Italy
The impacts of the war in Ukraine will be felt severely within OECD economies, especially in border regions on the front-line of the humanitarian refugee crisis. The economic impacts, in particular those driven by rising energy prices, will also be spatially differentiated, affecting some regions more than others. Italy is no exception, with gas-intensive industries concentrated in northern regions, and wheat-based food and farming prevailing in southern regions and islands. While, overall, Russia accounted for a minor share of Italian exports, some regions and industries are more vulnerable than others to falls in bilateral trade, including destinations popular with high per-capita expenditure Russian tourists.
The impacts of the war in Ukraine will be felt severely within OECD economies, especially in border regions on the front-line of the humanitarian refugee crisis. The economic impacts, in particular those driven by rising energy prices, will also be spatially differentiated, affecting some regions more than others. Italy is no exception, with gas-intensive industries concentrated in northern regions, and wheat-based food and farming prevailing in southern regions and islands. While, overall, Russia accounted for a minor share of Italian exports, some regions and industries are more vulnerable than others to falls in bilateral trade, including destinations popular with high per-capita expenditure Russian tourists.
Italy's National Action Plan for Policy Coherence for Sustainable Development (PCSD) brings together the institutional mechanisms, evaluation frameworks and coherence tools needed to integrate sustainable development into government policy making. This Action Plan shows how to streamline existing mechanisms to improve policy coherence across levels of government and to involve civil society more closely in policy formulation. It also suggests how to make the most of complementarities across existing data collection efforts. The Action Plan includes suggestions for better linking mandates across departments and levels of government to avoid overlap and make greater progress in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Finally, it provides targets and measurable processes for each action to help track progress.
The present paper presents methodologies to forecast and conduct policy analysis for three well-being indicators with the goal of informing the Italian government’s budget planning process. For each of the three indicators (healthy life expectancy, overweight and obesity, and early school leaving), a model is developed that allows projecting future trends under a status quo scenario and that allows estimating the impact of policy and budget levers on future outcomes. The micro-economic models for being in good health have a moderate explanatory power with an R2 ranging between 0.2 and 0.3. The strongest predictors of good health are by far the prevalence of chronic diseases, followed by low mental health, sport practice and diet. Overall, the combined changes in inputs yield an improvement in the share of people declaring being in good health by 2.7 ppt, from a baseline of 62% among people older than 18. The micro-economic model for being in excess weight has lower explanatory power (R2 between 0.05 and 0.15). As a result, the combined changes in inputs yield a relatively small decrease by 0.5 ppt starting from a baseline of 47.6% of the population. The most important predictors are those associated with a healthy diet. Finally, the cross-region macro-economic model of early school leaving has high explanatory power (R2 above 0.90) and highlights a wide range of ‘push and pull’ factors. The combination of benchmark inputs yields a decrease in the rate of early leavers by 1.8 ppt, starting from a baseline of 13.1%. Overall, these results highlight the large scope for policy intervention to improve well-being outcomes, as well as the multiplicity of policy levers.
Cultural and creative sectors are a significant driver of local development through job creation and income generation, spurring innovation across the economy. Beyond their economic impacts, they also have significant social impacts, from supporting health and well-being to promoting social inclusion and local social capital. This paper offers a review of cultural and creative sectors in the Emilia-Romagna region, Italy, highlighting issues and trends in regards to employment, business, entrepreneurship and financing in cultural and creative sectors. It also reviews issues and trends relating to cultural participation and offers in-depth analysis on the role of museums in supporting local development. The paper provides analysis and recommendations to support the region in strengthening the local cultural and creative ecosystem.
The study identifies the main factors that affect the diffusion of digital technologies and their returns among Italian firms, highlighting the crucial role of public policies. It uses a unique data infrastructure that integrates information on digital technology adoption, firm performance, and workers’ and managers’ skills. The analysis shows that the low digitalisation of Italian firms, especially of SMEs, can be traced back to the low levels of three factors: i) workers’ skills, ii) management capabilities, and iii) accumulation of intangible assets. These factors are also crucial to maximise the effectiveness of public policies supporting firm digitalisation, such as the deployment of broadband infrastructure and fiscal incentives to investments in digital technologies. Finally, the analysis shows that the COVID-19 crisis contributed to further widening the digital gap between Italian firms, favouring ex-ante more digitalised companies, suggesting that public policies play a crucial role for the post-COVID-19 recovery.
