Browse by: "2011"

This policy review of vocational education and training in the Ostim Organised Industrial Zone, Turkey was prepared within the framework of the OECD LEED project, "Leveraging Training and Skills Development in SMEs". The findings and recommendations of the report brings new perspectives to SME-training related policies in Turkey.

In 2007 the Portuguese government launched a major school modernisation programme, and has taken steps to ensure the long-term sustainability of facilities. Projects now anticipate use by the broader community, allow for possible income-generating opportunities during the design phase and include custom-designed energy management systems.

This paper presents the conclusions of a study, carried out in collaboration with schools in six European countries, which focused on tomorrow’s physical learning environments. It resulted in the creation of a learning space model that is flexible, modifiable and sustainable while supporting the teaching and learning processes.

Qu’il s’agisse de fuir des conflits, de concrétiser des espoirs d’une vie meilleure ou encore de profiter de possibilités sociales et économiques plus nombreuses, les hommes ont toujours traversé les frontières depuis que celles-ci existent. Au cours des prochaines décennies, la modernisation des moyens de transport et de communication, la mondialisation des marchés de l’emploi et le vieillissement des populations des pays de l’OCDE constitueront autant de facteurs déclencheurs de migrations. Le maintien de la cohésion sociale face à ces movements migratoires passera par l’intégration des immigrés et de leurs familles dans le pays d’adoption. À cet égard, l’éducation constitue un puissant moteur d’assimilation...

The Yakutia Republic is currently working to update its early childhood development (ECD) system. Its goal is to ensure a high quality environment for early learning and child care and to enable higher enrolment levels.

What is the impact of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in Flemish secondary schools? A study, commissioned by AGIOn (the Flemish agency that subsidises school buildings), investigated the impact of educational spaces on their users and set out to identify empirical evidence supporting the importance of school infrastructure on the well-being of students in secondary schools.

This report presents analysis on the cases of Podlaskie and Pomorskie in Poland in the context of a transition to the green economy. This study seeks to examine the current situation in these two regions in terms of labour market, economic development, and skills provision, with a specific focus on the green economy.

The report analyses the impacts of climate change (including its effects on policy and regulations) on the local labour markets in Podlaskie and Pomorskie and provides policy recommendations on how make the best use of the assets in place to boost green economic activities while creating greener jobs.

The report examines the role that the public sector and other key labour market institutions play in facilitating the transition to a green economy. Although it is certain that the impact of this transition on jobs, on the workforce and on businesses will vary from region to region, it is also certain that those regions investing in the right skills and removing barriers to green entrepreneurship and growth will gain from this new context.

The imputation of the labour income of the self-employed typically relies upon the assumption that individuals of this group earn the same average hourly compensation as employees, either at the total economy or industry level. While this assumption is convenient in that it relies upon readily available information on the composition of the labour force and on the compensation of employees, it nevertheless remains somewhat simplistic and thus questionable in its validity. This shortcoming is addressed here by investigating a more refined method to impute the labour income of the self-employed in the United States. Imputations are based on the assumption that the labour income of the self-employed equals the average earnings of employees of the same sex and within the same age group, working in the same industry and having the same level of education. The proposed estimation of the labour income of the self-employed is followed by an analysis of how adjusted total labour income might impact the value of the labour share of output. Results for the United States show that applying this alternative methodology leads to a 2.5 percentage point rise in labour shares of output at the total economy level, led by larger increases of this indicator in sectors such as agriculture and hunting as well as professional, business and other service industries. The time profile in recent years, i.e. 2003-2009, of the labour share of output remains nevertheless unchanged when applying the proposed adjustment methodology.

Bioenergy with Carbon Capture and Storage (BECCS) is a carbon reduction technology that offers permanent net removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. This has been termed 'negative carbon dioxide emissions', and offers a significant advantage over other mitigation alternatives, which only decrease the amount of emissions to the atmosphere. The benefits inherent within this technology are currently receiving increased attention from policy makers. To facilitate the development of appropriate policy incentives, this paper reviews the treatment of 'negative carbon dioxide emissions' under current and planned international carbon accounting frameworks. It finds that, while current frameworks provide limited guidance, proposed and revised guidelines could provide an environmentally sound reporting framework for BECCS. However, the paper also notes that, as they currently stand, new guidelines do not tackle a critical issue that has implications for all biomass energy systems, namely the overall carbon footprint of biomass production and use. It recommends that, to the best extent possible, all carbon impacts of BECCS are fully reflected in carbon reporting and accounting systems under the UNFCCC and Kyoto Protocol.

There is growing international interest in the planning, financing and implementation of adaptation to climate change. However, the discussion to date has primarily focused on the public sector’s role, with the private sector viewed primarily as a source of funding or financing. Relatively little attention has been paid to how the private sector is responding to the risks and opportunities from climate change. In this context, this analysis aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of private sector’s role.

This paper examines the private sector’s progress in adapting to climate change by considering information from sixteen case studies, drawn from a range of industries across the private sector. This is complemented by a high-level analysis of broader private sector adaptation based on responses to the 2009 Carbon Disclosure Project questionnaire. The case studies provide insight into companies’ awareness of potential climate risks and vulnerabilities, their progress in assessing specific impacts on their businesses and possible ways to respond to them, and their implementation of adaptation measures and strategies to manage these risks. The analysis also examines how companies are taking advantage of new business opportunities arising from climate change.

