Browse by: "2013"

Taking global value chains (GVCs) into account has important implications for trade policy. When production is vertically fragmented and trade in intermediate inputs is prevalent, one has to look differently at a certain number of issues. Through case studies, this paper provides new evidence on the incidence on services of tariffs levied on goods (case study 1) and then discusses effective rates of protection in a world of GVCs and what the removal of tariffs on intermediate inputs implies, using the example of Canada (case study 2). To illustrate how trade agreements could be made more relevant for GVCs, the paper further looks at sectoral approaches in trade negotiations through the example of the Information Technology Agreement (case study 3) and finally compares the network of regional trade agreements in force with global production networks (case study 4).

This paper investigates the contribution of regions to aggregate growth in the OECD. We find a great degree of heterogeneity in the performance of OECD TL3 regions and among the OECD regional typology (urban, intermediate and rural). While the distribution in GDP and GDP per capita growth rates follows an approximately normal distribution, the regional contributions to aggregate growth follow a power law, with a coefficient around 1.2 (in absolute terms). This implies that Few-Large (FL) regions contribute disproportionately to aggregate growth whereas Many-Small (MS) individual regions contribute only marginally. Nevertheless, because the number of these smaller regions is very large and the decay of their contribution to growth is slow (generating a fat tail distribution), their cumulated contribution is actually around 2/3 of aggregate growth. For the period 1995-2007, only 2.4% of OECD TL3 regions contribute to 27% of OECD GDP growth, but the remaining 97.6% corresponds to 73%. We also found that the distribution of growth rates by size follows a non-monotonic pattern, with the largest concentration of above average regional growth rates being concentrated for middle-sized regions. This heterogeneity suggests that the possibilities for growth seem to exist in many different types of regions.

Sweden was facing a serious soil acidification and water eutrophication problem caused partly by emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) from combustion processes in transport, industry and power. In 1992, Sweden introduced a high tax on NOx emissions from large combustion sources (e.g. power plants, industrial plants, waste incinerators). The tax was accompanied by a refund according to the amount of energy generated. This ensures that facilities with low NOx emission intensitites are net beneficiaries of the scheme. Continuous monitoring of emissions was also made mandatory. The tax was designed to accelerate and stimulate investment in advanced combustion and pollution-abatement technologies and as a supplement to existing regulatory measures.

Le logement est un aspect essentiel des conditions de vie matérielles. Il doit à la fois répondre aux besoins fondamentaux, en offrant notamment un abri contre les intempéries, et donner aux individus un sentiment de sécurité et un espace d’intimité. Les conditions de logement jouent également un rôle capital dans la santé des individus et le développement des enfants. Par ailleurs, le coût du logement représente une part importante du budget des ménages et constitue leur principal patrimoine. La notion de satisfaction vis-à-vis du logement est un concept large, multidimensionnel, et incluant des facteurs physiques et sociaux ainsi que certaines caractéristiques psychologiques et sociodémographiques des résidents. Combinant deux enquêtes différentes sur les conditions de vie des ménages (le module EU-SILC sur le logement et l’enquête Gallup World Poll sur les pays de l’OCDE ainsi que sur les économies majeures), ce papier fait usage d’une analyse en probit ordonné afin d’explorer le lien entre la satisfaction des ménages vis-à-vis de leur logement et un ensemble de facteurs ayant attrait à la situation personnelle des individus ainsi que les caractéristiques de leur logement et de la zone de résidence. Cet article caractérise une relation complexe entre la satisfaction vis-à-vis du logement et ces caractéristiques ainsi que certains aspects du voisinage. Les caractéristiques sociodémographique du ménage (comme l’âge, le genre, le niveau d’éducation…) n’ont finalement qu’un rôle mineur dans l’explication de la satisfaction pour le logement. Une bonne compréhension des facteurs visant à un accroissement de la satisfaction vis-à-vis du logement est essentielle pour l’élaboration de politiques effectives sur le logement.

Établis « sur mesure » en ce sens qu’ils sont adaptés à la situation particulière de chaque pays, les engagements de réduction des émissions pris dans le cadre du processus de la CCNUCC doivent aussi se prêter à la mesure, pour permettre de comprendre pleinement les différents engagements qui concourent à l’effort mondial global de réduction des émissions. Le seul cadre international de comptabilisation des émissions qui existe est celui du Protocole de Kyoto, mais il vaut uniquement pour les pays développés ayant pris des engagements spécifiques. Ce document se propose d’évaluer quels éléments seraient nécessaires, en plus des obligations de notification existantes, pour constituer un cadre de comptabilisation des émissions solide et applicable à un large éventail de Parties dans le contexte de la CCNUCC. Il commence par mettre en évidence les éléments de base nécessaires à un cadre de comptabilisation des émissions et analyse les progrès intervenus dans la définition de processus de notification internationaux. Ensuite, les deux aspects les plus délicats de la comptabilisation des émissions sont examinés en détail. Le premier est la comptabilisation des flux d’unités négociables issues des mécanismes fondés sur le jeu du marché, dont les flux internationaux entre systèmes d’échange nationaux couplés et les unités provenant de systèmes de crédits de compensation. Le second est la comptabilisation des émissions et des absorptions des secteurs de la foresterie et de l’utilisation des terres, dont les caractéristiques imposent de distinguer les émissions anthropiques des variations naturelles, de prendre en compte des horizons temporels longs et de mesurer les puits en plus des sources d’émission. Pour finir, le document présente des solutions envisageables pour faire avancer les négociations sur ces questions et permettre aux négociateurs de s’appuyer sur les progrès intervenus récemment dans le domaine des cadres de présentation.

