Browse by: "2008"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
This paper discusses Mexico’s foreign trade and investment policies and provides specific recommendations to enhance the benefits of a closer integration in the world economy. Over the past two decades, Mexico has made significant progress in reducing barriers to trade and foreign direct investment (FDI), and this has boosted GDP per capita growth. Nevertheless, Mexico needs to make further progress in reforming its trade policy by further reducing MFN tariff barriers and non-tariff barriers so as to promote efficiency in the economy. Barriers to FDI remain high, particularly in some services and infrastructure sectors, such as telecommunications and domestic land transport. Restrictions to foreign ownership should be eased to attract higher inflows and thereby improve productivity. To broaden the benefits from FDI, supplier linkages between FDI investors and other firms in Mexico should be enhanced.
Au cours des 25 dernières années, l'inflation a considérablement diminué dans toutes les économies de l’OCDE. Pendant ce temps, la production de nombreux biens et services est devenue de plus en plus internationalisée et le niveau du commerce entre les pays de l’OCDE et les pays non membres a augmenté.
Cet article étudie dans quelle mesure les changements observés dans le mécanisme d’inflation peuvent être attribués à l’intégration croissante des pays non membres de l’OCDE dans l’économie mondiale. Les résultats de l’analyse montrent que i) les prix d’importation jouent un rôle plus important dans la détermination des prix de consommation domestiques depuis le milieu des années 1990 ; ii) la sensibilité de l’inflation aux conditions économiques domestiques a diminué alors que la sensibilité aux conditions économiques extérieures a augmenté, en jouant à travers les prix d’importation ; et iii) la croissance forte du PIB dans les pays non membres au cours des cinq dernières années a contribué à l’augmentation des prix réels du pétrole et des métaux.
Les simulations montrent que la globalisation a entraîné des pressions inflationnistes via des prix des matières premières plus élevés et des pressions désinflationnistes via des prix des importations des produits hors matières premières plus faibles. Le dernier effet semble avoir dominé dans la plupart des pays de l’OCDE.
The Portuguese government has recently undertaken comprehensive structural reforms of the public sector and has successfully reduced its budget deficit. This article explores particular features of the Portuguese budget system and the proposed further reforms, including the adoption of a medium-term expenditure framework and performance budgeting.
Greece is undertaking important reforms with the aim of making the budget a more modern strategic policy document. This article examines Greece’s recent economic and fiscal performance and the developments that led to the launch of the programme budgeting pilot in 2008. The article discusses the budget formulation process, the role of Parliament, and various aspects of budget implementation and management. The report concludes with a discussion of accounting, audit and accountability.
There are basically four means by which to reduce the negative environmental consequences of personal transport: by replacing personal vehicles with more environmentally-friendly ones; by replacing car journeys with public transport, walking or cycling and by car-sharing rather than solo driving; by making fewer journeys (e.g. telecommuting, internet shopping); and by travelling shorter distances.
There are two serious failures that arise in the management of solid waste. The first relates to the existence of negative externalities in the individual decision-making over waste generation and disposal. When individuals decide on how much to consume and what to consume, they do not take into account how much waste they produce. Because the external costs of waste generation (such as air and water pollution) are ignored by individuals, more waste is produced and disposed of than is socially optimal. The second serious failure relates to the ways in which waste collection services are typically financed. More often than not, individuals pay for waste disposal in lump sums through general taxes or flat payments to local governments or private collectors. Hence, waste disposal costs are not fully reflected in the prices households face at the margin. Even if these flat charges included both the private and external costs of waste production and disposal, individuals would still face zero prices for additional waste produced, and would thus tend to produce (and dispose of) more waste than if they were to pay for the additional garbage according to its social marginal cost.