Browse by: "2009"

This article treats some ideas and issues that are part of ongoing reflection at the OECD. They were first raised in a major research article for the Reserve Bank of Australia conference in July 2008, and benefited from policy discussion in and around that conference. One fundamental cause of the crisis was a change in the business model of banking, mixing credit with equity culture. When this model was combined with complex interactions from incentives emanating from macro policies, changes in regulations, taxation, and corporate governance, the current crisis became the inevitable result. The paper points to the need for far-reaching reform for a more sustainable situation in the future.

This report analyses the impact of failures and weaknesses in corporate governance on the financial crisis, including risk management systems and executive salaries. It concludes that the financial crisis can be to an important extent attributed to failures and weaknesses in corporate governance arrangements which did not serve their purpose to safeguard against excessive risk taking in a number of financial services companies.

Accounting standards and regulatory requirements have also proved insufficient in some areas. Last but not least, remuneration systems have in a number of cases not been closely related to the strategy and risk appetite of the company and its longer term interests. The article also suggests that the importance of qualified board oversight and robust risk management is not limited to financial institutions.

The remuneration of boards and senior management also remains a highly controversial issue in many OECD countries. The current turmoil suggests a need for the OECD to re-examine the adequacy of its corporate governance principles in these key areas.

Higher education in the United States has received much scrutiny in the recent past from the federal and state governments, the press and the general public. In response to this scrutiny, a number of blue ribbon panels have been formed to examine how effectively higher education is serving American society. In this article, I analyse the proceedings and impact of the most recent prominent panel, the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, commonly known as the Spellings Commission. I also briefly examine how the new administration of President Barack Obama is likely to affect colleges and universities in light of the global economic crisis.

Le contexte de la réforme de l’enseignement supérieur aux États-Unis

Ces dernières années, le gouvernement fédéral, les États, la presse et l’opinion publique ont placé l’enseignement supérieur aux États-Unis au centre d’une attention toute particulière. En conséquence de cela, de nombreux groupes d’experts se sont formés pour étudier dans quelle mesure le système d’enseignement supérieur sert efficacement la société américaine.
Cet article examinera les procédures et l’impact de la commission du ministre de l’Éducation sur le futur de l’enseignement supérieur, plus généralement dénommée la commission Spellings, qui constitue le plus important groupe d’experts récemment constitué.
Nous étudierons ensuite brièvement dans quelle mesure la nouvelle administration du Président Barack Obama est susceptible d’affecter les universités dans un contexte marqué par la crise économique mondiale.

Legislatures require reliable, unbiased information to be able to participate constructively in formulating the budget. This article explores the value of an independent budget capacity located in the legislature for expanding parliament’s role in budgeting and for holding the executive accountable.

At the start of the decremental decade of the 1980s, governments encountered many difficulties in making ends meet. This article discusses some of the problems of post-expansive stagnation and the merits of certain techniques such as indexing, global norms, decentralising hard choices and the well-balanced package.

Over the past several decades the international community has increasingly come to rely on periodic multilateral conferences or meetings:  1) as a means for reviewing implementation of a wide variety of legal instruments, including those addressing nuclear non-proliferation, safety, waste management, physical protection and security. Also, the parties to some instruments that do not explicitly mandate review meetings have decided to conduct de facto review meetings to enhance implementation. Although the structure and procedures of these meetings differ in some particulars, they reflect a number of common objectives, organisational arrangements and procedures. This paper seeks to assess the major issues arising from reliance on the review conference;  2) mechanism as a measure for enhancing the effectiveness of multilateral legal instruments, particularly those in the nuclear field. In view of the perceived failure of the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the need to avoid a similar result at the upcoming 2010 Review Conference, it is hoped that this analysis will provide a timely – and possibly even useful – “review” of the review conference mechanism.

This article discusses fiscal reform in Central and Eastern Europe from the perspective of political economy. Following an overview of basic reform trends, the article focuses on the principal drivers and impediments to reform in the region. To conclude, the ingredients of successful reform are examined.