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Concerns about health expenditure growth and its long-term sustainability have stimulated the development of health expenditure forecasting models in many OECD countries. This comparative analysis reviewed 25 models that were developed by, or used for, policy analysis by OECD member countries and other international organisations...
Climate change affects the mean and variability of weather conditions and the frequency of extreme events, which to a great extent determines the variability of production and yields. This paper reviews the scientific literature on the impacts of climate change on yield variance and investigates their implications for the demand of crop insurance and effectiveness of different farm strategies and policy measures using crop farm data in Australia, Canada and Spain. A microeconomic farm level model is calibrated to different types of farms and used to simulate the responses and impacts of four policy measures: ex post disaster payments and three types of crop insurance (individual yields, area-based yield and weather index). The strong uncertainties about climate change are captured in a set of seven scenarios covering different assumptions about the scope of climate change (no change, marginal change, and high occurrence of extreme events), and farmers’ adaptation response (no adaptation, diversification, and structural adaptation). Policy decision making under these uncertainties is analysed using a standard Bayesian probabilistic approach, but also using other criteria that look for robust second best choices (MaxiMin and Satisficing criteria).
This paper examines the analytical underpinnings of the standard micro portfolio approach to public debt management (PDM) that aims at minimising longer-term cash-flow based borrowing costs at an acceptable level of risk. The study concludes that two technical key assumptions need to hold for the standard micro portfolio approach to yield optimal (i.e. cost-minimising) results. We argue that these assumptions do not hold in the current borrowing environment characterized by fiscal dominance with complex links between PDM and monetary policy (MP). By using the principles of portfolio theory we demonstrate that in this borrowing environment, cost-risk optimality requires the use of a broader cost concept than employed in the standard micro portfolio approach. This new concept (referred to as effective borrowing costs) incorporates not only the cash flows of the debt portfolio itself, but also those related to primary borrowing requirements. The resulting broader cost measure includes therefore the interactions with the budget. Finally, the paper demonstrates that the standard cost-risk framework of the micro portfolio approach is nested within this new, broader cost concept.
The paper presents the results of the first application of cyclical analysis to economic activity in Serbia. The analysis refers to the period 2001-07, which marked the start of democratic and economic reforms, since short term fluctuations in economic activity prior to 2001 were the result of various exogenous shocks like hyperinflation, wars and international economic sanctions. In the post-reform period, the Serbian economy exhibits characteristics of a small, open, marketoriented economy. Economic activity shows an upward trend, and with special regard to growth dynamics and their cyclical properties, cyclical analysis is relevant. In analysing cyclical fluctuations in economic activity, a deviation-from-trend approach is applied. For dating turning points in economic activity, the monthly gross domestic product (GDP) is used since the coincident properties of the index of industrial production could not be statistically verified for Serbia as there were a small number of quarterly observations available for GDP.
This working paper was prepared as part of the OECD thematic review Overcoming School Failure: Policies that Work, www.oecd.org/edu/equity. The project provides evidence on the policies that are effective to reduce school failure by improving low attainment and reducing dropout, and proactively supports countries in promoting reform. The project builds on the conceptual framework developed in the OECD’s No More Failures: Ten Steps to Equity in Education (2007). Austria, Canada (Manitoba, Ontario, Québec and Yukon), Czech Republic, France, Greece, Ireland, Netherlands, Spain and Sweden took part in this project. This working paper is part of a series of papers prepared for the thematic review Overcoming School Failure: Policies that Work covering the topics of policies to reduce dropout and in-school practices to reduce school failure. These report have been used as background material for the final comparative report Equity and Quality in Education: Supporting Disadvantaged Schools and Students (OECD, 2012), which gives evidence on the policy levers that can help overcome school failure and reduce inequities in OECD education systems. It focuses on the reasons why investing in overcoming school failure -early and up to upper secondary- pays off, on alternatives to specific system level policies that are currently hindering equity, and on the actions to be taken at school level, in particular in low performing disadvantaged schools.
The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) began to use a band-pass filter, based on the Hodrick-Prescott filter (HPband-pass filter), to calculate the composite leading indicators (CLIs) in December2008. Other than the filter adopted by the OECD, there is an alternative HPband-pass filter. This note examines whether the application of these two alternative HPband-pass filters in the calculations of the OECD’s CLIs lead to negligible differences.
JEL Classification: E32; C22
Keywords: Hodrick-Prescott band-pass filter; Composite leading indicators.© beawolf - Fotolia.com
JEL Classification: E32; C22
Keywords: Hodrick-Prescott band-pass filter; Composite leading indicators.© beawolf - Fotolia.com
Successful deployment of carbon capture and storage (CCS) is critically dependent on comprehensive policy support. While policy plays an important role in the deployment of many low-carbon technologies, it is especially crucial for CCS. This is because, in contrast to renewable energy or applications of energy efficiency, CCS generates no revenue, nor other market benefits, so long as there is no price on CO2 emissions. It is both costly to install and, once in place, has increased operating costs. Effective, well-designed policy support is essential in overcoming these barriers and the subsequent deployment of CCS technology. This guide for policy makers aims to assist those involved in designing national and international policies around CCS. It covers development of CCS from its early stages through to wide-scale deployment of the technology. The focus is both on incentives for conventional fossil-fuel CCS and for bioenergy with CCS (BECCS).
This paper explores how admissions tests are used in different higher education systems around the world. This is a relatively new area of research, despite the fact that admissions processes are a key component of university practices and given the everincreasing globalisation of higher education. This paper shows that aptitude and achievement tests, for example, are used in many developed countries. In some of them, a specific test is nationally instituted and generalised; consequently, the function of the test is well embedded in the education landscape of the country. Elsewhere, tests exist but are administered in an ad hoc fashion with little consistency across the sector. This paper provides an important reference tool for national systems and individual institutions interested in examining their position within the realm of international practice in the utilisation of admissions testing for university selection.