The paper explores companies’ motivations for implementing adaptation measures, and establishes common factors which can affect companies’ capacities to adapt, their incentives for action, and their perspectives on the need to adapt. The analysis considers how these factors can both encourage and impede adaptation, and assesses potential public sector roles for eliminating barriers to action, encouraging engagement and incentivising private sector investment in adaptation.

This report presents the analysis and key findings of the project on Climate Change, Employment and Local Development in Sydney, Australia, carried out by the OECD Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme.

Sydney and its main organisations are undergoing an important transformation in terms of the approach to human capital development, growth and job creation, and integrating the sustainability component into the greater metropolitan Sydney strategy and actions. Sydney is leading a wave of transformation in the country and has some state-of-the-art initiatives that are examples to other OECD regions. However, a challenge remains with respect to the governance of the system and the adjustment of programmes to the new needs of a low-carbon economy.

This report analyses the challenges and opportunities of Sydney in this context, and provides some policy recommendations on how the public authorities and other key agencies could best support the emergence of a green economy - making the best use of the skills available while creating wealth and growth.

Increasing international migration and changing immigrant populations in OECD countries make international comparable data on migrant populations essential. These data should be updated regularly to capture a detailed picture of migrant populations. This document presents the first results of the update of the Database on Immigrants in OECD Countries (DIOC) for the years 2005/06. It describes immigrant and emigrant populations by socio-demographic characteristics and labour market outcomes in the OECD, as well as updated “brain drain” figures.

In 2005/06, 10.8% of the population in the OECD was foreign-born, representing 91 million persons. Latin American and African migrant populations increased by more than 30% between 2000 and 2005/06, slightly more than that of Asian migrants (27%). Labour market outcomes of immigrants vary by region and country of origin, but they improved significantly since 2000. In many OECD countries, low-educated foreign-born fare better on the labour market than their native-born counterparts, but high-educated migrants tend to have lower employment rates and higher unemployment rates than their native-born counterparts...

Le but de cette Table Ronde est d'évaluer les effets économiques des grands projets d'infrastructures de transport. On parle de grands projets pour désigner les bonds qualitatifs, qu'il s'agisse de négocier le tracé d'anneaux autoroutiers ou ferroviaires venant recouper la dispersion des voies de pénétration radiale, ou d'introduire des innovations plus ciblées, qu'elles visent la fréquence, la vitesse ou l'automatisation…

The purpose of this Round Table is to assess the economic effects of major transport infrastructure projects. The term "major projects" is used to designate qualitative leaps, be it the mapping out of new road or rail rings to link disparate radial penetration routes or the introduction of more-targeted innovations tackling frequency, speed or automation…

National governments and development agencies have invested considerable effort in recent years to develop methodologies and tools to screen their projects for the risks posed by climate change. However, these tools have largely been developed by the climate change community and their application within actual project settings remains quite limited. An alternate and complementary approach would be to examine the feasibility of incorporating consideration of climate change impacts and adaptation within existing modalities for project design, approval, and implementation. Environmental Impact Assessments (EIA) are particularly relevant in this context.

Cost benefit analysis has been used in the United Kingdom for the appraisal of road schemes over the past fifty years. It was less widely used for rail, where most investment was concerned with renewing the existing network. The Central London Rail Study (1988) used cost benefit analysis to address the problem of overcrowding on London.s rail network. The Crossrail scheme proposed in the Study was discontinued because of a recession and because of the priority given the developing links to London.s Docklands. Progress on Crossrail was resumed in 2002 at the same time as the Department.s appraisal methods were being revised to incorporate Wider Economic Benefits. The quantification of these additional benefits, the resolution of a source of funding and the role of the Mayor all influenced the Government.s decision that the scheme should be built. Identification of some of the Wider Benefits poses problems for transport models that are only partially resolved through the use of land use transport interaction models. Although the use of a Gross Value Added metric provides an alternative way of estimating the economic impacts of a scheme, it does not replace cost benefit analysis as a decision aid for government ministers.

This report explains why digital identity management is fundamental for the further development of the Internet economy. It also provides guidance for digital identity strategies that support innovation across the public and private sectors while enhancing security, privacy and trust online.

The search for balanced, sustainable growth clearly involves the unwinding of large and persistent global imbalances. Much of the attention in the rebalancing debate has centred on how shifts in monetary and fiscal policies affect current account imbalances. This paper goes beyond macroeconomic management considerations and exchange rate realignments to assess how one type of structural policy reform – namely trade and trade-related policy reforms – may facilitate global rebalancing. In addition, the paper analyses how might various rebalancing scenarios, even if they do not explicitly include major trade policy reforms, impact global trade. Our analysis suggests that a co-ordinated response involving macroeconomic, exchange rate and structural reforms, including trade policy reforms, are needed to address imbalances in the global economy. Trade is a part of the solution since trade policy distortions reduce the benefits from trade and, through their effects on relative prices, jointly influence economic incentives on both the trade balance and net national savings sides of the national savings-investment identity. In particular, since some imbalances stem from the asymmetric pattern of remaining protectionism in goods and services sectors, a balanced approach to trade policy reform could facilitate the global adjustment process.

Time distance is an innovative approach for looking at time-series data. Expressed in time units, the approach is easy to understand and provides a useful complement to existing methods. The time distance approach compares time series in the horizontal dimension, i.e. for a given level of the variable, based on two generic statistical measures: S-time-distance and S-time-step. These measures are based on a time matrix that summarises information over many units and years and that provides a first-level visualization tool. The paper also introduces the concept of the ‘overall degree of disparity’, defined as proximity in the indicator space as well as in time, arguing that this concept has the potential to bring new understanding in economics, management, research and statistics.