1887
  1. Home
  2. Papers
  3. Browse by: "2008"

Browse by: "2008"

Index

Title Index

Year Index

/search?value51=igo%2Foecd&value6=2008&sortDescending=true&sortDescending=true&value5=2008&value53=status%2F50+OR+status%2F100+OR+status%2F90&value52=&value7=&value2=&option7=&value4=subtype%2Farticle+OR+subtype%2Fworkingpaper+OR+subtype%2Fpolicybrief&option5=year_from&value3=&option6=year_to&fmt=ahah&publisherId=%2Fcontent%2Figo%2Foecd&option3=&option52=&sortField=prism_publicationDate&sortField=prism_publicationDate&option4=dcterms_type&option53=pub_contentStatus&option51=pub_igoId&option2=&page=21&page=21

Globalisation is profoundly changing economic development, forcing development officials to adopt a regional approach founded on what a particular region does best or its competitive advantage. Globalisation has also placed a new premium on innovation as the critical fuel to economic success – for firms, regions and countries. Universities lie at the nexus of these two powerful trends: they are rooted in regions, and they are perhaps the most important engines of innovation. Drawing on recent experience in the United States, this paper explores this nexus by addressing three critical questions: (1) Why is regional competitiveness the new paradigm for regional development? (2) What must regions do to compete? (3) What can be done to connect university innovation with regional development? The paper concludes that new mechanisms are needed to connect university innovation with regional development. Public policy can encourage these mechanisms by addressing twin needs in the newly forming “market” for regional innovation: encouraging universities to make innovation available in ways that regions can easily tap, and helping regions understand which innovations are most critical to their economic future.

