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This article treats some ideas and issues that are part of ongoing reflection at the OECD. They were first raised in a major research article for the Reserve Bank of Australia conference in July 2008, and benefited from policy discussion in and around that conference. One fundamental cause of the crisis was a change in the business model of banking, mixing credit with equity culture. When this model was combined with complex interactions from incentives emanating from macro policies, changes in regulations, taxation, and corporate governance, the current crisis became the inevitable result. The paper points to the need for far-reaching reform for a more sustainable situation in the future.

This report analyses the impact of failures and weaknesses in corporate governance on the financial crisis, including risk management systems and executive salaries. It concludes that the financial crisis can be to an important extent attributed to failures and weaknesses in corporate governance arrangements which did not serve their purpose to safeguard against excessive risk taking in a number of financial services companies.

Accounting standards and regulatory requirements have also proved insufficient in some areas. Last but not least, remuneration systems have in a number of cases not been closely related to the strategy and risk appetite of the company and its longer term interests. The article also suggests that the importance of qualified board oversight and robust risk management is not limited to financial institutions.

The remuneration of boards and senior management also remains a highly controversial issue in many OECD countries. The current turmoil suggests a need for the OECD to re-examine the adequacy of its corporate governance principles in these key areas.

Higher education in the United States has received much scrutiny in the recent past from the federal and state governments, the press and the general public. In response to this scrutiny, a number of blue ribbon panels have been formed to examine how effectively higher education is serving American society. In this article, I analyse the proceedings and impact of the most recent prominent panel, the Secretary of Education’s Commission on the Future of Higher Education, commonly known as the Spellings Commission. I also briefly examine how the new administration of President Barack Obama is likely to affect colleges and universities in light of the global economic crisis.

Le contexte de la réforme de l’enseignement supérieur aux États-Unis

Ces dernières années, le gouvernement fédéral, les États, la presse et l’opinion publique ont placé l’enseignement supérieur aux États-Unis au centre d’une attention toute particulière. En conséquence de cela, de nombreux groupes d’experts se sont formés pour étudier dans quelle mesure le système d’enseignement supérieur sert efficacement la société américaine.
Cet article examinera les procédures et l’impact de la commission du ministre de l’Éducation sur le futur de l’enseignement supérieur, plus généralement dénommée la commission Spellings, qui constitue le plus important groupe d’experts récemment constitué.
Nous étudierons ensuite brièvement dans quelle mesure la nouvelle administration du Président Barack Obama est susceptible d’affecter les universités dans un contexte marqué par la crise économique mondiale.

Legislatures require reliable, unbiased information to be able to participate constructively in formulating the budget. This article explores the value of an independent budget capacity located in the legislature for expanding parliament’s role in budgeting and for holding the executive accountable.

At the start of the decremental decade of the 1980s, governments encountered many difficulties in making ends meet. This article discusses some of the problems of post-expansive stagnation and the merits of certain techniques such as indexing, global norms, decentralising hard choices and the well-balanced package.

The question whether a socially mobile society is conducive to subjective well-being (SWB) has rarely been investigated. This paper fills this gap by analyzing the SWB effects of intergenerational earnings mobility and equality in education at the societal level. Using socio-demographic information on 44 000 individuals in 30 OECD countries obtained from the World Values Survey, this study shows that living in a socially mobile society is conducive to individual life satisfaction. Differentiating between perceived and actual social mobility, we find that both exert rather independent effects, particularly in their interplay with income inequality. We identify a positive interaction of perceived social mobility that mitigates its overall SWB lowering effect, supporting Alesina et al. (2004). In contrast, a high degree of actual social mobility yields an overall impact of income inequality that is SWB lowering, while for low social mobility the effect of inequality is positive. These interactions hold stronger for pre-transfer than post-transfer income inequality. Actual social mobility appears to be appreciated only by conservative persons, while leftist oriented individuals are indifferent. Robustness is tested using a world sample.
Societal concerns as they pertain to farming activities play an important role today in the development of national policies. How such concerns are perceived varies from one society to another as do the policy responses (economic instruments and regulations) that governments put in place. These policy responses have in turn implications for trade and international relations. This study examines a number of issues that are part of the current debate and how these are addressed at the domestic level as well as within the framework of applicable provisions of WTO agreements.
French
This pilot study presents indicators that assess sub-central government (SCG) spending power by policy area. Traditional indicators – such as the share of SCG in total government spending – are often misleading as they underestimate the impact of central government regulation on sub-central spending patterns. In order to gauge true spending power, a set of institutional indicators is established, based on a detailed assessment of institutional, regulatory and administrative control central government exerts over various SCG policy areas. Results tend to confirm the limited discretion of SCGs over their own budget. Education in particular – the main SCG budget item in most countries – is strongly shaped by central government regulation. Federal countries tend to grant more spending power to SCGs than unitary countries. With a few amendments, the framework of this study could be applied to all OECD countries, although it is advisable to restrict the analysis to the main sub-central spending areas.
In contrast to the once prevailing norm of secrecy and opaqueness, transparency has now become one of the main features characterising the conduct of monetary policy. Detailed analysis of eleven OECD central banks shows that communication practices have converged markedly in the direction of ever greater transparency. Empirical evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that transparency contributes to the successful conduct of monetary policy: higher transparency is a typical element of monetary frameworks that are associated with better anchored inflation expectations and more stable inflation outcomes. Despite this general trend toward increased transparency, however, central banks differ in actual communication practices. There is a particular divergence with respect to transparency in the decision-making process and communication regarding future policy inclination. Although the appropriate degree of transparency in these areas is an unsettled issue, the fact that financial dislocation is impairing conventional monetary transmission makes these two areas critical for policy implementation.
This paper uses the WITCH model, a computable general equilibrium model with endogenous technological change, to explore the impact of various climate policies on energy technology choices and the costs of stabilising greenhouse gas concentrations. Current and future expected carbon prices appear to have powerful effects on R&D spending and clean technology diffusion. Their impact on stabilisation costs depends on the nature of R&D: R&D targeted at incremental energy efficiency improvements has only limited effects, but R&D focused on the emergence of major new low-carbon technologies could lower costs drastically if successful – especially in the non-electricity sector, where such low-carbon options are scarce today. With emissions coming from multiple sources, keeping a wide range of options available matters more for stabilisation costs than improving specific technologies. Due to international knowledge spillovers, stabilisation costs could be further reduced through a complementary, global R&D policy. However, a strong price signal is always required.

