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On the 50th anniversary of the OECD, we examine the unique work the organisation performs in regulating and rationalising governments’ use of export credits in support of exports, jobs, economic growth and national interests more broadly. This work is part of a global post war effort to emphasise multilateral co operation and sound economic policies to promote co operation, efficiency and prosperity rather than destructive competition, controversy and conflict.
OECD export credits work is one of the basic building blocks of the ever growing structure of global trade agreements that aim to maintain open and efficient markets. The objective is to eliminate subsidies and unfair practices in the economic competition that forms the foundation of a healthy and dynamic global economy. The elimination of official financing subsidies in global trade is only a part of the broader trade policy agenda, but it is a vital part, and has been delegated to the OECD by the WTO. Since financing is the life blood of trade flows, specialised OECD housed work allows trade to flow efficiently for aircraft and other capital goods while other trade policy work and litigation continue at the WTO.
The export credits work at the OECD is described in this collection of essays. However it is about much more than the series of agreements described herein. It is more fundamentally about the governments and their people - policy makers and experts - who gather at the OECD to build collectively a system of export credits disciplines that is fair, transparent, adaptable and effective. It is therefore as much about people and ideas as anything else. The export credit secretariat pictured above represents only the latest in a long line of OECD staff committed to facilitate and advise this work.
The OECD’s motto on its 50th anniversary is “Better Policies for Better Lives.” This reminds us that in the end, it is policies that are at the centre of human well being. And export credits work is about promoting these better policies by developing “smart rules” that open markets and maintain a level playing field and by bringing people and governments together to this end.
The development of smart grids – which the IEA defines as an electricity network that uses digital and other advanced technologies to monitor and manage the transport of electricity from all generation sources to meet the varying electricity demands of end users – is essential if the global community is to achieve shared goals for energy security, economic development and climate change mitigation. Unfortunately, existing misunderstandings of exactly what smart grids are and the physical and institutional complexity of electricity systems make it difficult to implement smart grids on the scale that is needed. This roadmap sets out specific steps needed over the coming years to achieve milestones that will allow smart grids to deliver a clean energy future.
Innovation holds the key to ongoing improvements in living standards, as well as to solving pressing social challenges. Skilled people play a crucial role in innovation through the new knowledge they generate, how they adopt and develop existing ideas, and through their ability to learn new competencies and adapt to a changing environment.
This book seeks to increase understanding of the links between skills and innovation. It explores the wide range of skills required, ranging from technical to "soft", and the ability to learn; it presents data and evidence on countries' stocks and flows of skills and the links between skill inputs and innovation outputs. Given the importance of meeting the demands of knowledge-based economic activity, the book investigates the issues of skill supply, education, workplace training and work organisation. It highlights the importance of enabling individuals to acquire appropriate skills and of optimising these at work.
Particle accelerators have evolved over the last decades from simple devices to powerful machines, and are having an increasingly important impact on research, technology and daily life. Today they cover a wide range of applications including material science and medical applications. In recent years, requirements from new technological and research applications have emerged while the number of accelerator facilities in operation, being commissioned, designed or planned has significantly grown. Their parameters (such as the beam energy, beam currents and intensities, and target composition) vary widely, giving rise to new radiation shielding aspects and problems.
Particle accelerators must be operated in safe ways to protect operators, the public and the environment. As the design and use of these facilities evolve, so must the analytical methods used in the safety analyses. These workshop proceedings review the state of the art in radiation shielding of accelerator facilities and irradiation targets. They also evaluate progress on the development of modelling methods used to assess the effectiveness of such shielding as part of safety analyses.
This second Annual report of the IRTAD Group comprises a synthesis of the main trends in the year 2009, in terms of the development in the number of traffic deaths and crashes and preliminary trends for the year 2010. It also presents longer term trends in order to better understand the development taking place in the different countries.
The OECD contributes to the improvement of the financial management of major catastrophes both through the activities of the International Network on the Financial Management of Large-Scale Catastrophes and through the leadership of its High-Level Advisory Board. This publication compiles a series of reports reflecting the OECD’s extensive work in this field over recent years. These reports include: 1) a stocktaking of initiatives to promote natural hazard awareness and disaster risk reduction education, resulting in the publication of a policy handbook; 2) a review of and recommendations on catastrophe-linked securities and the role of capital markets in supporting the financial mitigation of large-scale risks, aimed at governments promoting these instruments; 3) a review of current mechanisms used to quantify catastrophe losses within the OECD; and 4) a review of hazard risk mapping efforts in South East Asian countries.