French
A large, untapped reservoir of potential partnerships between private financial institutions (banks, asset managers, private equity firms, etc.) and aid donors remains to be fully exploited. Banks, private equity and asset management firms are important parts of a broad set of private actors in the field. Private financial institutions take increasingly into account variables other than financial ones to assess their investment decisions around the world. The OECD Global Forum on Development could host a market place for ideas for improving and promoting donor-private financial institutions partnerships: an Innovation Laboratory on Development Finance. An OECD Development Finance Award hosted by the OECD Global Forum on Development should be created
This paper examines varies areas of India´s fiscal policy, in particular fiscal discipline, the structure of government spending, the tax system and fiscal federalism. It describes reforms over the past decades which, as part of the overall economic reform agenda, helped lifting the Indian economy to a higher growth path. It also discusses where further reforms are desirable to further reduce economic distortions and improve the provision of public services. It finds that after high fiscal deficits have often been recorded during the past two decades, after the adoption of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act in 2003, fiscal discipline has significantly improved. As to government spending, it argues that, given the large share which is used to subsidise commercial undertakings, agriculture and food distribution, there is much room to improve the quality of spending and to target it better to improving infrastructure and reducing poverty. It describes the tax system which has undergone major reforms since the early 1990s. Nonetheless, there are still many exemptions and loopholes which suggest that a broadening of the tax bases would allow further reductions in tax rates and make the system simpler, fairer and more efficient. The paper also suggests that reforms of indirect taxes should focus on creating a common market within India so that goods can move between states without border controls. Finally, on fiscal federalism it finds that India's federal structure has led to a well-developed system of tax-sharing and transfers, both through constitutionally empowered bodies and delivered through the annual budget. While overall, India´s fiscal federalism has worked well moving resources towards the poorest states, it has become very complex and there are still some features which weaken fiscal discipline of the states. Furthermore, a major drawback is the lack of an effective local government system, most notably in rural areas and strengthening the local level would be important for improving accountability and responsiveness to citizens’ needs as three-quarters of the population live in states with over 50 million inhabitants.
  • 10 Mar 2008
  • Jose Duran, Nanno Mulder, Osamu Onodera
  • Pages: 56
Le présent document s'inscrit, comme les quatre autres études de cas, dans le cadre d'un vaste programme de recherches sur les échanges et l'ajustement structurel dans les économies non membres, qui a été entrepris à la suite de l'étude Trade and Structural Adjustment : Embracing Globalisation (OCDE, 2005) sur les politiques d'ajustement structurel dans le domaine des échanges. Il étudie les expériences de libéralisation des échanges et d'ajustement structurel en Asie de l'Est et en Amérique latine, ainsi que leurs résultats en termes de performances économiques et commerciales. Le rapport comprend cinq grandes sections ; après une introduction, la section A examine tout d'abord les résultats obtenus en matière de croissance et le rôle des échanges et de l'IDE. La section B traite de l'évolution des politiques relatives aux échanges dans les deux régions, tandis que la section C passe en revue quelques indicateurs des échanges et de l'investissement direct étranger. La section D compare l'ajustement structurel dans les deux régions. Enfin, la section E expose les conclusions de l'étude.
English
This working paper investigates the policy determinants of hours worked among employed individuals in OECD countries, focussing on the impact of taxation, working-time regulations, and other labour and product market policies. It explores the factors underlying cross-country differences in hours worked — in line with previous aggregate approaches — while at the same time it looks more closely at labour force heterogeneity — in the vein of microeconomic labour supply models. The paper shows that policies and institutions have a different impact on working hours of men and women. Firstly, while high marginal taxes create a disincentive to work longer hours for women, their impact on hours worked by men is almost insignificant. Secondly, working-time regulations have a significant impact on hours worked by men, and this impact differs across education categories. Thirdly, other labour and product market policies, in particular stringent employment protection of workers on regular contracts and competition-restraining product market policies, have a negative impact on hours worked by men, over and beyond their impact on employment levels.
This paper addresses the question of whether and how monetary policy ease may lead to excesses in financial and real asset markets and ultimately result in financial dislocation. It presents evidence suggesting that periods when short-term interest rates have been persistently and significantly below what Taylor rules would prescribe are correlated with increases in asset prices, especially as regards housing, though no systematic effects are identified on equity markets. Significant asset price increases, however, can also occur when interest rates are in line with Taylor rules, associated with periods of financial deregulation and/or innovation. The paper argues that accommodating monetary policy over the period 2002-2005, in combination with rapid financial market innovation, would seem in retrospect to have been among the factors behind the run-up in asset prices and consequent financial imbalances -- the (partial) unwinding of which helped trigger the 2007 financial market turmoil. Moreover, the paper points out that in certain situations policy rates may be a rather blunt tool for dealing with both the build-up and aftermath of financial imbalances, raising the question whether “macro-prudential” regulation could be useful.
Switzerland has had a long-standing surplus on its current account. But over the past 15 years that surplus has surged to levels unmatched by nearly any other OECD country at any point. This paper looks at the surplus from a balance of payments vantage point as well as from the optic of the excess of national saving over domestic investment. It then seeks possible explanations for the uptrend and assesses whether it results to any extent from market, institutional or policy failures that could call for reforms. A number of important measurement issues are raised. But the key recommendation is that the authorities should prepare for a possible sharp increase in the value of the Swiss franc if and when investors engaged in the “carry trade” unwind their positions. To that end they should examine labour, capital and product markets with a view to ensuring they are as flexible as possible and that factors are as mobile as possible, both geographically and sectorally. This will allow any necessary adjustment to a higher exchange rate to be smoothly accommodated. This Working Paper is largely extracted from the 2007 OECD Economic Survey of Switzerland (www.oecd.org/eco/survey/switzerland).
Tax receipts surged between 2005 and 2007 in many OECD countries, resulting in significant improvements in headline fiscal positions. As a consequence, pressures for tax cuts and for public spending increases have emerged. In the past, responding to such demands has permanently weakened budget positions as revenue windfalls ultimately proved to be temporary. Hence, the opportunity to address structural deficit problems and prepare for future demographic trends has been lost, and the ability to respond to subsequent cyclical downturns has been weakened. This paper provides an analysis of the factors behind recent revenue buoyancy and examines past responses to unexpected revenue gains. It also discusses whether improved information on fiscal positions and future fiscal challenges, combined with relevant fiscal rules, might help in avoiding a repetition of past errors in fiscal policy.

