Browse by: "2009"
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Did you know? As of June 2008, 104,000 Web sites referred to the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, compared with 25,000 five years earlier.
Governments are major issuers of debt instruments in the global financial market. This volume provides quantitative information on central government debt instruments for the 30 OECD Member countries. Statistics are presented according to a comprehensive standard framework to allow cross-country comparison. Country notes provide information on debt issuance in each country as well as on the institutional and regulatory framework governing debt management policy and selling techniques.
Malware attacks are increasing both in frequency and sophistication, thus posing a serious threat to the Internet economy and to national security. This book is a first step toward addressing the threat of malware in a comprehensive, global manner. It informs readers about malware -- its growth, evolution and countermeasures to combat it; presents new research into the economic incentives driving cyber-security decisions; and makes specific suggestions on how the international community can better work together to address the problem.
Despite progress in recent years, there is growing evidence that OECD countries are not on track to reach some of their key environmental goals. This report examines the strategies and instruments that governments use to ensure compliance with pollution prevention and control regulations, particularly in the industrial sector. It compares the compliance assurance systems of six OECD countries – Finland, France, Japan, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and the United States – as well as those of China and Russia. The report provides policy makers, environmental regulators, and other stakeholders with a comprehensive analysis of the design, management aspects, and the main elements of government compliance and enforcement programmes. Focusing on compliance promotion, compliance monitoring, and non-compliance response, it identifies and compares good practices, sets them in context of different countries’ regulatory cultures and highlights the key international trends.
Complex policy issues cannot be solved by government alone. Delivering high-quality public services at the least cost and achieving shared public policy goals requires innovative approaches and greater involvement of citizens. This book is a valuable source of information on government performance in fostering open and inclusive policy making in 25 countries. It offers rich insights into current practice through 14 in-depth country case studies and 18 opinion pieces from leading civil society and government practitioners. It includes 10 guiding principles to support open and inclusive policy making and service delivery in practice.
“Including more people, earlier and more creatively, in public policy issues is vital not just to secure legitimacy for policy decisions, but also to unlock a mass of creativity and commitment. Innovation is increasingly going to become an open, social and networked activity. That is true in politics and policy as much as in business. This timely, thoughtful book will help make open innovation in public policy a practical reality.”
-Charles Leadbeater, author We-think: Mass innovation not mass production
“We cannot engage the public only on issues of service delivery, but need also to seek their views, energy and resources when shaping public policy. To do otherwise is to create a false distinction between design and delivery, when in the citizens’ eyes it is all connected.”
-Irma Pavliniè Krebs, Minister of Public Administration, the Republic of Slovenia
“Focus on Citizens shines a light on the practical difficulties and significant benefits of open and inclusive policy making – not only for OECD member country governments but equally for non-member countries.”
-Bart W. Édes, Head, NGO and Civil Society Center, Asian Development Bank
This report examines both the challenges and the opportunities associated with designing and using indicator systems as a tool for the governance of regional development policy. It draws on the experiences of a number of OECD countries and provides an in-depth look at the cases of Italy, the United Kingdom (England), the United States and the European Union. It builds on previous OECD work on the governance of regional development policy by extending lessons about contractual relations among levels of government to performance indicator systems.
Government at a Glance is a new, biennial publication of the OECD providing over 30 indicators describing government performance. It compares the political and institutional frameworks of government across OECD countries, as well as government revenues, expenditures and employment. It also includes indicators describing government policies and practices in integrity, e-government and open government, and introduces several composite indexes summarising key aspects of public management practices in human resource management, budgeting and regulatory management. For each figure, the book provides a dynamic link (StatLink) which directs the user to a web page where the corresponding data are available in Excel® format.
The Internet has been remarkably successful in developing greater opportunities for communication access - and economic growth and social development - for the first billion users. The majority of the next several billion users will be mainly from developing countries and will connect to the Internet principally via wireless networks. But there are substantial discrepancies in access to ICTs between developed and developing countries and also within countries, depending on factors such as gender, rural coverage, skills and educational levels.
This book examines how the market for internet traffic exchange has evolved and explores the coherence of policies pursued by developed and developing countries. It notes the increasing innovation occurring in a number of developing countries with competitive markets and discusses how liberalisation has helped to expand of access networks and make ICT services increasingly affordable and available to the poor. The report also highlights the employment, micro-entrepreneurial and social development opportunities which have emerged as access levels have risen among low-income users. The study notes that gateway service monopolies - still in 70 countries - raise the prices for accessing international capacity and reduce the affordability of Internet access to business and end users.
Lobbying can improve policy making by providing valuable insights and data, but it can also result in unfair advantages for vested interests if the process is opaque and standards are lax. Lobbying is resource intensive. The financial services sector in the United States spent USD 3.4 billion lobbying the federal government between 1998 and 2008, principally promoting the deregulation of the financial sector. Legions of lobbyists provide “guns for hire” worldwide. In 2008, there were over 5 000 registered lobbyists in Canada at the national level, while the European Commission in Brussels had over 2 000 registered as of August 2009.