Lower secondary education is key for success in overall education attainment, because it is where students can either “make it or break it.” It is the last level to consolidate basic skills and to enter either upper secondary education or the labour market with the adequate competences. This report develops comparative knowledge on lower secondary education across OECD countries and tailors it to the context of an OECD country: Norway.
Despite diversity in provision across countries, lower secondary education faces some similar challenges: some countries have difficulties ensuring high academic achievement, and many students fall behind at this stage, resulting eventually in drop out from upper secondary. Selected evidence shows that there may be lack of student motivation and that the configuration and practices in schools at this age may not cater adequately to the specific development needs of early adolescents.
After analyzing the comparative evidence and country practices, this report provides a strategy to support teachers, schools and students that can contribute to raise student attainment in this level (or to make this level more effective) in Norway.
Revenue Statistics in Latin America is a joint publication by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Centre for Tax Policy and Administration, the OECD Development Centre, the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Inter-American Centre of Tax Administrations (CIAT). Its aim is to provide internationally comparable data on tax levels and tax structures for a selection of Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) countries. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. By extending this OECD methodology to LAC countries Revenue Statistics in Latin America enables meaningful cross-country comparisons about tax levels and structures not only between LAC economies, but also between them and their industrialised peers.
Les données sur les recettes des administrations publiques, et sur le produit de la fiscalité en particulier, constituent la base de la plupart des travaux de description des structures economiques et d’analyse economique, et sont de plus en plus utilisées pour les comparaisons internationales. Cette publication annuelle présente un cadre conceptuel dont le but est de définir les recettes publiques devant être assimilées à des impôts et de classifier les différentes catégories d’impôts. Elle constitue également un ensemble unique de statistiques fiscales détaillees et comparables au niveau international, utilisant une presentation identique pour tous les pays de l’OCDE depuis 1965.
Renewables Information provides a comprehensive review of historical and current market trends in OECD countries, including 2010 preliminary data.
An Introduction, notes, definitions and auxiliary information are provided in Part I. Part II of the publication provides an overview of the development of renewables and waste in the world over the 1990 to 2009 period. A greater focus is given to OECD countries with a review of electricity generation and capacity from renewable and waste energy sources. Part III of the publication provides a corresponding statistical overview of developments in the world and OECD renewable and waste market. Part IV provides, in tabular form, a more detailed and comprehensive picture of developments for renewable and waste energy sources for 34 OECD member countries, including 2010 preliminary data. It encompasses energy indicators, generating capacity, electricity and heat production from renewable and waste sources, as well as production and consumption of renewables and waste.
Renewables Information is one of a series of annual IEA statistical publications on major energy sources; other reports are Coal Information, Electricity Information, Natural Gas Information and Oil Information.
Regulations are indispensable to the proper functioning of economies and societies. They underpin markets, protect the rights and safety of citizens and ensure the delivery of public goods and services. At the same time, regulations are rarely costless. Businesses complain that red tape holds back competitiveness while citizens complain about the time that it takes to fill out government paperwork. More worrying still, regulations can be inconsistent with the achievement of policy objectives. They can have unintended consequences and they can become less effective or even redundant over time. The 2008 financial crisis, and the ensuing and ongoing economic downturn are stark reminders of the consequence of regulatory failure.
Reflecting the importance of getting regulation right, this report encourages governments to “think big” about the relevance of regulatory policy. It assesses the recent efforts of OECD countries to develop and deepen regulatory policy and governance. It evaluates the comprehensive policy cycle by which regulations are designed, assessed and evaluated, revised, and enforced at all levels of government. It describes progress developing a range of regulatory management tools including consultation, Regulatory Impact Assessment, and risk and regulation. It also illustrates more nascent effort to promote regulatory governance including creating accountability and oversight of regulatory agencies and creating a “whole of government” approach for regulatory design and enforcement. The report provides ideas on developing a robust regulatory environment, a key to returning to a stronger, fairer and more sustainable growth path.
