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La transparence administrative revêt de plus en plus d‘importance comme une question politique, sans que cela soit réellement nouveau. De longue date ; le Conseil de l'Europe et l'OCDE lui ont prêté attention. En même temps, au cours des dix dernières années, un nombre impressionnant de mesures législatives et de réformes administratives a été mis en place dans les États membres de l‘UE. Cette « accélération » récente a plusieurs origines. La transparence administrative a été reconnue par les juridictions, les constitutions et les traités comme étant un droit fondamental de l'individu. Elle a également été présentée en tant qu'une des libertés instrumentales principales, essentielle pour le développement économique et social et pour assurer la promotion de l'investissement international. De manière plus cruciale, la promotion du « droit de savoir » du peuple est de plus en plus perçue comme étant une composante essentielle d'une société démocratique.
Standard textbook analyses of road pricing tend to assume that users are homogenous, that there is no travel time risk, and to have a view of congestion as static. The simple analysis also ignores that real pricing schemes are only rough approximations to ideal systems and that the general economic context may also have implications for optimal pricing. This paper reviews these issues and discusses how taking them into account may affect estimates of optimal tolls.
This report organizes and discusses empirical estimates of the effects of fuel prices and fuel emission standards on consumer and firm behaviour. I touch only briefly on model-free estimates. The focus is on results based on explicit models, taken mostly from the industrial organization literature. First, I review studies that identify the willingness to pay for fuel efficiency using static and dynamic models of vehicle demand. Next, I take explicitly into account that firms will adjust their product portfolios and the characteristics of the vehicles they offer. These decisions will have an impact on the choice set from which consumer demand is estimated and on the trade-off that consumers face between fuel efficiency and other desirable characteristics. Finally, I discuss models where firms choose to invest in innovations to achieve fuel efficiency gains without sacrificing characteristics.
La pratique de l’analyse coût bénéfice (ACB) est de longue tradition en France puisqu’elle remonte à Dupuit (1849) mais elle reste toujours un sujet d’actualité. Cette pratique en effet résulte de la rencontre de la théorie économique et des processus de décisions concernant les choix de projet. Or ces deux volets changent constamment : les avancées et progrès de la théorie permettent des perfectionnements constants des méthodes et outils techniques utilisés, et d’autre part des modifications dans les processus de décisions et dans les organisations institutionnelles transforment les besoins d’évaluations. Ces modifications permanentes connaissent dans certains pays des temps forts de mutation rapide, et c’est actuellement le cas de la…
The paper draws from already published material. In fact, a reader already familiar with the congestion charging literature will find few completely new findings or insights. The contribution of the paper is rather the selection of the most relevant, interesting, important and sometimes surprising facts, insights, findings, advice and conclusions for policymakers, out of a vast literature on congestion charging in general and Stockholm in particular.
The Millennium Declaration set 2015 as the target date for halving the number of people living in extreme poverty. Exceptional progress in some developing countries makes achieving that goal globally a realistic possibility. However, many countries will fall far short, and up to 1 billion people are likely to remain destitute by the target date. Why are some countries doing better than others? This paper seeks to answer this question by looking for shared characteristics of twenty-five developing countries posting extraordinary success in reducing extreme poverty over the past twenty to twenty-five years. These countries were compared using indicators of their macro-economic characteristics and, especially, their agricultural economic characteristics. The countries chosen for analysis constitute a highly diverse mix. The group includes some of the poorest and some of the richest developing countries in the world, representing virtually all geographic regions. The countries also differ greatly in their systems of governance and economic management. Yet, they are surprisingly similar in their achievements, not only in reducing poverty, but across the broad range of macroeconomic and agricultural economic performance measures used to compare them. Findings from time-series, cross-section regression analysis reveal that while economic growth generally was an important contributor to poverty reduction, the sector mix of growth mattered substantially, with growth in agricultural incomes being especially important.
