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This paper reviews the accuracy of the OECD Economic Outlook projections — both “current year” and “year ahead” — for output growth, inflation and current account balances (as a percentage of GDP) for the major seven countries, as well as projections for world trade growth. The sample period differs somewhat between the variables, depending on data availability, but it runs until 1998 in all cases. Several evaluation criteria were used to assess the accuracy of the OECD Economic Outlook projections. These include an inspection of projection error summary statistics; comparisons with “naive” alternative forecasts; statistical tests for unbiasedness and efficiency; and testing for directional accuracy. In addition, the paper provides an examination of the performance of OECD Economic Outlook projections over different time periods. The findings suggest that, on the basis of the conventional statistical criteria, the current year projections outperform the year ahead projections ...

In the beginning of the 1990s, Dutch government and representatives of employers’ organisations have urged the higher professional education sector (HBO) to restructure the supply of the programmes in the sub-sectors of HBO. The sub-sectors were challenged to cut back the number of study programmes to increase the efficiency of the supply. A theoretical framework based on resource dependence and network analysis is proposed to explain why different sub-sectors have reacted differently to the pressure to reduce the pressure. An empirical analysis is carried out for foursub-sectors: agriculture, economics, engineering and the socialcultural sector. The hypotheses could only partly be confirmed, but the simultaneous effect of government dependence, labour market dependence and sub-sector heterogeneity can be shown. Given the restricted number of cases, suggestions for further research are formulated. At the same time, it is implied to complement the chosen quantitative macro-approach with micro-analyses (case studies) on the emergence and disappearance of study programmes.

French

This paper maps the evolving data localisation landscape. It shows that the number of data localisation measures is on the rise and that the measures themselves are becoming more restrictive. The paper highlights the need to better understand and monitor the evolving regulatory environment with a view to enabling empirical analysis of the economic and societal implications of data localisation. This is an issue which is particularly important in the context of ongoing discussions on data localisation, be they in preferential trade agreements (PTAs) or in the context of the WTO Joint Statement Initiative on e-commerce.

Government debt has many characteristics and thus cannot be fully captured by one indicator. There are several different ways of defining government debt, and each definition can lead to different interpretations of a government’s financial situation. As a result, international comparisons of government debt statistics must be conducted with care. This working paper will summarise some of the major differences in defining and measuring government debt and, based on available data, will demonstrate the impact of these differences when comparing the level of government debt as a percentage of GDP across various OECD countries. This paper will also look at the challenges in incorporating government-sponsored pension schemes in government debt statistics and the implications for making international comparisons of government debt. It will then attempt to compare government debt statistics by adjusting for some of these challenges. It will also present a complementary approach for analysing and comparing government debt, using projections of old age dependency and economic growth in order to provide additional context. The key findings of this paper are that: (i) international comparisons of government debt should exclude pension liabilities until more data are available from more countries; (ii) comparisons of government debt should be conducted separately for implicit and explicit liabilities as well as for funded and unfunded pension liabilities; (iii) further cooperation is required between the national accounts, actuary and public sector / business accounting communities to enable methodological consistency in the estimation of pension liabilities; and (iv) comparisons of government debt should not rely on one indicator but instead utilise a wide array of statistics in order to provide a more relevant and complete picture of government finances both within and across countries.

A new and novel approach to controlling regulatory costs is the concept of the regulatory budget. This concept would require that governments account for regulatory expenditures in a similar way to fiscal expenditures. This article argues that there are analogies between fiscal and regulatory budgets as they both divert resources from the private sector, albeit by different policy instruments. Given that budgeting is universally used to manage fiscal resources, the article outlines the pros and cons of developing regulatory budgets to manage regulatory resources. JEL classification: H300, H610.

A well-functioning public expenditure management system is considered a critical pillar of government efficiency. This article discusses PEM systems in developing countries using an analytical framework based on principal-agent theory. This simple model can be applied to various PEM systems and allows for comparisons between institutional settings. To illustrate this, the authors analyse the benefits derived from the use by the ministry of finance of ex post audits and ex ante controls, and assess their value in terms of their ability to deter cheating. The authors derive a set of possible “control regimes” which can be used by the ministry of finance.

