Browse by: "S"

Unsustainable subsidies are pervasive in the industry, agriculture, transport and energy sectors of most OECD countries. They are expensive for governments and can have harmful environmental and social effects. Eliminating these supports requires comprehensive approaches which are supported by top political leadership, transparent in their potential effects on all parties, consistent over the long-term, and often accompanied by transition supports. This volume uses sectoral case studies to illustrate that achieving change in structural policies such as subsidies depends largely on good governance practices.

Subsidies are pervasive in OECD countries and are among the most powerful public policy instruments.  But they often introduce unintended consequences, such as budget deficits, pollution, unemployment and trade distortions. This report contains the proceedings of an OECD workshop on subsidy reform held in October 2005 under the auspices of the OECD programme on sustainable development.  It provides an overview of approaches for assessing subsidies and associated taxes, and looks at country experiences in reforming subsidies in the agriculture, fisheries, industry, and transport sectors.

This report focuses on the challenges of governing infrastructure investment and public-private partnerships (PPPs) at the subnational level. Subnational governments – cities and regions – play a vital role in the infrastructure landscape. Infrastructure needs in energy, transport, water and telecommunications are substantial, estimated at USD 6.3 trillion per year between 2016 and 2030. In a tight fiscal environment, it is critical to diversify sources of financing for infrastructure investment and PPPs represent an alternative to traditional government procurement with the potential to improve value for money. However, PPPs are complex and sometimes risky arrangements that require capacity that is not always readily available in government, in particular at the subnational level. This report examines the challenges of using PPPs at the subnational level and ways to address them. It does so by focusing on three case studies: subnational PPPs in France, local Private Finance Initiative (PFI) projects in the United Kingdom, and PPPs in Virginia (United States).

This report examines the role tax intermediaries play in the operation of tax systems and specifically to understand their role in “unacceptable tax minimisation arrangements”. In addition, the identifies strategies for strengthening the relationship between tax intermediaries and revenue bodies.

This Round Table examines the social costs of urban road transport in terms of noise, pollution, visual intrusion, pedestrian/vehicle conflict and severance and related methods of evaluation.

This Round Table explores the  determinants - i.e. causes, functional dependencies, motives and conditions - for the main forms in which freight transport demand occurs.

Are there computers in the classroom? Does it matter? Students, Computers and Learning: Making the Connection examines how students’ access to and use of information and communication technology (ICT) devices has evolved in recent years, and explores how education systems and schools are integrating ICT into students’ learning experiences. Based on results from PISA 2012, the report discusses differences in access to and use of ICT – what are collectively known as the “digital divide” – that are related to students’ socio-economic status, gender, geographic location, and the school a child attends. The report highlights the importance of bolstering students’ ability to navigate through digital texts. It also examines the relationship among computer access in schools, computer use in classrooms, and performance in the PISA assessment. As the report makes clear, all students first need to be equipped with basic literacy and numeracy skills so that they can participate fully in the hyper-connected, digitised societies of the 21st century.

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on the educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (SENDDD). It covers the number of students concerned, their learning environment (special schools, special classes and regular classes) and level of education (pre-primary, compulsory and upper secondary education). It also discusses policy implications vis-à-vis special education needs and offers an analysis of the participation and performance of students with special education needs in the 2006 round of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA).

This book provides an internationally comparable set of indicators on educational provision for students with disabilities, learning difficulties and disadvantages (DDD). It highlights the number of students involved, where they are educated – special schools, special classes or regular classes – and in what phases of education – pre-primary, primary, lower secondary and upper secondary education.  It also includes information on the physical provision and on student/teacher ratios and discusses policy implications concerning special education. This new edition also presents for the first time trends in the data for students with DDD from 1999 to 2003.

How widespread is student disaffection with school in different education systems? What policies and practices are most effective in fostering students’ sense of belonging and participation in school? These questions are of great concern to educators in many countries, not only because of the interrelationship between student engagement at school and learning outcomes, but also because student engagement represents a valued outcome in itself. The OECD PISA provides not only information on students’ literacy skills, but also on their attitudes and values, their social backgrounds, and on important features of the schools they attend.

The Republic of Türkiye’s trajectory of improvement over the past two decades stands out internationally. Few other countries have been able to bring previously out-of-school children into the education system and improve performance at the same time. This report provides a picture on how student performance has evolved over this period. It is based on data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS). The report analyses if factors related to student background – such as gender or socio-economic status – are associated with performance. It also analyses student performance across different cognitive and content domains of learning.