This report reviews the experiences of Australia, Canada, Hungary, Poland, the United Kingdom and the United States with government regulations designed to increase scrutiny for lobbying and lobbyists. Current approaches, models, trends and state-of-the-art solutions are examined to support a deeper understanding of the potential and limitations of existing norms. The report also presents building blocks for developing a framework for lobbying that meets public expectations for transparency, accountability and integrity
The size and the economic significance of the public sector make it a major contributor to economic growth and social welfare. The goods and services government provides, its redistributive and regulatory powers, and how those are exercised affect the way business is conducted and people live their lives in every country. Citizens are entitled to understand how government works and how public revenues are used. This book provides a significant contribution to developing a coherent, reliable system for data collection and analysis. It summarises the available OECD and other international data on public sector inputs and processes. It also examines the existing internationally comparable data on outputs and outcomes, and recommends new approaches to measurement.
The revised OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises were adopted by the governments of the 30 Member countries of the OECD and Argentina, Brazil and Chile on the occasion of the OECD's annual Council meeting at Ministerial level in Paris on 27 June 2000. This booklet comprises the revised text and commentary, implementation procedures and the Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises.
In addition to the Principles, this exhaustive publication includes a Checklist for implementing the framework throughout the entire public procurement cycle. It also gives a comprehensive map of risks that can help auditors prevent as well as detect fraud and corruption. Finally, it features a useful case study on Morocco, where a pilot application of the Principles was carried out.
“The Checklist will help governments and agencies to develop more transparent, efficient procurement systems”
-Nicolas Raigorodsky, Under-secretary of Transparency Policies, Anticorruption Office, Argentina
“Public procurement is one of the most important public governance issues. Action is needed to ensure integrity by reducing bribery and corruption”
-Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD
“The general thrust and content of the document is commendable. Much of it tracks very closely to the United Nations Convention Against Corruption and the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law Model Law”
-Stuart Gilman, Head of the UN Global Programme Against Corruption and the Anticorruption Unit, United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime
This third edition provides the latest comparable data and trends across regions in OECD countries, including a special focus on the spatial dimension for innovation. It relies on the OECD Regional database, the most comprehensive set of statistics at the sub-national level on demography, economic and labour market performance, education, healthcare, environmental outputs and knowledge-based activities comparable among the OECD countries. This publication provides a dynamic link (StatLink) for each graph and map, which directs the user to a web page where the corresponding data are available in Excel®.
Despite macro-economic stability in recent years, Mexico still suffers from stagnant productivity growth. Mexico’s long-term competitiveness in a global context will require greater public and private action to spur innovation and economic growth in regions throughout the country. This report reviews how both national and state policies in Mexico can better support regional innovation systems and includes profiles of 15 states.
Piedmont is one of the top ten manufacturing regions in Europe and enjoys the highest levels of business investment in R&D in Italy. Birthplace of the most famous Italian automotive company - Fiat – and home to many heavy engineering and manufacturing firms, the region has long been a central part of the national industrial core. Yet since the early 1970s, the fragility of Piedmont's production system has slowly became evident. This report reviews how Piedmont’s new regional strategy supports innovation and how its efforts can be improved.
China has made enormous progress in developing the modern legal and regulatory foundation for the market economy. The private sector is now the main driver of growth, and new laws have gone a long way toward establishing private property rights, competition, and mechanisms for entry and exit comparable to those of many OECD countries. At the same time important challenges remain, including further clarification of the scope of state ownership, reform of relations among central and local governments, firmer establishment of the rule of law, and strengthening of regulatory institutions and processes.
This review of China's regulatory system focuses on the overall economic context for regulatory reform, the government’s capacity to manage regulatory reform, competition policy and enforcement, and market openness. The review also examines the regulatory framework in the electricity, water and health care sectors. As for OECD countries, the review follows a multidisciplinary and highly interactive approach. A number of OECD instruments and policies are used in this assessment, although the review also takes into account the specific challenges faced by the Chinese authorities. The review includes a comprehensive set of policy recommendations.
Damages to economic assets resulting from natural disasters have soared in the past fifteen years, and climate change models forecast intensified exposure to extreme weather in many OECD countries. This OECD review of risk management policies focuses on Japan, because the geography, topography and climate of its national territory subject it to serious natural hazards, especially seismic activity and typhoons. The report looks at Japan’s policies in the areas of monitoring, preparing for and responding to floods and earthquakes, seeking out and identifying good practices and areas where improvements could be made. The case studies consider several issues of particular interest to policy makers, such as how to take climate change into account for long term policy planning related to large scale floods, and Japan’s unique earthquake insurance scheme for damages whose probability and impact are hard to accurately assess.
OECD's comprehensive review of rural policy in Italy. On average, rural regions in Italy have some of the highest GDP per capita among the OECD countries, yet unexploited potential remains. This analysis of rural Italy reveals heterogeneous economic conditions, an increasing elderly population and a diminished focus on environmental concerns. This suggests the need for a broader rural policy approach that reflects the changing demands upon rural resources and that considers other aspects of rurality including health, education and quality of life.
With more than 700 million residents living in rural areas, China is still a predominantly rural country. But despite substantial improvements in standards of living, the Chinese countryside is largely lagging behind. This report analyses the key socio-economic forces at work in China's rural areas and discusses the current government strategy for rural development. It argues that in order to bridge rural-urban divides the current policy approach needs to go further in recognising rural-urban complementarities beyond agriculture and that food-security targets need to be balanced with wider rural development objectives.
This report – undertaken at the same time as the reforms were being implemented – will interest both policy makers engaged in similar reform processes and others working on issues such the “political economy” of reforms, rural tourism, renewable energies, rural clusters, development of peri-urban areas and public service delivery in remote rural areas.