The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has released two new publications: Guidelines on Measuring Trust and Guidelines on Measuring the Quality of the Work Environment.

Trust, at the interpersonal and institutional level, is a key ingredient of growth, societal well-being and governance. To improve existing measures of trust, these new Guidelines are a first attempt at providing international recommendations on collecting, publishing, and analyzing trust data to encourage their use by national statistical agencies. They also include a number of prototype survey modules on trust that national and international agencies can use in their household surveys.

Quality of the working environment depends on a wide range of factors that ultimately determine workers’ well-being at the workplace. These new Guidelines aim to improve the measurement of these factors by taking stock of current data availability, reviewing the analytic and policy uses of these measures, proposing a conceptual framework, assessing the statistical quality of measures, and providing guidance on methodological challenges. They also include a number of prototype surveys modules that national and international agencies can use in their surveys.

A fully cooperative effort between the OECD, BIS, ECB, Fondazione AIB, the IMF, national central banks (Austria, Italy and Portugal), national statistical offices (Australia and Canada), and the Treasury of Canada, these publications are intended for young statisticians, students, journalists, economists, policymakers and citizens who want to know more about the statistics that are at the heart of the analysis of financial developments in OECD economies.