Jose Angel Gurria Quotes

We are dealing with the greater challenges of globalisation. It is generating, in many cases, an increase in the levels of inequality in societies... that is undesirable.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Governments must address inconsistencies in their energy strategies, consider the links with broader economic policies, and stop sending mixed signals to consumers, producers, and investors. In particular, they must assess whether the right regulatory arrangements are in place to allow clean-energy investments to compete on a risk-return basis.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

The home is the planet. Unless you're a Martian, you know, we're sharing the planet. And - and the emissions don't stop and CO2 doesn't stop with the border between France, Spain or between Canada and the United States.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I was an economist out of the National University of Mexico, where you lived the realities of Mexico all the time.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Ending our reliance on fossil fuels was never going to be easy.

- Jose Angel Gurria

We need to achieve zero emissions from fossil fuel sources by the second half of the century. That doesn't mean by 2050 exactly, but it means by that time we need to be pretty much on the way to achieving it.

- Jose Angel Gurria

If the world is to avoid a collision with nature - one that humanity surely cannot win - we must act boldly on every front, particularly with respect to carbon pricing and the coherence of our economic and energy policies.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Unlike other essential goods, like clothing, shelter, or food, we take cheap or even free water for granted. It often takes a crisis, such as a major drought or flood, to spur investment and policy reforms in improving water security.

- Jose Angel Gurria

We are totally schizophrenic. We are trying to reduce emissions, and we subsidize the consumption of fossil fuels.

- Jose Angel Gurria

High levels of inequality generate high costs for society, dampening social mobility, undermining the labour market prospects of vulnerable social groups, and creating social unrest.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Gender equality is essential for ensuring that men and women can contribute fully at home, at work, and in public life for the betterment of societies and economies at large.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Our work at the OECD shows that migration, if well managed, can spur growth and innovation. Unfortunately, in the past, migration has not always been well managed: migrants have been concentrated in ghetto-like conditions, with few public services or employment prospects.

- Jose Angel Gurria

In a globally interdependent world, a better financial and investment system cannot be achieved on a country-by-country basis. There may be no one-size-fits-all model for economic development, but without global standards and complementary regulations, the long-term outlook for the world economy will remain bleak.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The concept of national treatment is a core component of investment and trade agreements. It promotes valuable competition on a level playing field. Investment treaties should not turn this idea on its head, giving privileges to foreign companies that are not available to domestic companies.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Ensuring a better future for all South Africans will require increased access to higher education, a stronger and fairer labour market, deeper participation in regional markets, and a regulatory framework that fosters entrepreneurship and allows small businesses to thrive.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The euro is going to continue to be the largest single trading block.

- Jose Angel Gurria

One of the greatest challenges of democracies today is the question of financing campaigns. It's a tremendous challenge. Obviously I think the solution is to have the governments pay for all the campaigns and not to have any private contributions.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Water security is not just for domestic policies. International co-operation is crucial to sustainably manage trans-boundary water bodies and river basins.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Transparency and effective tax co-operation must be shared principles applied by all. Until they are, nations will need to protect themselves against loss of revenues to tax havens.

- Jose Angel Gurria

European leaders cannot afford to be afraid. The refugee crisis is not one from which they can opt out. No magic wand will empower leaders to transport more than a million people back across the Aegean and the Bosphorus to Mosul and Aleppo, or across the Mediterranean to Eritrea, Somalia, and Sudan.

- Jose Angel Gurria

To give students the best possible chance to succeed, education must prepare them to handle issues that transcend national boundaries.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The whole banking sector in Mexico was literally bankrupt. For whatever reason, instead of intervening in the sector or supporting the banks, the government expropriated them. We went through the very laborious period of selling the failing banks to the wealthy people of Mexico.

- Jose Angel Gurria

There probably could be some mileage in running a comparative study about how best to finance electoral campaigns around the world.

- Jose Angel Gurria

It will be crucial the E.U. and the U.K. maintain the closest economic relationship possible.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The idea that if governments open up and become more democratic they will fall is a false dilemma.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

Governments can and do expropriate investors or discriminate against them. Domestic judicial and administrative systems provide investors with one option for protecting themselves.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Creating a global platform for collaboration in education research and innovation has been the PISA initiative's aspiration from its conception in the late 1990s.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

In the face of sluggish growth, aging societies, and increasing educational attainment of young women, the economic case for gender equality is clear.

- Jose Angel Gurria

By assessing the capabilities and knowledge of students in the highest-performing and most rapidly improving education systems, the OECD's Program for International Student Assessment provides valuable options for reform and information on how to achieve it.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Regulations for international accounting and funding will have to be examined to identify policies that inadvertently discourage institutional investors from putting their resources into longer-term, illiquid assets.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Principles of fair and equitable treatment included in many treaties are uncontroversial as general principles of good public governance.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

In a world that places a growing premium on social skills, education systems need to do much better at fostering those skills systematically across the school curriculum.

