largely advisory, the information it collects and produces frequently enters into international agreements and dispute settlements, as well as academic research. Its annual budget of roughly a half billion U.S. dollars is funded by member states and reflects the size of their relative gross domestic product.

Critics of the OECD allege that it shares common neoliberal goals with similar groups such as the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organization, that is, the promotion of deregulated markets that favor a few at the expense of the many.

Figure 1 Map of OECD members, 2008. Starting as an organization of Western European countries as well as the United States and Canada, the OECD has expanded to 30 members worldwide.

Source: Author.