Regions and Innovation Policy addresses the needs of national and regional governments for greater clarity on how to strengthen the innovation capacity of regions. The first part of the book examines strategies, policies and governance, explaining why regions matter, what makes smart policy mixes, and multilevel governance. The second part of the book looks at agencies, instruments and country information, showing how agencis can maximize their impact and what policy instruments work. The final chapter provides country-by-country summaries of what countries are doing.
Sweden reformed its labour migration management policy in 2008 and now has one of the most liberal labour migration regimes in the OECD. This book attempts to answer the question of whether Sweden’s labour migration policy is efficiently working to meet labour market needs that were not being met, without adversely affecting the domestic labour market. The review also examines the impact of the reform on labour migration flows to Sweden and on access to recruitment from abroad by Swedish employers.
After the reform, employers in Sweden were able to recruit workers from abroad for any occupation, as long as the job had been advertised for a nominal period and the prevailing collective bargaining wage and contractual conditions were respected. Overall, Sweden’s new system has not led to a boom in labour migration, although this somewhat surprising result may be related to the slack labour market. The faith in employers appears to be largely justified until now, although there are some vulnerabilities in the system which could be addressed, especially in monitoring workplaces not covered by collective bargaining, and marginal businesses. The particularities of the relatively highly regulated labour market in Sweden may mean that this model is not easily transferable to other countries, but lessons can be drawn for other countries.
At a time when OECD and partner countries are trying to figure out how to reduce burgeoning debt and make the most of shrinking public budgets, spending on education is an obvious target for scrutiny. Education officials, teachers, policy makers, parents and students struggle to determine the merits of shorter or longer school days or school years, how much time should be allotted to various subjects, and the usefulness of after-school lessons and independent study.
This report focuses on how students use learning time, both in and out of school. What are the ideal conditions to ensure that students use their learning time efficiently? What can schools do to maximise the learning that occurs during the limited amount of time students spend in class? In what kinds of lessons does learning time reap the most benefits? And how can this be determined?
The report draws on data from the 2006 cycle of the Programme of International Student Assessment (PISA) to describe differences across and within countries in how much time students spend studying different subjects, how much time they spend in different types of learning activities, how they allocate their learning time and how they perform academically.
This publication provides new information on public research institutions (PRIs) and government strategies. Public research institutions are crucial for innovation due to their role in knowledge creation and diffusion. While absolute real expenditure on R&D in this sector has risen, it now accounts for a smaller share of total R&D spending by OECD countries and of OECD GDP. The targets and focus of many PRIs have evolved in recent years. Changing activities, new policy challenges and wider economic and political developments have driven change in missions and mandates and linkages have become focal points for many. Internationalisation has also increased and relationships are frequently collaborative. PRIs’ sources of income are diverse but funding has become increasingly competitive. Funding instruments need to balance short-and long-term goals to uphold research quality and ensure the sustainability of PRI activities.
To help experts and practitioners working to tackle the problem of armed violence, these three Programming Notes build on the 2009 publication entitled Armed Violence Reduction: Enabling Development. These three notes cover armed violence in urban areas, youth and armed violence, and the linkages between armed violence reduction and security system reform.
“Shifting wealth” – a process that started in the 1990s and took off in the 2000s – has led to a completely new geography of growth driven by the economic rise of large developing countries, in particular China and India. The resulting re-configuration of the global economy will shape the political, economic and social agendas of international development as those of the converging and poor countries for the years to come.
This report analyses the impact of “Shifting wealth” on social cohesion, largely focusing on high-growth converging countries. A “cohesive” society works towards the well-being of all its members, creates a sense of belonging and fights against the marginalization within and between different groups of societies. The question this report asks is how does the structural transformation in converging economies affect their “social fabric”, their sense of belonging or put generally their ability to peacefully manage collective action problems.
Recent events in well performing countries in the Arab world but also beyond such as in Thailand, China and India seem to suggest that economic growth, rising fiscal resources and improvements in education are not sufficient to create cohesion; governments need to address social deficits and actively promote social cohesion if long-term development is to be sustainable.