Singapore is an island-state with a land area of about 710 square km, measuring 42 km across and 23 km from north to south. Densely populated with more than 4.8 million people, its transport needs are served by an infrastructure of 147 km of MRT/LRT lines and 3,300 km of roads catering to more than 900,000 vehicles. Given its land constraints, Singapore’s overall transportation strategy cannot rely on building roads and more roads to serve its populace’s travel needs. It needs a comprehensive and affordable public transport system and sustainable demand management tools.
Le nombre de marchés publics inférieurs aux seuils fixés par l'Union européenne ne cesse d’augmenter au point de représenter une part considérable de l'ensemble des marchés publics passés dans tous les États membres de l’UE. Il est de ce fait primordial d'encadrer et d'organiser l'adjudication de ces marchés de manière saine et efficace, en élaborant des politiques et des règles dédiées au niveau national.
This study revisits some of the key project participants and archive data, to provide a deeper understanding of what were the major cost drivers and whether it can be lower in future installations. The approach taken is to emphasise understanding of the particular circumstances rather than comparing aggregates with other seemingly similar systems. A main conclusion is that the political context, with a tight time plan and very high political risks for all involved, were key factors for the eventual costs of establishing the system.
Le présent rapport expose des données et une réflexion sur les évolutions récentes des marchés mondiaux des transports, et analyse les politiques qui semblent les plus prometteuses pour stabiliser les émissions de CO2 des véhicules légers. Au lendemain de la crise économique, la reprise encore incertaine n’est pas uniformément répartie sur l’ensemble de la planète. Cette conjoncture peut avoir des répercussions sur les structures des échanges et les flux de produits au niveau mondial, et donc sur les principaux flux de transport de marchandises. Il y a fort lieu de penser, d’après notre analyse, que la maîtrise des émissions futures de gaz à effet de serre dues aux transports passera par le recours aux technologies permettant de réduire…
Passenger vehicles are a major source of greenhouse gas emissions and prodigious consumers of petroleum, making their fuel economy an important focus of energy policy. Whether or not the market for fuel economy functions efficiently has important implications for both the type and intensity of energy and environmental policies for motor vehicles. There are undoubtedly imperfections in the market for fuel economy but their consequences are difficult to quantify. The evidence from econometric studies, mostly from the US, is reviewed and shown to vary widely, providing evidence for both significant under- and over-valuation and everything in between. Market research is scarce, but indicates that the rational economic model, in general, does not appear to be used by consumers when comparing the fuel economy of new vehicles. Some recent studies have stressed the role of uncertainty and risk or loss aversion in consumers’ decision making. Uncertainty plus loss aversion appears to be a reasonable theoretical model of consumers’ evaluation of fuel economy, with profound implications for manufacturers’ technology and design decisions. The theory implies that markets will substantially undervalue fuel economy relative to its expected present value. It also has potentially important implications for welfare analysis of alternative policy instruments.
Road user charging is used as an 'umbrella' term to describe a wide range of applications of pricing roads and infrastructure. Road user charging includes a number of charging measures that governments and other road owners use to: i) finance new or maintain existing road infrastructure ii) manage traffic (e.g. reduce congestion) iii) minimise environmental impacts of transport iv) internalise the external costs of road transport caused, e.g., by pollution and noise emissions. Historically, the common approach to charging for road use is some form of general taxation rather than differentiated road user charging. Road user charging has long been proposed as an efficient and equitable method to pay for road use and to fund road infrastructure projects. However, there is an important distinction between charging for revenue generation purposes as opposed to pricing roads to provide congestion relief. The two basic objectives, revenue generation and congestion management, differ in several ways, as shown in the following table.