Around one-third of the European Union’s budget is dedicated to cohesion policy, which promotes and supports the overall harmonious development of its Member States and regions. The success of this investment relies on effective partnerships among governments, stakeholders, and citizens. Citizens have a key role to play in shaping decisions on public investment, as well as in making public authorities more transparent and accountable. From July 2020-December 2021, the European Commission and the OECD partnered to explore how five authorities across Europe could place citizens at the centre of their investment decisions. This report summarises lessons learned throughout this project and, particularly, the results of applying innovative citizen participation methods to cohesion policy more broadly.
L’économie italienne sort de la crise liée au COVID-19 en progressant régulièrement, grâce au déploiement de la campagne de vaccination et aux mesures généreuses de soutien budgétaire adoptées en faveur des ménages et des entreprises. D'importants risques pèsent cependant sur les perspectives, liés notamment aux variants et à la trajectoire des taux d’intérêt dans le monde. Pour que la croissance et l’emploi retrouvent leurs niveaux d'avant la pandémie, il va falloir améliorer la composition des dépenses publiques. Une telle évolution, conjuguée à la mise en œuvre des plans nationaux de relance et de résilience qui prévoient des mesures essentielles en matière de réformes structurelles et d’investissements, contribuera à accélérer la transition vers une économie plus verte et plus numérique. Pour y parvenir, il faudra mener à bien d'ambitieuses réformes législatives et administratives. Il sera indispensable d’améliorer la justice civile, l'administration de l’impôt et l’investissement public pour stimuler la croissance des revenus. Utiliser de manière plus efficace les informations sur les performances et les résultats des examens des dépenses pourrait aider à réaffecter les dépenses publiques en direction des activités les plus propices à la croissance. Dresser l’inventaire du stock de réglementations en vigueur et examiner la manière dont elles sont mises en œuvre permettrait d'améliorer l'environnement des entreprises. Des modes de recrutement agiles et des mécanismes permettant de mieux évaluer, récompenser et accompagner les performances des fonctionnaires permettraient d'atténuer les écarts de compétences qui se creusent au sein de la fonction publique. Améliorer la collaboration entre les multiples échelons de l’administration italienne permettrait d'améliorer la fourniture des services publics, par exemple s’agissant de l'accueil des jeunes enfants ou des politiques actives du marché du travail.
THÈME SPÉCIAL : RENFORCER L'EFFICACITÉ DU SECTEUR PUBLIC
A first step to implement effective migrant integration policies is to know who does what in policy sectors key to integration. Responding to this need, this paper offers policy makers a tool to understand the organisation of public action in key sectors for integration - Employment, Education, Housing, and Health/Welfare – in a sample of 10 OECD countries: Austria, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, New Zealand, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands.
The complexity of the division of powers among levels of government calls for coordination mechanisms between actors, whatever the level of decentralisation. Besides, it throws lights on subnational governments’ role in integrating migrants and enabling them to participate to local development for the benefits of all. The geographic differences that exist in migrant presence and outcomes mean countries should build on local authorities' knowledge of local realities, aptitudes to coordinate different policy fields at the relevant scale and cooperate with non-governmental organisations.
Comprehensive and coordinated action across levels of government responsible for different policy domains (labour, education, housing and welfare/health) as well as across local actors is crucial to migrant integration. To respond to this need for co-ordination, different policy instruments are mobilised by countries. This paper presents six of them, to illustrate three categories of practices supporting migrant integration through better multi-level co-ordination:
Reinforcing co-ordination (financial, human, technical) between levels of governments and private actors such as businesses or non-governmental organisations to foster migrant integration and retention: The Canadian Atlantic Immigration Pilot (AIP) and the French Territorial Contracts for the Reception and Integration of Refugees (CTAIR);
Resolving information and evaluation asymmetries: Vienna (Austria) Integration and Diversity Monitor and the German Network IQ;
Illustrating the positive externalities of territorial development and investment programmes on migrant integration and social cohesion: The Italian Inner Areas Strategy and the French Urban Policy.