Le fonctionnement du système financier peut avoir un impact décisif sur la croissance économique et sur la stabilité de l’économie. Il influe sur la croissance économique à long terme par son effet sur l’efficience de l’intermédiation entre épargnants et emprunteurs finaux ; par le degré auquel il permet une surveillance des utilisateurs de fonds externes, ce qui se répercute sur la productivité du capital utilisé ; enfin, par son incidence sur le volume de l’épargne, qui conditionne la capacité future de l’économie de générer des revenus. Le système financier agit sur la stabilité de l’économie en raison du fort pouvoir de levier de ses activités et de son rôle central dans le règlement de l’ensemble des transactions au sein de l’économie, de sorte que toute défaillance d’un segment risque de compromettre la stabilité du système dans son ensemble.

English

Les dépenses publiques consacrées à la santé et aux soins de longue durée (SLD ci-après) sont un sujet de préoccupation pour les gouvernements de la plupart des pays de l’OCDE. Leur accélération récente exerce une pression sur les budgets publics, qui s’ajoute à celle résultant de la réforme incomplète des régimes de retraite et d’autres formes de dépenses sociales. Depuis un certain temps, les pays de l’OCDE limitent la croissance de ces charges en appliquant des politiques de maîtrise des coûts. Il s’agit surtout d’une modération des salaires, de contrôles des prix et d’un report des investissements concernant les soins de longue durée. Une large part de ces derniers est assurée par les familles hors des circuits officiels. Toutefois, les possibilités de contenir de cette façon les dépenses pour la santé et les soins de longue durée se réduisent.

English

Dans les pays de l’OCDE, les États infranationaux et les autres collectivités publiques territoriales ont accès à de multiples ressources budgétaires. Leur l iberté d’en disposer varie beaucoup, tout comme le pouvoir de ces « administrations infranationales » (AI) de formuler leur budget et de définir les résultats qu’elles attendent de leur action, par exemple l’efficience du secteur public, l’égal accès aux services publics ou l’orientation budgétaire à long terme. Il serait donc utile de disposer de données sur la structure des recettes des AI. Or, les indicateurs ont longtemps donné une image imprécise des modalités de financement des budgets territoriaux. L’indicateur le plus fréquemment utilisé est la part des AI dans le total des recettes fiscales, ce qui est une piètre mesure si l’on veut évaluer l’autonomie dont jouissent réellement les AI. Comme les finances publiques sont tributaires de la maîtrise des recettes budgétaires, il faut constituer un ensemble d’indicateurs affinés pour déterminer l’autonomie budgétaire.

English

Ces dernières années, la réglementation des marchés de produits dans les pays de l’OCDE est globalement devenue moins restrictive pour la concurrence. Cela a entraîné une certaine convergence des politiques de réglementationþ; cependant, dans le même temps, la disparité des performances des pays de l’OCDE en termes de productivité s’est accrue. En effet, selon certains indicateurs, les taux de croissance et les niveaux de la productivité du travail se sont récemment mis à diverger. L’évolution récente de la théorie et les observations empiriques de la croissance donnent à penser que les environnements différents concernant la politique économique et le dispositif institutionnel peuvent en partie expliquer les disparités de productivité entre les pays (Acemoglu et autres, 2004, Aghion et Griffith, 2005, Nicoletti et Scarpetta, 2003).

English

Dans quelle mesure les différences d’imposition des entreprises influent-elles sur les décisions d’investissement des entreprises multinationales (EMN) ? Depuis une dizaine d’années, on accorde un intérêt croissant à cette question, parallèlement à l’accroissement de la mobilité du capital et à l’internationalisation des entreprises. Les modèles standards portant sur les EMN prévoient que la fiscalité des entreprises peut influencer l’investissement direct étranger (IDE) en créant un effet de ciseaux entre la rentabilité des investissements avant et après impôt. Ce coin fiscal dépend cependant de la nature de l’investissement, à savoir s’il est additionnel ou s’il intervient dans le cadre de la création d’établissements entièrement nouveaux.

English

This paper evaluates the performances of Japanese leading indicators in predicting business cycle turning points. We extract the business cycle component in leading indicators using the frequency selective filter proposed by Baxter and King (1999), and we try to clarify empirically whether or not the leading composite index and its component series truly lead the business cycle turning point dates officially determined by the Japanese government. We argue that if we utilize the evaluated properties of the component series, we may construct a composite leading indicator which has some desirable properties as requested. As an illustration we provide one such example.