Power generation from fossil fuel is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions, representing 41% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Combined with the fact that there are a number of low-carbon technologies available for generating electricity, the sector is therefore a key policy target for delivering near-term and long-term reductions in emissions. This report identifies the importance of these risk factors in the economics of transition by illustrating the case of investment in the power sector. To a great extent, the transition to a lowcarbon power sector means dealing with coal plants, which is the largest contributor, accounting for 73% of global power sector CO2 emissions, and particularly those from the United States, Europe and China, which contribute 17%, 9% and 24% respectively of global power sector CO2 emissions.
There is an increasing concern in the development community about the increase in the ‘feminisation of bad jobs’ of many developing countries. Indeed, recent analysis shows a growing proportion of women are in jobs with poor working conditions and low pay. But what is driving this phenomenon? This paper addresses this issue by looking at the role of social institutions, i.e. traditions, social norms and informal laws, in shaping labour market outcomes. By applying the newly established Social Institutions and Gender Index (SIGI) of the OECD on 44 developing countries, the paper finds that social institutions influence to a great extent activity patterns and job quality for women. Our results suggest that addressing discriminating social institutions is crucial for advancing gender equality.
Global allocation of capital and fluctuations in asset prices are increasingly influenced by the activities of Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs). The Santiago Principles called for higher transparency, stressing that SWFs should exhibit clearer governance standards and sound portfolio management principles. Although asset allocation strategies for these funds are not known, SWFs are suspected to follow other factors besides risk-return objectives. This paper attempts to shed light on some of these concerns. The fear that sovereigns with political motivations use their financial power to secure large stakes in Western companies is shown to be unfounded. We find that SWF investment decisions do not differ greatly from those of other wealth managers. We propose to use mutual funds’ investments as a benchmark for SWF investment allocations. We collect data of SWF and mutual fund equity investment at the firm level and analyse these investments on a geographical and sector basis. Moreover, we compare target investments for these two groups by looking at the political regime in the sending and recipient country, under the hypothesis that this variable is not determinant for SWF investments. Finally, we provide a comparison of SWFs and other public funds based on governance features related to investment. We argue that double standards for regulation should be avoided and efforts to achieve higher transparency should be made by all investing actors.
ITER is a research project the purpose of which is to demonstrate the scientific and technical feasibility of fusion as a new source of energy. After construction of large Tokamaks,1 such as the JT60 in Japan, TFTR (Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor) in the United States, JET (Joint European Torus) in the United Kingdom and Tore Supra in France, this project is the last stage of research to be conducted before construction of an industrial
Nuclear safety is and remains an absolute priority for the European Union (EU). As of November 2009, there are 145 nuclear power plants operating in 15 member states of the EU (hereinafter referred to as “member states”). The importance of nuclear safety increases with a view to the growing number of member states which have expressed a renewed interest in nuclear energy.
The centre-right Italian Government, headed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi,1 has taken the first steps to pave the way for the resurgence of nuclear energy in Italy, the most serious attempt since the 1987 moratorium on nuclear power production. At the moment, Italy faces the legal, economic, technical and societal challenges of launching a new nuclear programme, and all players involved are aware of the fact that redefining the nuclear legal framework will be a crucial part to this endeavour.
Recent discussions have identified gaps in the existing nuclear liability regimes in a more focused fashion. The so-called nuclear renaissance or nuclear new build1 cannot be limited to the mere multiplication of nuclear power plants. It must take place together with the creation and strengthening of legal frameworks for nuclear safety and radiation protection, security and safeguards. As the Nuclear Energy Agency of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD/NEA) highlights in its Nuclear Energy Outlook 2008...
With the discovery of radioactivity and ionizing radiation at the turn of the twentieth century, mankind broke new ground in science and technology. These discoveries, which we now call the “dawn of the nuclear age”,1 paved the way for hundreds of scientists and engineers in their quest to improve our standard of living through progress in science. During the last century, the research they carried out and the tools they designed have provided modern societies with unprecedented progress in a variety of fields, from medicine and agriculture to electricity production and industrial uses.2 Unfortunately, this progress came at a high price to humanity: the making of an atomic bomb.