World trade and production are increasingly structured around “global value chains” (GVCs). The last few years have witnessed a growing number of case studies describing at the product level how production is internationally fragmented, but there is little evidence at the aggregate level on the prevalence of GVCs. The main objective of this paper is to provide for more and better evidence allowing the examination of countries’ position within international production networks. We propose a number of indicators that give a more accurate picture of the integration and position of countries in GVCs, as well as a more detailed assessment of the value chain in six broad industries: agriculture and food products, chemicals, electronics, motor vehicles, business services and financial services.

Ce document présente une nouvelle mesure de l’inadéquation des compétences qui combine des informations sur la maîtrise des compétences, l’inadéquation auto-reportée et l’utilisation des compétences. Les fondements théoriques de cette mesure permettent d’identifier les compétences minimales et maximales requises par chaque profession et de classer les travailleurs en trois groupes : ceux dont les compétences sont bien adaptées, ceux qui ont des compétences inférieures à celles requises et ceux qui ont des compétences supérieures à celles requises. L’existence de données sur l’usage des compétences permet de mesurer le degré de sur- ou de sous-utilisation des compétences dans l’économie. Cette mesure est testée sur la première vague de l’enquête de l’OCDE sur l’évaluation des compétences des adultes ; les résultats sont présentés par domaines de compétences, par statuts sur le marché du travail et par pays.

China has suffered railway capacity constraints for more than several decades and the need for a large increase in rail capacity has been viewed as the primary challenge. The former Chinese Ministry of Railways believed that building a national wide high speed railway (HSR) network was the most efficient solution to China’s rail capacity problems. By 2012, 9 000 km of HSR line has been completed which accounted more than half of the total in the World and the other 9 000 km HSR line is either under construction or in the planning stage. This paper attempts to discuss the initial operational, financial and economic result of such a large scale HSR investment in China where the establishment of an appraisal system for a HSR project is still underway and the public data in need are not available. Based on some trial studies carried out on several HSR projects, however, the paper shows that except for a limited amount of HSR projects in the most developed areas of the country, the initial financial and economic performance of most HSR lines are generally much poorer than expected. The scale of investment seems to be difficult to justify, given that investment in HSR lines is very expensive, especially for those with design speed of 350 km/h, and the high level of debt funding. Moreover the values of time of the ordinary Chinese are still low by European standards. For a developing country planning HSR projects, one lesson that can be learnt from China is that it would be ideal if a comprehensive appraisal can be taken into account before investing in HSR. Such appraisal includes examination of different options for technical and operational standards, timing of investment, construction scale and pace, train operational scheme and service level, pricing and regional development policy (political consideration). At the very least, a step by step development strategy should be adopted to cope with the huge uncertainties and risks.

International investment agreements (IIAs) almost universally define their temporal validity and thus set conditions for States’ exit from these treaties.

This study presents the results of the survey of language that determines the temporal validity of 2,061 bilateral investment agreements that the 55 economies participating in the OECD-hosted Freedom of Investment Roundtables have concluded with any other economy.

The paper summarises in its first part past and current treaty practice in this regard: how do States design the parameters that define the temporal validity of their treaties and the duration of the obligations contained therein? How has this design evolved over time? Do different kinds of IIAs take different approaches to this matter? Have individual States developed distinct practices or policies?

The second part of the paper presents key findings that result from the analysis of treaty practice in a large number of agreements. It highlights characteristics of the provisions on temporal validity employed in IIAs; emphasises the collective engagement that results from the clauses in IIAs and the consequences of country-specific practice; and suggests questions on intriguing policy choices that a large comparative study reveals.

This series is designed to make available to a wider readership selected studies drawing on the work of the OECD Directorate for Education. Authorship is usually collective, but principal writers are named. The papers are generally available only in their original language (English or French) with a short summary available in the other This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. The opinions expressed in these papers are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of the OECD or of the governments of its member countries. You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgement of OECD as source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected].

An increasing amount of empirical evidence documents that city-size distribution within a country follows a power law, often in the form of Zipf’s law. This paper provides new comparative evidence on city size distribution across OECD countries. It uses a database where urban agglomerations are consistently identified across different countries, through an algorithm based on population density and commuting patterns. The paper investigates whether Zipf’s law fits well with data. A robustness check is carried out using a traditional administrative definition of cities. Results show that Zipf’s law describes well city size distribution not only at country level, but also at wider spatial scales. The law does not fit as well with the data when using a traditional administrative definition of cities.