Nuclear power plant modifications may be needed for a number of different reasons. These include physical ageing of plant systems, structures and components; obsolescence in hardware and software; feedback from operating experience; and opportunities for improved plant safety, reliability or capability. However, experience has also shown that weaknesses in the design and/or implementation of modifications can present significant challenges to plant safety. They can also have a considerable impact on the commercial performance of the plant. It is therefore important that the plant modification process reflect a recognition of the potential impact of human errors and that it incorporate suitable measures to minimise the potential for such errors.

In this context, the NEA Committee on the Safety of Nuclear Installations (CSNI) and its Working Group on Human and Organisational Factors organised an international workshop in 2003 to discuss the role of human and organisational performance in the nuclear plant modification process. This technical opinion paper represents the consensus of specialists in human and organisational factors (HOF) in the NEA member countries on commendable practices and approaches to dealing with nuclear plant modifications. It considers factors that should be taken into account when developing a modification process and identifies some lessons learnt from application of the process. The paper should be of particular interest of nuclear safety regulators and nuclear power plant operators.

This primer aims to provide policy makers a broad-brush understanding of the various dimensions of digital identity management (IdM). Consistent with the Seoul Ministerial Declaration, it also aims to support efforts to address public policy issues for securely managing and protecting digital identities, with a view to strengthening confidence in the online activities crucial to the growth of the Internet Economy.
Broadband networks are increasingly recognised as fundamental for economic and social development. They serve as a communication and transaction platform for the entire economy and can improve productivity across all sectors. Advanced communication networks are a key component of innovative ecosystems and support economic growth. Broadband networks also increase the impact and efficiency of public and private investments which depend on high-speed communications. Broadband is needed as a complementary investment to other infrastructure such as buildings, roads, transportation systems, health and electricity grids, allowing them to be “smart” and save energy, assist the aging, improve safety and adapt to new ideas.

Over the past several decades the international community has increasingly come to rely on periodic multilateral conferences or meetings:  1) as a means for reviewing implementation of a wide variety of legal instruments, including those addressing nuclear non-proliferation, safety, waste management, physical protection and security. Also, the parties to some instruments that do not explicitly mandate review meetings have decided to conduct de facto review meetings to enhance implementation. Although the structure and procedures of these meetings differ in some particulars, they reflect a number of common objectives, organisational arrangements and procedures. This paper seeks to assess the major issues arising from reliance on the review conference;  2) mechanism as a measure for enhancing the effectiveness of multilateral legal instruments, particularly those in the nuclear field. In view of the perceived failure of the 2005 Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons and the need to avoid a similar result at the upcoming 2010 Review Conference, it is hoped that this analysis will provide a timely – and possibly even useful – “review” of the review conference mechanism.

French
The great difference between our journeys and activity schedules and those of our forebears lies in the much longer distances we travel. By road, and even more so by rail and air, nowadays we can cover hundreds or even thousands of miles in a few hours. Inter-urban mobility is directly affected by these developments. Where international travel by coach and sailing ship used to take weeks, and intercontinental journeys sometimes even longer, we now count the time in hours. The transport revolution has played a major part in the economic history of the last two centuries (Niveau and Crozet, 2000), but it must be emphasized that the change has been gradual. Over two hundred years have passed between the stage-coach and the high-speed train, the clipper and the jet, during which technological progress and the higher speeds it enables have spread relatively slowly. Even with key technological revolutions like the railways, the automobile and the aeroplane, it took several decades for them to become available to the population at large. From this slow percolation of technological progress into the way we live has arisen the idea that steadily increasing mobility is a structural given of modern society. Further, faster seems to have become the general rule, to such an extent that even space travel, so we are told, will become more widely available in the relatively near future. A few very wealthy people have already become the world's first space tourists. It is the self-evident nature of this long-term trend towards increased mobility that we wish to examine in this report, since a number of factors could well undermine the relatively classic assumption that past trends will continue into the future.

