At its meeting in October 2000, the Committee on Financial Markets requested the Working Party on Public Debt Management to undertake a study on recent trends and developments in OECD bond markets. Subsequently, the study would be discussed at the meeting of the Committee in October 2001. The Working Party discussed this request at its meeting in November 2000. In response, a task force, consisting of delegates to the Working Party, was formed to draft the various chapters. Prior to the drafting of the contributions, guidelines were distributed to the authors and a first, complete draft of the study was reviewed by all the authors as well as the Steering Group of the Working Party. This chapter serves as an introduction and overview of OECD bond markets. Detailed information on countries, regions and background analyses can be found in the subsequent chapters.