Quotes from Jose Angel Gurria

Labour and land are always politically sensitive.

In a country like Mexico, you can't forget about poverty - about how half of the population lives in poverty, and how half of that half live in extreme poverty.

Our leaders must get to grips with the huge risk that carbon dioxide emissions pose to the economy and the environment. As we know, carbon dioxide is a long-lived gas. It hangs around.

History is full of lessons for how water crises could have been avoided or better managed.

It takes collaboration across a community to develop better skills for better lives.

Every country faces its own obstacles to reaching gender equality, and to make a real difference, we must change public policies in tandem with stereotypes, attitudes, and behaviors.

We need better measures of people's expectations and levels of satisfaction, of how they spend their time, of their relations with other people... We need to focus on stocks as much as on flows, and we need to broaden the range of assets that we consider important to sustain our well-being.

Countries like Japan do not have to change their cultures to address their educational shortcomings; they simply have to adjust their policies and practices.

Social cohesion and inclusive growth are additional crucial perspectives to incorporate into public policies, targeting a renewed social contract that reduces inequalities and benefits the whole of society.

If we want a stronger, cleaner, and fairer world economy, we need to deal with the controversial areas of globalisation, such as tax havens.

When, as an individual, you are not paying taxes, it is evasion. As a corporate, it is legal shrewdness or tax engineering.

You do need more revenues, and you do need to cut expenses. But you also don't want to go in a direction whereby increasing taxes creates a reticence to create new jobs. You don't want to increase taxes on work. You don't want to increase taxes on investment and the creation of wealth.

Reforms to product and labour markets, education, innovation, green growth, competition, taxes, health - they are the things that should be the object of our primary focus in the context of a long-term strategy to restore sustained growth.

Some politicians fear the burden that migrants will impose on local communities and taxpayers. Others fear extremists masquerading as genuine refugees.

The G7 doesn't have a permanent secretariat. The OECD can help the G8 and set the agenda for them. The secretary general of the OECD should be going to them proactively and discussing issues and priorities.

Israel is a producer of growth.

Most businesses do not take governments seriously when it comes to climate, primarily because many governments have inconsistent and incoherent policies and then often keep changing them, sometimes retroactively. This makes businesses reluctant to invest in greener technologies.

The OECD should promote everything that's consistent with its mandate, which is to make the world economy work better.

At the OECD, we stand ready to continue to help our member and partner countries to design, promote, and implement Better Policies for Better Lives.

Those who argue for Brexit are wrong, and that is because they have not been properly informed about the costs.

I say just put a big fat tax on carbon.

Governments need to be seriously sceptical about whether new coal provides a good deal for their citizens.

In order to encourage private investors to pursue long-term, responsible projects, governments need to promote consistent policies and frameworks.

It doesn't really matter who owns things so long there is enough competition, which means lower pricing, better quality goods, more variety, and an economy where the consumers are the big winners.