Browse by: "2011"

Alors que la littérature économique portant sur l’impact de l’immigration sur les marchés du travail est largement développée, il existe un déficit notable concernant l’impact de l’émigration sur le pays d’origine. A partir de la littérature mesurant l’impact de l’immigration, cet article vise à combler ce déficit en étudiant si la période d’émigration, à la fois courte mais intense, entre le Honduras et les États-Unis de 2001 à 2007 a entraîné une augmentation des salaires au Honduras. Il exploite notamment la variation d’offre de travail par groupe de compétences sur le marché du travail pour les années suivant l’ouragan Mitch. Fondées sur des données transversales individuelles et une approche reposant sur des variables instrumentales, les estimations montrent qu’une augmentation de 10% de l’émigration provenant du Honduras accroit les salaires honduriens de près de 10%, une augmentation supérieure à des résultats antérieurs pour d’autres pays – mais qui diminue au cours du temps. Les implications en termes de redistributions au niveau du genre, des ménages ruraux/urbains et des travailleurs privés sont aussi développées.

This article provides an overview of the “Schools of the Future” initiative introduced in California in January 2011 by the newly elected State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tom Torlakson. Its objective is to focus on the reform of the state school facility programme and to design highperforming, “greener” schools.

Ce document de travail statistique inclut les papiers qui ont été présentés lors des différentes sessions de l'Atelier sur la Titrisation, qui s'est tenu à Madrid les 27-28 mai 2010, ainsi que des résumés pour chacune des parties. L'atelier a réuni les membres réguliers du Groupe de Travail sur les Statistiques Financières (WPFS), des statisticiens, des analystes, des superviseurs, des experts des institutions de normalisation comptable et des organisations internationales et des représentants de l'industrie et d’associations internationales. Il avait pour but d’échanger des points de vue afin de mieux comprendre la titrisation sous des angles différents et d'améliorer l'exhaustivité et l'utilité des statistiques futures...

This paper provides an account of the main approaches, debates and evidence in the literature on the role of workforce skills in the innovation process in developed economies. It draws on multiple sources including the innovation studies discipline, neoclassical Human Capital theory, institutionalist labour market studies and the work organisation discipline. Extensive use is also made of official survey data to describe and quantify the diversity of skills and occupations involved in specific types of innovation activities.

This paper provides an account of the main approaches, debates and evidence in the literature on the role of workforce skills in the innovation process in developed economies. It draws on multiple sources including the innovation studies discipline, neoclassical Human Capital theory, institutionalist labour market studies and the work organisation discipline. Extensive use is also made of official survey data to describe and quantify the diversity of skills and occupations involved in specific types of innovation activities.

The EU Public Procurement Directives cover three main types of contract: works, supplies and services including design contests. Some contracts will often contain elements of one or more of the 3 types of contract. The Directives contain specific rules that are used to classify these mixed contracts. A number of contracts are entirely excluded from the scope of the Directives, either because of their nature or because they are the subject of different systems of regulation or administration. Even if not excluded, contracts will only be subject to the provisions of the Directives where their value exceeds the relevant EU financial threshold. SIGMA Brief 4 gives an overview of the different types of contract, on contract classification as well as exemptions from the scope of the Directives.

School systems handle the challenges of diverse student populations in different ways. Some countries have non-selective and comprehensive school systems that seek to provide all students with similar opportunities, leaving it to individual schools and teachers to meet the particular needs of every student. Other countries group students, whether in different schools or in different classes within schools, with the aim of serving students according to their particular academic potential, interests and/or behaviour. Having underperforming students repeat grades or transferring struggling or disruptive students to other schools are two common policies used to group students for this reason...

The public procurement Directives only apply if a body is a contracting authority (contracting entity in the Utilities sector) within the definition of the Directives. SIGMA Brief 3 gives guidance on the notion of a contracting authority/entity under the directives (especially the concept of “a body governed by public law”). It also analyses whether a contracting authority can participate in joint purchasing or central purchasing.

This paper considers how tax policy and administration impact on an economy’s competitiveness and reviews various measures of ‘tax competitiveness’.

The basic presumption in public procurement is that contracts of a specified type and value will be awarded using an advertised, competitive procedure that is open, fair and transparent, ensuring equality of opportunity and treatment for all candidates and tenderers. There are only limited circumstances where a procedure without advertised competition is permitted. SIGMA Brief 10 gives an overview of the main competitive procedures available for contracting authorities under EU law. The Brief gives guidance on choosing which procedure to use, presenting good practises and examples as well. Finally, it gives a summary on the derogations from the obligation to publish a contract notice and use a competitive process.

Ce papier analyse les effets dynamiques des chocs de santé sur les transitions du marché du travail vers des prestations d’invalidité, l’emploi et d’autres voies de non-emploi. Il utilise des données longitudinales pour estimer des modèles de durée à temps discret pour trois pays: l’Australie, la Suisse et le Royaume Uni. L’état de santé courante et celui de la période précédente ont un impact important sur la probabilité des sorties vers les régimes d’invalidité, et l’effet des problèmes de santé varie avec l’âge, l’éducation et le revenu à travers les pays. Les résultats sont robustes à l’inclusion des variables sociodémographiques et à l’instrumentation de l’état de santé.