OECD countries deliver publicly-funded employment services through different institutional arrangements. While in most OECD countries the majority of such services are delivered by public employment services, in two in five OECD and EU countries (or regions) they are partly or fully contracted out to external providers, including for-profit and not-for-profit entities. Contracting out employment services to outside providers offers many potential benefits: an increased flexibility to scale capacity in line with changes in unemployment, the possibility of offering services more cost-effectively, the option to better tailor services through the use of specialised service providers and the possibility to offer jobseekers choice of providers. However, achieving these benefits will depend on the actual design and monitoring of the contracting arrangements that are put in place. Focusing on the job brokerage, counselling and case-management employment services typically provided by public agencies, this paper reviews the experiences of OECD countries that have contracted out employment services through outcome-based payment schemes. It highlights the need to carefully consider questions related to the design and implementation of this form of contracting: fostering competition amongst potential providers, setting appropriate minimum service requirements and prices for different client groups, and ensuring the accountability of providers through monitoring and evaluations. These issues are discussed based on country examples, which are also detailed in factsheets contained in the online annex of the paper.
Le calamità legate a rischi naturali (NHID), come inondazioni, siccità, violente tempeste, parassiti e malattie animali, hanno un impatto significativo, diffuso e di lunga durata sui settori agricoli di tutto il mondo. Poiché il cambiamento climatico è destinato ad amplificare molti di questi impatti, un approccio "business-as-usual" alla gestione del rischio di calamitá naturali in agricoltura non può continuare se si vogliono affrontare le sfide della produttività agricola, della crescita sostenibile, e dello sviluppo sostenibile. Attingendo da sette studi di caso - Cile, Italia, Giappone, Namibia, Nuova Zelanda, Turchia e Stati Uniti - questo rapporto congiunto OCSE-FAO propone un nuovo approccio per rafforzare la resilienza alle calamità legate a rischi naturali in agricoltura. Esplora le misure politiche, gli accordi di governance, le strategie aziendali e altre iniziative che i paesi stanno usando per rafforzare la resilienza agricola alle calamità legate a rischi naturali, evidenziando le buone pratiche emergenti. Offre raccomandazioni concrete su ciò che è necessario fare per passare da un approccio mirato ad assorbire gli impatti dei disastri, ad un approccio ex ante che si concentri sulla prevenzione e sulla mitigazione degli impatti dei disastri, aiutando il settore a essere meglio preparato a rispondere ad essi e ad adattarsi e trasformarsi per affrontare le calamità future.
To make the most of its longstanding tradition of manufacturing and innovation, Piedmont, Italy, is undertaking a process of industrial transition, the success of which may be linked to an updated approach to its regional innovation policy. This should include promoting technology and non-technology driven innovation, building the innovation competences of micro- and small enterprises in addition to medium and large ones, better connecting regional innovation actors, and ensuring that innovation contributes to the region’s broader development goals such as sustainable regional development. It also requires diversifying the role of Piedmont’s innovation clusters and reinforcing the multi-level governance system for innovation policy. This report features a comparative perspective of the trends, challenges and opportunities for innovation-led growth in Piedmont, and highlights how Piedmont could build a dynamic innovation ecosystem based on its smart specialisation strategy, a fresh perspective on innovation, and future-oriented innovation cluster organisations. The report provides actionable recommendations and offers insights into making the most of innovation policy as a lever for place-based regional development.
Italy’s start-up visa aims to make the national start-up ecosystem more easily accessible to foreign talent, rich with knowledge and skills, and more integrated into global markets. Government reports show that the programme has not yet achieved a critical scale. The analysis of similar initiatives in Chile, France, Ireland and Portugal identifies five gateways for attracting more foreign entrepreneurs, such as an effective policy outreach, smooth inter-institutional co-operation across the migratory process, and the provision of sound support services for a “soft landing” of entrepreneurs upon arrival. These takeaways may also inform new talent attraction policies targeting remote workers, an expanding group in the context of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
This profile provides a concise and policy-relevant overview of health and the health system in Italy as part of the broader series of the State of Health in the EU country profiles. It provides a short synthesis of: the health status in the country; the determinants of health, focussing on behavioural risk factors; the organisation of the health system; and the effectiveness, accessibility and resilience of the health system. This edition has a special focus on the impact of COVID‑19.