This article discusses fiscal reform in Central and Eastern Europe from the perspective of political economy. Following an overview of basic reform trends, the article focuses on the principal drivers and impediments to reform in the region. To conclude, the ingredients of successful reform are examined.

This paper provides an overview of past and projected future trends in adult overweight and obesity in OECD countries. Using individual-level data from repeated cross-sectional national surveys, some of the main determinants and pathways underlying the current obesity epidemic are explored, and possible policy levers for tackling the negative health effect of these trends are identified. First, projected future trends show a tendency towards a progressive stabilisation or slight shrinkage of pre-obesity rates, with a projected continued increase in obesity rates. Second, results suggest that diverging forces are at play, which have been pushing overweight and obesity rates into opposite directions. On one hand, the powerful influences of obesogenic environments (aspects of physical, social and economic environments that favour obesity) have been consolidating over the course of the past 20-30 years. On the other hand, the long term influences of changing education and socio-economic conditions have made successive generations increasingly aware of the health risks associated with lifestyle choices, and sometimes more able to handle environmental pressures. Third, the distribution of overweight and obesity in OECD countries consistently shows pronounced disparities by education and socio-economic condition in women (with more educated and higher socio-economic status women displaying substantially lower rates), while mixed patterns are observed in men. Fourth, the findings highlight the spread of overweight and obesity within households, suggesting that health-related behaviours, particularly those concerning diet and physical activity, are likely to play a larger role than genetic factors in determining the convergence of BMI levels within households.
Efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions which are linked to the global climate system such as the Kyoto Protocol might fail, if emission-restricted states relocate their carbon-intensive production activities to non-restricted countries where the primary production factors depend on more GHG-intensive sources. Such a relocation process and increased ‘carbon trade’ appear to be contrary to the GHG reductions envisioned in international agreements. This study addresses the issue of carbon embodiments in trade using internationally-comparable OECD data sources (Input-Output, Bilateral Goods Trade and CO2 emissions) for 41 countries/regions by 17 industries. Simulation results under base case scenarios for the mid-1990s and the early 2000s suggest that “trade deficits” of CO2 emissions are observed in 21 OECD countries in the early 2000s and that for 16 countries, the magnitude of the trade deficit increased in the late 1990s. While a third (860 Mt CO2) of the global increase in production-based emissions took place within the non-OECD economies in the late 1990s, more than half of the consumption-based emission (1550 Mt CO2) is still attributable to OECD consumption. The sensitivity simulations imply that an increase in global trade intensity has an increasing impact on embodied emissions while technology transfers from carbon-intensive countries to high carbon-intensive countries reduce global emissions and carbon trade gaps.
This paper examines the characteristics of downturns and subsequent recoveries following past banking crises in OECD countries as well as evidence of any effects on potential output growth. It is differentiated from previous analyses because it makes use of OECD measures of the output gap and potential output. Downturns following banking crises are found to be more protracted with larger output losses and disproportionate falls in housing and business investment. The recovery is typically more muted with exports providing a disproportionately large positive contribution. Evidence regarding possible effects on potential growth of a banking crisis is mixed. The banking crisis in Japan was followed by a deterioration in potential growth partly due to a worsening in productivity performance which may be related to the protracted nature of the banking problems and the resulting misallocation of capital. Following the Nordic banking crises, which were resolved more quickly, there was no deterioration in productivity performance, although there was a temporary deterioration in potential growth which is mostly explained by an increase in the structural unemployment rate, which in turn may reflect the interaction of an exceptionally severe downturn with structural labour market rigidities.
This working paper offers an overview of the LTC workforce and reviews country responses to a growing demand for LTC workers. In the context of ageing societies, the importance of long-term care is growing in all OECD countries. In 2005, long-term care expenditure accounted for slightly over 1% of GDP across OECD countries (OECD Health Data 2008), but this is projected to reach between 2% and 4% of GDP by 2050 (Oliveira Martins et al., 2006). Spending on long-term care as a share of GDP rises with the share of the population that is over 80 years old, which is expected to triple from 4 per cent to 11-12 per cent between 2005 and 2050. In addition to ageing, there are other factors likely to affect future spending. Trends in severe disability among elderly populations across 12 OECD countries for which data are available do not show a consistent sign of decline (Lafortune and Balestat, 2007), while the number of elderly that need assistance in carrying out activities of daily living is also growing. Meanwhile, societal changes – notably possible reductions in the importance of informal care due to rising labour market participation by women and declining family size, as well as growing expectations for more responsive, quality health and social-care systems – are creating pressures to improve value for money in long-term care systems. These factors add pressures on the workforce of this highly labour-intensive sector. Adding to this are the difficulties in attracting and retaining caregivers to a physically and mentally gruelling profession.
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