- Jose Angel Gurria

If we can rid the world of financial centres that thrive on lack of transparency, non-cooperation, and weak regulation, an important step towards a fairer and cleaner world economy will have been achieved.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

Israel has been doing very well, but there are challenges the country faces, like poverty and social integration of the Orthodox, Arab, Beduin, and Ethiopian population, which will be essential for sustaining strong growth over time.

- Jose Angel Gurria

A more robust approach to global warming is needed if we are to avoid catastrophe. Unlike the recent financial crisis, there is no bailout option for the earth's climate.

- Jose Angel Gurria

When a large financial institution is allowed to fail, you put in jeopardy hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Some refugees will find it relatively easy to find jobs. A university-educated Syrian civil engineer arriving in Munich will need to learn some German, but once this is done, he or she is unlikely to have to wait too long before employers come knocking.

- Jose Angel Gurria

It isn't only rich countries that suffer from the effects of tax havens. Developing countries also lose billions of dollars in tax revenues due each year because wealthy individuals and some companies use tax havens to move assets and income offshore.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Nobody in their right mind will even attempt or even think of leaving the European Union, because they will understand that it is not in their best interest.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Uncertainty and fears of social decline and exclusion have reached the middle class in many societies.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

If you are trying to favor the unions by having more rigid labor market and keeping wages very high, you could be blocking people from getting new jobs.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

Our mission is to make the world economy work better.

- Jose Angel Gurria

We cannot sustain long-term growth in our economies if we do not protect and preserve our environment.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Everywhere, you have a fatigue for reform... that's very serious.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I said a vote to leave would be a Brexit tax. I couldn't think of anything stronger than that.

- Jose Angel Gurria

More dangerous than voting for change... is that people no longer vote because they have lost trust not only in governments but in democracy.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Why did we lose Brexit? Why, because 60 per cent of youth didn't believe they needed to go and vote.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I feel confident that leaders will rise to this challenge with a stronger commitment to tackle climate change and seize the economic opportunities that a post-carbon world has to offer.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

Japan's future prospects depend on ensuring fiscal sustainability over the long term.

- Jose Angel Gurria

We need to focus much more on the bottom 40 per cent. They are losing ground, and the fact that they are losing ground blocks social mobility and brings down economic growth.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The OECD should respond directly to the specific needs of the member countries. You basically say, 'What works?' You don't have to go on a discovery trip. It's all there; you just call them, and they know. It's like a knowledge bank.

- Jose Angel Gurria

There is no reason for women to trail behind men in social, economic, and political outcomes.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Some challenges remain, but the bottom line is that low-carbon options can and should play a much greater role in energy supply.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Our planet is warming dangerously.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The U.K. is much stronger as a part of Europe, and Europe is much stronger with the U.K. as a driving force.

- Jose Angel Gurria

There is no upside for the U.K. in Brexit. Only costs that can be avoided and advantages to be seized by remaining in Europe. No one should have to pay the Brexit tax.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Israel is a producer of growth.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I say just put a big fat tax on carbon.

- Jose Angel Gurria

You can accuse Europeans of being many things - except fast.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The OECD advocates a risk-based approach to water security and is calling on governments to speed up their efforts to improve efficiency and effectiveness of water management. We recommend improving water pricing to recover costs and to reflect the value of water to users and society.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Israel should share its great wealth with its neighbors, like the Palestinians, in areas like governance and investment as well as the building of institutions.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

Providing investors with recourse against governments is valuable.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Words must be matched by action if change is to become lasting.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I have family who are British citizens and who want to be citizens of the world and citizens of the E.U.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

We never tell countries that they should have a particular number in terms of a tax number, you know, if countries can make do with whatever average tax they have. The question is, do they apply it to everybody? Or do they give sweetheart deals to some companies?

- Jose Angel Gurria

Coal is the most carbon-intensive fuel available for electricity generation. The most urgent threat to climate policy is the scale of new investments in unabated coal-fired electricity generation still being planned.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The OECD deals with the economic aspects of a host of issues, including education, health, and the environment.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

'Tax' is a bad word for politicians.

- Jose Angel Gurria

It is not good to cut exports or imports.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The benefits of growth have not trickled down. Income inequalities have become one of the biggest global challenges, attracting growing attention not only in academic literature but also among policymakers globally.

- Jose Angel Gurria

I think there are going to be more countries joining the euro.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Labour and land are always politically sensitive.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Every single stage of reform becomes more difficult because you use political capital.

- Jose Angel Gurria

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

- Jose Angel Gurria

I was strongly against Brexit. I speechified against Brexit.

- Jose Angel Gurria

The City of London is always going to be there and will continue to be important.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Integrity delivers better lives.

- Jose Angel Gurria

Economic resources are not all that matter in people's lives.

- Jose Angel Gurria