This profile is the joint work of the OECD and the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, in co-operation with the European Commission.
Episodi di siccità sempre più frequenti e gravi minacciano il settore agricolo italiano. Si prevede che il cambiamento climatico accelererà questa tendenza, pertanto il settore deve sviluppare una resilienza nel lungo periodo. A questo fine, saranno necessarie una pianificazione e una preparazione migliore per assorbire l’impatto degli episodi di siccità e per la successiva ripresa, nonché una maggior efficacia in termini di adattamento e trasformazione a fronte di tali eventi. I recenti sviluppi positivi nel paese includono una migliore raccolta dei dati sull’approvvigionamento idrico e sui danni e le perdite subiti dall’agricoltura a causa di rischi naturali, i quali consentono maggiore consapevolezza nella gestione delle risorse idriche e nelle decisioni di investimento; un maggiore impegno verso politiche di prevenzione per la gestione dei rischi; e approcci più partecipativi alla gestione delle risorse idriche. Tuttavia il portafoglio delle politiche agricole al momento sottovaluta gli investimenti per la preparazione ad affrontare le emergenze e per l’adattamento a livello di azienda agricola, prediligendo strumenti che sono mirati ad assorbire gli impatti, come gli strumenti assicurativi. Ulteriori sforzi per sviluppare la resilienza del settore agricolo potrebbero trarre vantaggio da una strategia olistica di gestione dei rischi settoriali nel lungo periodo; una valutazione del bilanciamento tra le spese relative agli strumenti per l’assorbimento degli impatti, e gli investimenti per la misure volte a alla preparazione per la gestione delle catastrofi naturali e alla mitigazione degli impatti; e una considerazione più esplicita della demografia e delle capacità degli agricoltori nell’elaborazione delle politiche.
Raising the effectiveness of Italy’s public sector is more urgent than ever. It will be key to revive investment and productivity and improve access to quality public services for the most vulnerable. The quality of public goods and services is variable, weakening Italy’s resilience to shocks like the COVID-19 crisis and the ability to secure a more sustained and inclusive recovery. Excessive regulations and their onerous enforcement add to businesses’ operating costs. Trust in public institutions and public service delivery is one of the lowest across OECD countries. In the coming years Italy will have a unique opportunity to improve the effectiveness of its public sector, through the Recovery and Resilience Plan, the renewal of the public sector workforce, and the potential of technological innovations. This paper proposes options to strengthen public sector effectiveness by looking at what interventions the public sector makes in the economy, how the public sector mobilises its workforce, procures goods and services, and leverages the benefits of digitalisation, and who acts across levels of government and between the public and private sector. It concludes that recruiting and developing the necessary skills in the workforce, monitoring performance, as well as encouraging coordination will be key to better budget allocations, regulatory environment, and delivering quality public goods and services.
Smart Specialisation Strategy is a place-based EU policy that seeks to enhance regional competitiveness through leveraging and bolstering innovation in the selected priority areas (industries or technologies) in each region. The new iteration of S3 requires developing cross-border collaborations with regions possessing complex and complementary technological expertise currently missing in a region to upgrade its technological evolution. The reason for this is that new growth opportunities arise from recombining existing technological capabilities while more complex technologies offer strong competitive advantage. This paper presents a simple roadmap for regional S3 internationalisation and the results of an in-depth case study on the opportunities for and barriers to S3 internationalisation in Friuli Venezia Giulia (FVG), a region in the North East of Italy. The paper develops recommendations on how to make the most of the Research, Technology, Development and Innovation endowments in FVG through enhancing the innovation-internationalisation nexus in order to improve competitiveness of the region.
Public policy can play an important role in steering the large-scale diffusion of teleworking. Various communities around the world are experimenting with innovative solutions. In Italy, the Autonomous Province of Trento has plans to design a comprehensive plan for teleworking as a way to foster local economic and social development. Opportunities and challenges for a smooth transition to an ever more hybrid work environment are explored in view of a number of societal objectives, including an improvement in living standards, territorial cohesion and competitiveness. The paper identifies six policy areas for recommendations, reflecting the conditions needed to achieve these objectives.