Germany
This report assesses the potential of zero carbon supply chains via a case study of the freight transport chain linked to the port of Hamburg. It analyses the initiatives taken by selected main stakeholders to decarbonise freight transport. In addition, it offers recommendations on how the move towards zero carbon supply chains could be accelerated.
The paper is the first in a series of two papers mapping young people’s environmental sustainability competence in EU and OECD countries that were prepared as background for the forthcoming OECD Skills Outlook 2023 publication. The papers are the results of a collaboration between the OECD Centre for Skills and the European Commission - Joint Research Centre (Unit B4) on students’ environmental sustainability competence. The second paper is titled: ‘The environmental sustainability competence toolbox: From leaving a better planet to our children to leaving better children for our planet’.
This policy brief was developed by the Secretariat of the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER) and is based on examples of practice submitted by members of the NER. It reviews emergency measures taken by economic regulators during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of services in network sectors, as well as to adjust regulatory practices and adapt governance arrangements. It identifies long-term questions and implications of the crisis with regard to market structure, infrastructure investment and the role of regulators.
A Chinese proverb says “respect for one’s parents is the highest duty of civil life.” These words carry particular significance today. As life expectancies increase and birth rates fall around the world, the global population is aging rapidly. This phenomenon already has reached a critical point in many developed nations. In 1995, there were 1.3, 2.3, 2.6, 2.7, 3.6, and 4.2 workers per retiree in Italy, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States respectively. By the year 2050, it is predicted that there will only be 0.7, 1.2, 1.5, 2.1, 1.6 and 2.3 workers respectively per retiree in these countries. Meanwhile, developing nations are also in the midst of a major demographic shift. Indeed, while nearly 60 percent of the elderly currently live in developing countries, that percentage is projected to increase to 80 percent by 2050. In developing economies such as China, Indonesia, and Korea the percentage of these countries’ populations over 60 is expected to be over 30 percent by 2050. In a trend similar to that in developed countries, the ratio of workers to the elderly in China is expected to drop from 9:1 to 2.6:1 over the next 40 years.
Based on information from the employment records of individual establishments in western
Germany (Federal Republic of Germany before the German unification) between 1977-1988, it is possible to shed some light on the characteristics and determinants of the job generation process. Data for this study were drawn from the Employment Statistics register of the Federal Office of Labour (Bundesanstalt flir Arbeit) and cover almost 80 per cent of total employment.
The central finding of the paper is that trend employment growth is, to a large extent, accommodated by plant openings rather than by the expansion of already existing units. While new establishments are subject to high failure rates, the growth of survivors almost completely offsets job losses due to plant closures. Furthermore, statistical analyses of entries and exits provide some support for the hypothesis that reduced wage differentials within any sector negatively affect the pace of entry of new establishments.
These results could be relevant for the current debate on the determinants of the poor employment performance of Germany in the 1980s. In pai1icular, they raise the possibility that reduced wage differentials, associated with labour market policies and collectivistic wage agreements in the 1980s, played an important role in lowering the job generation potential of western Germany.
As part of the peer review of Germany, a team of examiners and the OECD secretariat visited Kenya and Mozambique in February and March 2015. In both countries the team met with the Ambassador of Germany and heads of sections of the German embassy; the German development co-operation team, including the GIZ and KfW country directors, senior programme managers and locally recruited staff; partner government officials in charge of development co-operation and in line ministries; parliamentarians; bilateral and multilateral partners; and German and local civil society organisations.