Browse by: "2012"

Canada
Judicial review of Darlington new nuclear power plant project
Appeal decision upholding criminal convictions related to attempt to export nuclear-related dual-use items to Iran: Her Majesty the Queen v. Yadegari

European Commission
Greenland cases

France
Chernobyl accident – decision of dismissal of the Court of Appeal of Paris

Slovak Republic
Aarhus Convention compliance update

United States
Judgement of a US court of appeals upholding the NRC’s dismissal of challenges to the renewal of the operating licence for Oyster Creek Nuclear Generating Station

Bulgaria
General legislation 

Czech Republic
General legislation

France 
General legislation 
Regulatory infrastructure and activity

Germany 
General legislation 

India 
Liability and compensation 
Organisation and structure

Ireland 
Radiation protection 
General legislation 

Korea (Republic of) 
Organisation and structure 

Lithuania 
Regulatory infrastructure and activity 
Radioactive waste management 
Radiation protection 
International co-operation 
Nuclear safety 

Poland 
General legislation

Romania
Environmental protection

Russian Federation
Radioactive waste management

Slovenia
Nuclear safety

Spain
Liability and compensation
Nuclear security

Sweden
Nuclear safety

Turkey
Radiation protection
Regulatory infrastructure and activity
Nuclear safety
Liability and compensation

United States
General legislation

European Union 
Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 establishing a Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste 

India 
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act 
Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Rules 

Republic of Korea 
Act on Establishment and Operation of Nuclear Safety Commission

Russian Federation
Federal Law on the Management of Radioactive Wastes and amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation

European Atomic Energy Community 
Adopted legislative instruments 
Reports 
Meetings 

International Atomic Energy Agency 
IAEA Action Plan on Nuclear Safety 
Non-binding instrument on the transboundary movement of scrap metal
55th IAEA General Conference
Basic Safety Standards
Nuclear Law Institute

OECD Nuclear Energy Agency
Basic Safety Standards
International Nuclear Law Essentials
International School of Nuclear Law
New members
Russian Federation request for membership

Innovation is critical to creating new sources of growth. Trade is one of the framework conditions that can strengthen innovation in the business sector, as set out in the OECD Innovation Strategy in 2010. This paper broadly sets out three channels through which trade affects innovation. First, imports and foreign direct investment (FDI) as well as trade in technology serve as channels of technology diffusion. Second, imports, FDI and technology licensing contribute to intensifying competition, which can affect incentives for innovation. Third, exports can affect innovation as it serves as a learning opportunity and gives incentives for innovative activities...

Due to its clean burning properties, low investment costs and flexibility in production, natural gas is often put forward as the ideal partner fuel for wind power and other renewable sources of electricity generation with strongly variable output. This working paper examines three vital questions associated with this premise: 1) Is natural gas indeed the best partner fuel for wind power? 2) If so, to what extent will an increasing market share of wind power in European electricity generation affect demand for natural gas in the power sector? and 3) Considering the existing European natural gas markets, is natural gas capable of fulfilling this role of partner for renewable sources of electricity?

The transition to a green economy will not necessarily mean job losses, but there are some barriers that need to be overcome in order to ensure a successful transition. The need to align local and national strategies towards green growth, build strong partnerships, identify transferable skills, better target up-skilling programmes, support green entrepreneurship, and leverage the role of public authorities in supporting green growth activities are some of the recommendations emanating from a report just released by the LEED Programme, on Enabling Local Green Growth: Addressing Climate Change Effects on Employment and Local Development. The recommendations are illustrated by good practice models identified from across the globe.

Countries differ widely with respect to the level of labour income inequality among individuals of working age. Labour income inequality is shaped by differences in wage rates, hours worked and inactivity rates. Individual labour income inequality is the main driver of household market income inequality, with family formation as well as self-employment and capital income dispersion playing a smaller role. Household disposable income dispersion is lower in all OECD countries than household market income inequality, due to the redistributive effect of tax and transfer systems, but redistribution differs widely across countries. This paper maps income inequality for all OECD countries across various inequality dimensions and summarises them in inequality outcome diamonds. It also provides a cluster analysis that identifies groups of countries that share similar inequality patterns.

The global economic and financial crisis exacerbated the need for fiscal consolidation in many OECD countries. Drawing lessons from past episodes of fiscal consolidation, this paper investigates the economic environments, political settings and policy measures conducive to fiscal consolidation and debt stabilisation using probit, duration, truncated regression and bivariate Heckman selection methods. The empirical analysis builds on the earlier literature and extends it to include new aspects that may be of importance for consolidating governments. The empirical analysis confirms previous findings that the presence of fiscal rules – expenditure or budget balance rules – is associated with a greater probability of stabilising debt. Crucial in determining the causal link behind the association, the results also reveal an independent role for such rules over and above the impact of preferences for fiscal prudence. Also, while the analysis confirms that spending-driven adjustments vis-à-vis revenue-driven ones are more likely to stabilise debt, it also reveals that large consolidations need multiple instruments for consolidation to succeed. Sub-national governments, in particular state-level governments can contribute to the success of central government consolidation, if they co-operate. To ensure that state-level governments do co-operate, having the right regulatory framework with the extension of fiscal rules to sub-central government levels is important.

The economic and financial crisis was the catalyst for a fiscal crisis that engulfs many OECD countries. In most countries, budget deficits soared as a result of the economic slump, weaker revenues and the policy response to the crisis. Consolidating the public finances is an important challenge for many countries. Estimates of fiscal gaps suggest that substantial and sustained fiscal tightening will be needed in nearly all countries to bring debt down to prudent levels. However, given a weak global economy, implementing a large fiscal tightening could be particularly costly. Structuring consolidation packages to use instruments with low multipliers initially and enhancing the institutional framework for fiscal policy to lend greater credibility to the commitment to consolidate over time may help minimise the trade-offs with growth in the short run. In most countries there is scope to target spending programmes more effectively and eliminate distortions in taxation and re-orientate taxation to minimise distortions. Such measures, buttressed by structural reforms, such as to unsustainable pension systems, can underpin fiscal sustainability, while minimising the costs to long-run growth.