To facilitate individuals to adjust their skills to changes in market demands, Sweden has a relatively generous policy to stimulate formal adult education at the compulsory, upper secondary and tertiary levels. This paper provides an overview of what research has reported to assess if and/or how it may be an efficient use of tax payers’ money. Some institutional factors are also briefly presented to discuss what is likely to be required for such a policy to exist in a particular country.
The Accountability in Decentralised Employment Service Regimes report, prepared by independent expert Hugh Mosely, compares and contrasts four OECD countries with decentralised delivery systems for managing active labour market policy (Canada, Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark). This report contextualises the findings of the OECD LEED "Managing Accountability and Flexibility" study in current academic discussions relating to new performance management and accountability.
Korea, which has had the highest growth rate of greenhouse gas emissions in the OECD area since 1990, adopted an ambitious Green Growth Strategy in 2009. It aims at reducing emissions by 30% by 2020 relative to a “business as usual” scenario, implying a 4% cut from the 2005 level. The Strategy also includes a Five-Year Plan with public spending of 2% of GDP per year to promote green growth. Korea is planning to establish a carbon price through a cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme. Such an approach, combined with a carbon tax in sectors not covered by the scheme, is necessary to reduce emissions in a cost-effective manner and foster innovation in green technology. In addition, each sector should face the same electricity price based on production costs to promote efficient energy use. Given market failures, the government has a role to play in green R&D, particularly for basic research, in fostering green finance and in developing renewable energy resources.
Innovation in technologies that promote mitigation and adaptation will be critical for tackling climate change. It can decrease the costs of policy measures and provide new opportunities for the private sector. However, most discussions of innovation have focused on mitigation, while little attention has been paid to innovation for adaptation. This paper uses agricultural crop biotechnology as a case study of innovative activity. The agricultural sector is considered to be particularly vulnerable to climate change, in addition to facing the pressures of meeting the demands of a rising world population. Innovation in plant breeding to develop crop varieties that are more resilient to climate change impacts is one of several possible adaptation options for agriculture. This paper neither advocates nor discourages the use of biotechnology, but focuses on providing estimates of the level and trends of innovation in this field.
Managing the ageing of fuel cycle facilities (FCFs) means, as for other nuclear installations, ensuring the availability of required safety functions throughout their service life while taking into account the changes that occur with time and use. This technical opinion paper identifies a set of good practices by benchmarking strategies and good practices on coping with physical ageing and obsolescence from the facility design stage until decommissioning. It should be of particular interest to nuclear safety regulators, fuel cycle facilities operators and fuel cycle researchers.
The relationship between ageing and skills is becoming an important policy issue, not least in the context of population ageing. Data from the Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC) will potentially add considerably to the understanding of the relationship between ageing and foundation skills. In particular, the fact that data from the 1994-1998 International Adult Literacy Survey (IALS) and the 2003-2007 Adult Literacy and Lifeskills Survey (ALL) will be linked with PIAAC offers a unique opportunity to examine trends over time at the cohort level for a wide range of countries. Specifically, repeated measures will enable an analysis of whether there is skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan of cohorts and overtime between cohorts. This is especially important because age-skill profiles observed on the basis of a single cross-section are difficult to interpret. With this as a backdrop, this paper has sought to provide an overview of what is known about age-skill profiles and to conduct an analysis that demonstrates how trend data based on repeated cross-sectional observations of direct measures of skill at the cohort level can be used to estimate skill gain and skill loss over the lifespan and over time.
Each year SIGMA produces assessment reports as a contribution to the EC’s annual reports on EU candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as to its programming of technical assistance. These reports assess progress made in public administration reform by our beneficiary countries. The report for Albania analyses and takes stock of progress achieved by this country in 2012, with an aim to also provide inputs into its reform agenda. It focuses on civil service and administrative law, integrity, public expenditure management and control, public procurement, and policy making and co-ordination.
This paper examines the issue of financing infrastructure investment projects. It looks closely at what the market failures are that mean the private sector has not been able to cover the investment requirement itself. It will then assess the government failures associated with intervention, and identifies what public-private partnerships (PPPs) offer in overcoming these failures. The limitations of the PPPs are then addressed, and the regulated asset base (RAB) model is introduced as a potential alternative, with an assessment of its advantages and disadvantages...
The Spanish economy experienced significantly weaker labour productivity growth than other OECD economies and failed to catch up with the most advanced economies in the period 1996-2007. In recent years labour productivity growth has accelerated, but this recovery is likely to be due to cyclical and temporary factors. The aim of this paper is to identify what factors weigh on weak trend productivity growth. The relatively weak performance largely reflects the low growth of total factor productivity within a wide range of sectors, with very limited impact of composition effects, while the capital stock and educational attainment of the workforce have grown relatively strongly. The paper investigates the role of some institutions in deterring innovation, competition and the growth of successful firms. It argues that Spain needs to have a more flexible labour market and collective bargaining system to improve productivity performance. Productivity performance would also benefit from a more flexible business environment in such a way that both entry and exit of firms in the economy are less costly, including a reform of bankruptcy legislation, steps to make civil judicial procedures more efficient and a greater reduction of barriers to entry into the retail trade sector.
Many indicators of business and growth cycles have been constructed by both private and public agencies and are now in use as monitoring devices of economic conditions and for forecasting purposes. As these indicators are largely composite constructs using other economic data, their frequency composition is likely different to that of the variables that they are used as for indicators.