This report highlights the changing landscape of risk and crisis communications and in particular how social media can be a beneficial tool, but also create challenges for crisis managers. It explores different practices of risk and crisis communications experts related to the use of social media and propose a framework for monitoring the development of practices among countries in the use of social media for risk and crisis communications. The three step process spans passive to dynamic use of social media, and provides governments a self-assessment tool to enable cross country comparison to monitor and track progress in the uptake of effective use of social media by emergency services or crisis managers.

Les estimations actuelles des rendements du marché du travail sur le capital humain donnent une image déformée du rôle des compétences dans les différentes économies. Les comparaisons internationales des analyses des revenus du travail dépendent presque exclusivement des mesures de réussite scolaire du capital humain, et les données intégrant des mesures directes des capacités cognitives se limitent essentiellement aux travailleurs en début de carrière aux États-Unis. Les analyses de la nouvelle évaluation des compétences des adultes sur le cycle de vie complet dans 22 pays (PIAAC) montrent que mettre l'accent sur les gains en début de carrière conduit à sous-estimer la durée de vie du rendement des compétences d'environ un quart. En moyenne, une augmentation d'un écart-type en capacités de calcul est associée à une augmentation de salaire de 18 pour cent chez les travailleurs les plus jeunes. Mais ceci masque une grande hétérogénéité entre les pays. Huit pays, dont les pays nordiques, ont des rendements entre 12 et 15 pour cent, tandis que six sont au-dessus de 21 pour cent, le plus grand rendement étant de 28 pour cent aux États-Unis. Les estimations sont remarquablement robustes aux différents résultats et mesures des compétences, aux contrôles supplémentaires, et aux divers sous-groupes. Curieusement, le rendement des compétences est systématiquement plus faible dans les pays à forte densité syndicale, où la protection de l'emploi est plus stricte et la part du secteur public plus grande.

Resilience has gained significant prominence following the re-examination of the performance of the humanitarian and development aid systems in light of the two major food security crises in East and West Africa over the last two years, coupled with ongoing ‘post-2015’ negotiations on key global disaster risk reduction, climate change and development policy and resourcing. Resilience has largely been communicated by donor and other key actors as a political agenda, devoid of clear technical guidance as to its added value and how it changes programming on the ground. As a result, country staff are either cynical of its value, are confused as to what it means, or use it as another opportunity to attract funding or to justify their narrow institutional mandate. There are relatively few actors who engage with resilience armed with specific technical guidance informed by comprehensive risk and vulnerability analyses. The continued ‘improper’ application of resilience reinforces some views that this is another ‘buzzword’ or ‘fad’, devoid of real meaning for programming, and will mean that the approach will be eventually dropped from policy and programming when ‘the next big thing’ comes along.

This study argues that resilience has sufficient technical added-value (distinct from resilience as a political agenda) and outlines how it can be applied to programming, and, in response to challenges on the ground how donors and key partners can incentivise integrating resilience into programming. There are also recommendations for further study to support further integration of resilience into programming.

The relation between ports and their cities have evolved: it is no longer evident that well-functioning ports have automatically a net positive impact on the port-city. There are various trajectories and many ports and port-cities attempt to stimulate port-city development by a range of public policies. Yet, little is known about effectiveness of policies to promote performance of ports and port-cities. This paper aims at filling this gap, by assessing the effectiveness of port-city policies, within various policy areas including port development, port-city economic development, transportation, environment, research and development, spatial development and communication. This is done via a principal component analysis (PCA), based on a database constructed for the purpose of this paper with outcome variables and scores of policies for a set of 27 large world port-cities, that makes it possible to identify policies that are associated with effective policy outcomes and show patterns of related policy outcomes and policies.

The impacts of climate change are expected to create numerous challenges for cities. This report synthesizes key points raised in a series of discussions among “adaptation leaders” from fourteen cities around the world. Critical issues for urban adaptation that emerged from the discussions include the need for political commitment at multiple levels of government, information and data as a basis for understanding potential risks and vulnerabilities, meaningful and effective stakeholder engagement shaped by local contexts, and sustained financial and staff resources that are sensitive to urban variability. Further, the findings highlight how policy-makers and international organizations working with cities on issues of adaptation and resilience must support and facilitate processes of testing ideas, learning from experiences, and recalibrating as new information is obtained and lessons are learned.

Mobile applications, also known as “apps”, are a highly innovative and are an expanding sector of the economy, so policy makers are keen to maximise their innovative potential. Mobile platform markets are fiercely competitive, as highlighted by the recent rise and decline of platforms such as Blackberry, and governments are rightfully allowing market mechanisms to play out with minimal government intervention. However, as the app economy matures, there are increasing calls for transparency on how data is collected and used by apps. Leading mobile platform providers have recently taken steps to improve transparency on how apps access personal data but more can be done to inform users and give them the ability to limit access. This paper provides an overview of the app economy and identifies emerging policy issues related to competition, consumer protection and skills development.

The purpose of this presentation is to examine a specific rail transport sector, namely high-speed (HS) rail, in Italy. This analysis will cover the main features of the Italian HS system by studying aspects such as: the legislative framework, infrastructure, services, traffic data and market shares, in addition to regulatory matters.