OECD countries face daunting fiscal challenges following the substantial surge in debt-GDP ratios during the past four years, from already high levels in many cases. Fiscal consolidation is now the order of the day, and it takes on greater urgency against the backdrop of imminent budgetary pressures from population ageing. While strong growth would help, the bulk of consolidation will require specific structural reforms to spending and revenue programmes to stabilise and then reduce debt-GDP ratios. On the spending side, many reform options offer budgetary savings through improved efficiency, without loss of desired outcomes or adverse equity impacts. Areas examined in this paper include health care, education, infrastructure, general public services, and transfer programmes. On the revenue side, countries’ tax systems are perforated by tax expenditures that cause inefficiencies, reduce revenue, and undermine fairness. Reducing the scope and scale of tax expenditures remains one of the most promising means of boosting revenues while improving economic performance. Shifting taxation toward less inefficient tax bases also holds much promise, including raising the importance of both property taxation and environmental levies. Even without quantifying all possible measures, the cumulative cuts in spending and increases in taxation could yield 6% of GDP on average across countries in consolidation, with somewhat more on the spending side.

During the economic and financial crisis, fiscal positions across the OECD countries deteriorated sharply. This raises the question of what level of primary deficit would ensure long-term sustainability and what degree of consolidation is needed. The purpose of this paper is to gauge the scale of fiscal consolidation that will be needed to ensure long-term sustainability. The analysis uses so-called fiscal gaps to provide a simple metric for how much consolidation is needed under a series of different assumptions and scenarios. The aim is to highlight the scale of the problems, how they differ across countries and the uncertainties surrounding the estimates. A first set of results suggest that lower debt targets provide greater room for manoeuvre to react to shocks in the future. A second set of results shows that growth-enhancing structural reforms �| especially reforms of pension systems �| can mitigate budget pressures resulting from ageing populations and hence contribute to fiscal consolidation. Furthermore, raising efficiency in the provision of health care and education can reduce budgetary pressures. Finally, achieving debt objectives under shocks to interest rates or to government spending would require additional tightening in most of the OECD countries.

This paper explores the role of macroeconomic factors and structural policies in shaping the distribution of labour income. Technological change and globalisation play at least some role in driving inequality patterns, but structural policy can also have an important influence on inequality outcomes, in particular through education and labour market policies. Drawing on empirical analysis of the links between structural policies and the distribution of labour income, the paper looks at potential policy trade-offs and complementarities with respect to the two policy objectives of lowering income inequality and raising economic growth. It concludes that many policies yield a double dividend in the sense that they contribute to achieving both goals simultaneously. This relates in particular to policies that facilitate the accumulation of human capital, that make educational achievement less dependent on personal and social circumstances, that reduce labour market dualism and that promote the labour market integration of immigrants and women.

The smart grid is revolutionizing electricity production and consumption. However, strategic use of ICTs and the Internet in energy innovation requires clarifying the roles of partners coming from distinct industries. And it begs for greater coordination of government departments and stakeholder communities that so far had unrelated competencies. This report outlines opportunities, challenges and public policy implications from shifts to ICT-enabled, "smart" electricity grids.

Taxes and transfers reduce inequality in disposable income relative to market income. The effect varies, however, across OECD countries. The redistributive impact of taxes and transfers depends on the size, mix and the progressivity of each component. Some countries with a relatively small tax and welfare system (e.g. Australia) achieve the same redistributive impact as countries characterised by much higher taxes and transfers (e.g. Germany) because they rely more on income taxes, which are more progressive than other taxes, and on means-tested cash transfers. This paper provides an assessment of the redistributive effect of the main taxes and cash transfers based on a set of policy indicators and a literature review. It also identifies empirically four groups of countries with tax and transfer systems that share broadly similar features. The paper then assesses potential trade-offs and complementarities between economic growth and income redistribution objectives associated with various tax and transfer reform options.

The rationale for an individual company making an investment that will reduce energy consumption varies considerably and depends on a range of factors. This report delves into the major factors or driving forces that decision makers within a large industrial company take into account when deciding to make new investments - the so-called "boardroom perspective". It explores the factors that influence companies to invest in energy savings and proposes a methodology to evaluate the effectiveness of a country's energy efficiency and greenhouse gas mitigation policies mix from this boardroom perspective

This paper looks at how the income distribution in countries changes when the value of publicly-provided services to households is included. We consider five major categories of public services: education, health care, social housing, childcare and elderly care. On average across OECD countries, spending on these “in-kind” benefits accounts for about 13% of GDP, slightly more than the spending on cash transfers – but with considerable cross-country variation. Broadening the income concept to account for in-kind benefits considerably increases households’ economic resources: in a typical OECD country, the average annual household income would be close to USD 28 000, rather than USD 22 000 in purchasing power parities. But public services also contribute to reducing income inequality, by between one-fifth and one-third depending on the inequality measure. Mexico and, according to most inequality measures, the United States, Portugal, Ireland, and the United Kingdom record higher reduction rates, while Slovenia records lower ones. Across all countries, redistributive effects are stronger among specific population groups at higher risk of poverty. Between 2000 and 2007, the redistributive impact of public services remained stable overall. However, the impact became stronger in countries where the share of services in household income increased significantly, while it weakened in those countries where this share decreased. The paper suggests that publicly provided services fulfil an important direct redistributive role in OECD countries.