Cet article présente une analyse empirique des déterminants de l'inflation aux États-Unis, au Japon, dans la zone euro et au Royaume-Uni, mettant l'accent sur le rôle de l'utilisation des ressources, les anticipations d'inflation, la persistance de l'inflation et l'inflation importée. Il propose également une analyse de la dynamique de l'inflation au cours des épisodes durables de nette sous-utilisation des capacités et de faible inflation. Les principales conclusions de cette analyse sont les suivantes: i) Pendant la crise, la stabilité des anticipations d'inflation a empêché que le sous-emploi des ressources ne conduise à une spirale déflationniste, ii) Il semble également que les pressions désinflationnistes aient été modérées par l'aplatissement de la courbe de Phillips dans un contexte de faiblesse économique persistante et de basse inflation; iii) L’influence des derniers chiffres d’inflation sur les attentes d'inflation à long terme s'est affaiblie au fil du temps et semble avoir presque disparu récemment; iv) Des prévisions fondées sur les courbes de Phillips estimées et les projections des Perspectives Économiques de l’OCDE n°88 de novembre 2010 excluant la période récente de hausse des prix des produits de base suggèrent une inflation restant faible, mais positive d’ici à fin 2012, sauf au Japon où la déflation devrait se poursuivre au moins jusqu’au-delà de cette période; v) La configuration des risques à court terme et à moyen terme plaide pour un retrait progressif de l’expansion monétaire en demeurant vigilant quant au risque d’apparition de pressions inflationnistes à moyen terme.

“Green growth” is an emerging paradigm that integrates several policy aspirations, including the durability of economic activity, reduced environmental impacts, and sustained growth in high-quality employment in such a way as to foster coherent, cross-sectoral policy design. Focusing on “green growth” highlights the need for governments to assess policies on their long-term economic, environmental and social impacts, recognizing that there can be synergies but also tradeoffs among the broad policy aims. As we hope to show in this paper, an examination of “green growth” policies in the transport sector provides an interesting case in point. Reducing emissions comes at a cost to consumers and taxpayers and if fuel tax revenues decline strongly it may be necessary to review the way the transport sector is taxed and contributes to aggregate tax revenue.

Most parents know, instinctively, that spending more time with their children and being actively involved in their education will give their children a good head-start in life. But as many parents have to juggle competing demands at work and at home, there never seems to be enough time. Often, too, parents are reluctant to offer to help their children with school work because they feel they lack some of the skills that would make a difference to their children’s success in school...

What is the impact of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in Flemish secondary schools? A study, commissioned by AGIOn (the Flemish agency that subsidises school buildings), investigated the impact of educational spaces on their users and set out to identify empirical evidence supporting the importance of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in secondary schools.

Electric motor-driven system (EMDS) accounts for more than 40% of global electricity consumption. This paper sets out an ambitious but achievable target with the global work plan to improve the energy efficiency of EMDS by 10% to 15% based on findings from the working paper ‘Energy Efficiency Policy Opportunities for Electric Motor-Driven System (Waide et al., 2011)’. If governments commit to the proposed work plan immediately, and maintain resourcing levels, the target could be achieved by 2030 and would be equivalent to reducing total global electricity use by around 5%. The proposed work plan of this paper is to align regulatory settings within a globally applicable scheme. The IEA believes its target can only be achieved through global co-operation leading to aligned national policy settings.

The tax burden on labour and its evolution over time are issues that feature prominently in the political debate. Averaged across the OECD, personal income taxes, social security contributions and payroll taxes together account for more than 51% of total government revenues in 2008 (OECD, 2010). With tax burdens differentiated by earnings level and family situation, they serve a central role as redistribution policies. Importantly, by shaping both work incentives and the cost of labour, the level and structure of these taxes are major influences on the functioning of labour markets...

The relationship between trade and wages has been subject to intense scrutiny in the academic literature with no clear consensus emerging. This paper adds to this body of research by moving beyond the single country analysis level to a panel including developed and developing countries and data through the mid 2000.s. First we examine the relationship between wages and trade using the approach of Feenstra and Hanson to calculate mandated wage changes for our dataset. We find that imports have a significant and positive impact on wages while the sign on tariffs is negative and significant. We also look at the relationship of wage differentials at the occupation level between partner countries. We find that the difference in occupation wage is smaller for large trade partners. Finally, we discuss the potential role of NTMs in influencing the wage and trade relationship.

Virtual worlds are increasingly evolving into Internet-mediated “spaces”, where large groups of people meet and interact in real-time while experiencing a shared sensation of being there together. This enables richer and more dynamic social interaction and collaboration across national and cultural boundaries over the Internet compared to other traditional ICT-based collaboration environments.