Competitive and transparent energy markets are central to economic performance and social wellbeing. Although liberalisation reforms have progressed in many countries, OECD PMR evidence highlights persistent gaps in key regulatory tools, including consumer engagement mechanisms and enabling digital infrastructure. Addressing these gaps is critical to fostering effective competition and improving outcomes for consumers and the broader energy system.
Economic policy
Economic policy encompasses the range of fiscal, monetary, structural and regulatory instruments governments use to promote sustainable economic performance, resilience, productivity and well-being. This topic page presents the OECD’s analysis of policy levers, structural reform indicators and governance frameworks designed to help governments transform economic challenges into long-term opportunities.
Key links
Recent releases
Building competitive energy markets: Regulatory insights from the OECD PMR indicators
Recent policy research
Measuring the macroeconomic cost of climate change from the ground up
Climate change affects economies through local and granular channels. Workers are exposed to heat, firms are hit by floods, farms face changing growing conditions, and coastal areas lose land to rising seas. Yet the economic consequences are not confined to the places directly affected. Through trade, migration and production networks, local climate damages can reshape economic outcomes across regions, countries, and ultimately the global economy.
In a new OECD working paper (Baptista et al., 2026), we develop the Climate and Adaptation Spatial General Equilibrium Model (OECD-CASGEM) to connect these local damages to country specific macroeconomic outcomes. The model aggregates climate impacts across 927 regions in 186 countries while accounting for trade, migration and production linkages within and across countries. This allows us to quantify how local climate shocks propagate through the global economy, shaping both aggregate losses and their distribution across regions.
Read the full paper:
The climate and adaptation spatial general equilibrium model (OECD-CASGEM): the macroeconomic cost of climate change
September 2026
by Diogo Baptista, Hélia Costa and Filiz Unsal,
Unwinding global imbalances
Current account balances are at the forefront of global discussions, including this year’s G20 and G7 meetings. Renewed attention reflects persistent external positions across major economies, increasing trade tensions and widening net international investment positions (NIIPs).
A current account balance records an economy’s transactions with the rest of the world in goods, services, income and transfers. A surplus means an economy saves more than it invests domestically; a deficit means it invests more than it saves and draws on net foreign financing. Current account balances are therefore shaped by the saving and investment decisions of households, firms and governments. Persistent current account positions can be problematic when they reflect policy distortions or unsustainable saving-investment patterns, especially if deficit economies become vulnerable to shifts in foreign financing or larger external balance sheets amplify risks.
Read the full paper:
Current account imbalances, facts, drivers, and policy challenges
June 2026
by Erik Frohm, John Hooley, Fatih Ozturk, Łukasz Rawdanowicz, Nivetha Sivakumar
Economic policy by country: Country snapshots
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Critical raw minerals and the global economy
Economic Security in a Changing World: Critical raw materials supply chains
Production and international trade of CRMs has become increasingly concentrated amongst a handful of extracting and processing locations which account for the bulk of global supply. For example, the three top producing countries in 2023 accounted for more than two thirds of the global production of cobalt (78%), lithium (92%), nickel (65%) and rare earth elements (90%). Concentration of exports is particularly significant for unprocessed forms of cobalt, manganese, borates, chromium, magnesium and lithium.