This paper assesses the leading indicator properties of the Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) of the European Commission, as well as two of its subcomponents, for industrial production growth. For this purpose we perform correlation analysis, Granger causality tests, an assessment on the ability to predict turning points and an out-of-sample forecasting exercise. Within a panel setting we compare the characteristics of these indicators for two subgroups of EU countries: the EU-15 and the new EU member states. We show that the forecasting quality and the leading indicator properties are still slightly lagging behind in the group of new EU member states. This may be related to the general problem of data quality and the undergone history of structural change in these countries that makes the assessment of future economic prospects particularly difficult.

We decompose variations in the aggregate exit rate from unemployment to employment into two factors: i) Changes in the arrival rate of acceptable job offers; and ii) changes in the composition of the unemployment pool in terms of average employability. We argue that the former of these factors provides the basis for an informative labour market tightness indicator, while the latter yields valuable information regarding the design of optimal labour market policies across the cycle. Based on Norwegian register data, we find that individual monthly exit rates tend to double from a cyclical trough to a cyclical peak, ceteris paribus, but that crosssectional heterogeneity nevertheless explains 88 per cent of the overall variation in individual monthly exit probabilities during the period from 1989 to 2002.

The paper looks at an often debated issue – the decline observed in business cycle volatility – using qualitative data derived from Business Tendency Surveys. It concentrates on the manufacturing sector, providing evidence that volatility slowdown is attributable to a break in the Data Generating Process (Cecchetti, Flores-Lagunes and Krause, 2006) rather than to a long trend decline (Blanchard and Simon, 2001). Moreover, it shows that lower variance of the ISAE Confidence Indicator is mostly explained by the behaviour of firms' assessments of demand and inventories. In particular, inventories volatility has decreased, while volatility of production has instead increased with respect to that of demand. Both of these results are consistent with the claim that better inventories management should have a specific role in shaping the production decisions of the firms (Wen, 2005).

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the current period performance of the OECD composite leading indicators (CLIs) for 21 OECD Member countries and three zone aggregates for which CLIs are available for a longer time period. The main aim of the current analysis on CLIs is to further evaluate the quality of the indicator in order to identify areas where their reliability could be improved. The results show that first estimates of CLIs are revised frequently but the size of revisions is rather small for most countries and almost neglectable for zone aggregates and there is no evidence of bias. The OECD CLI is, however, designed to provide early signals of turning points (peaks and troughs) between expansions and slowdowns of economic activity. Forecasting turning points is one of the main objectives of the leading indicator technique, because predicting the timing of cyclical turning points is one of the least reliable activities in economic forecasting. The results provide evidence that first and second estimates of year-on-year growth rates give reliable signals of approaching cyclical turning points. Finally, the importance of smoothness of components in the calculation of first and second estimates of the CLI and the overall smoothness of the CLI itself is noted in the findings. The results support the argument that it is not enough to have timely components they also need to be smooth to guarantee small revisions. Overall, this study has shown that whilst it could be dangerous to draw conclusions on the directions up or down in growth rates from one or two months figures for several countries, the first and second estimates of the CLIs give early signals of approaching turning points which in most cases are not revised later.

  • 01 Mar 2008
  • Frank van Tongeren
  • Pages: 37
Les politiques agricoles sont-elles à ce jour fondées sur des objectifs mesurables ? Parviennent-elles à atteindre correctement les objectifs avoués ? A quoi pourrait ressembler une politique agricole améliorée ? Comment s’embarquer sur une trajectoire de réforme ? Ces questions sont examinées, parmi d’autres, dans cette publication. Elle s’appuie sur plusieurs projets réalisés ces dernières années sous les auspices du Comité de l’Agriculture de l’OCDE et formule de manière succincte des recommandations pratiques pour mettre en oeuvre la réforme de la politique agricole. Elle présente les caractéristiques opérationnelles d’un ensemble de politiques qui permettrait d’atteindre les objectifs internes des politiques tout en minimisant les distorsions et les effets secondaires sur les marchés mondiaux.
English
The objective of this study is to analyse what the quantitative funding requirements for pension funds with defined benefit plans would be, if Solvency II (based on the QIS 3 methodology) would be applied. Also possible extensions of the Solvency II methodology that seem necessary in order to reflect the specifics of pension funds will be discussed.
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error