This paper proposes a new set of public health and long-term care expenditure projections until 2060, seven years after a first set of projections was published by the OECD. It disentangles health from longterm care expenditure, as well as the demographic from the non-demographic drivers, and refines the previous methodology, in particular by extending the country coverage. Regarding health care, nondemographic drivers are identified, with an attempt to better understand the residual expenditure growth by determining which share can be explained by the evolution of health prices and technology effects. Concerning LTC, an estimation of the determinants of the number of dependants (people needing help in their daily life activities) is provided. A cost-containment and a cost-pressure scenario are provided, together with sensitivity analysis. On average across OECD countries, total health and long-term care expenditure is projected to increase by 3.3 and 7.7 percentage points of GDP between 2010 and 2060 in the cost-containment and the cost-pressure scenarios respectively. For the BRIICS over the same period, it is projected to increase by 2.8 and 7.3 percentage points of GDP in the cost-containment and the costpressure scenarios respectively.
The creation of new businesses and the decline of unproductive ones are often regarded key to business dynamism in OECD economies. Understanding business behaviour, creative destruction and identifying successful and failing businesses, as well as fostering entrepreneurship and innovation, have become increasingly important objectives for policy makers in many OECD economies in recent years. However, despite its growing importance, the study of business dynamics, and entrepreneurship more generally, is hampered by the lack of truly internationally comparable indicators. That is not for a lack of data however, as many statistical institutions and private agencies produce statistics in this domain, but because they lack comparability, are of questionable quality, or are not able to tackle all of the policy questions related to these issues, they can often generate confusion, giving mixed messages to policy makers. The framework of business demography indicators presented in this paper is an attempt to fill this gap by providing a mechanism by which more comparable indicators of business demography can be produced across OECD countries in particular, considering both what is practically achievable and

New restrictions on short-selling sovereign debt need to be supported by concrete evidence that links systematically unrestricted short-selling activities to fraud, abuse or market manipulation. OECD debt managers noted that there is plenty of empirical evidence on the benefits of short selling, including more liquidity, pricing efficiency and better allocated risk. However, solid evidence in the form of empirical data on market instability unambiguously caused by unrestricted short-selling activities (to be counted as ‘costs’) seems to be lacking. Debt managers also noted that the reporting requirements will be costly from a purely administrative point of view. A ban on uncovered short selling transactions of sovereign debt would make risk management more difficult and expensive, with detrimental effects on market efficiency, liquidity and funding costs for sovereigns. Moreover, it is unlikely that such bans would have a stabilising effect in government securities markets during a crisis. Rather than containing the crisis, a ban on short selling of government debt is likely to worsen the situation. The paper concludes that OECD debt managers have a range of tested tools at their disposal for dealing with temporary or chronic dysfunctional measures in sovereign debt markets, ranging from ‘quantity measures’, such as openings, to ‘pricing measures’ such as dynamic fails charges. JEL Classification: E44, G01, G21, G28, E61, H21. Keywords: financial regulation, short-selling, restrictions on short-selling, debt management, risk management, sovereign debt.

To what extent can public deficits increase without putting fiscal sustainability at risk, given the specific current macroeconomic situation of protracted low growth and low interest rates, combined with relatively high government debt levels? The answer depends on many factors, such as the state of the economy, the fiscal track record and projections of population ageing and their effect on government spending.
This paper makes use of three different approaches to better assess fiscal space, which can be defined in a broad manner as the extent to which public debt can increase. These approaches converge to a conclusion that there is fiscal space in most of the large advanced economies. There is also evidence that fiscal space may have risen in most OECD countries since 2014, mainly driven by the decrease in interest rates. Reforms to health and pension programmes would help to create additional fiscal space.

A key issue for OECD countries is to understand how to strengthen the position of the destination, how to be more effective in supporting a stronger, more inclusive and sustainable tourism growth and how to further improve its competitiveness in the global tourism market. This report examines the changing global trends and inter-linked policy challenges, then reviews the policy framework supporting tourism growth and presents various policy perspectives, detailing how they inter-connect and support tourism growth. The report explores ways for closer policy integration between tourism and related policy areas and suggests new policy approaches to more effectively support tourism growth. The report was considered as approved by the OECD Tourism Committee as of 13 January 2015.
French

This paper provides a review of the literature relating to empirical studies of the acreage and/or production response to the direct payments made to US farmers of wheat, feed grains, cotton and rice under the Federal Agriculture Improvement and Reform Act of 1996 and related payments made under additional legislation during the period 1999-2002.

Societal progress is about improvements in the well-being of people and households. Assessing such progress requires looking at the diverse and multidimensional experiences and living conditions of people. Measuring well-being and progress is a key priority that the OECD is pursuing through its Better Life Initiative and the How’s Life report series that has been published bi-annually since 2011. In addition, the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) have created a strong need for better data on multi-dimensional outcomes. However, no statistical framework exists linking conceptual frameworks of well-being with specific measurement instruments and outputs, and a lack of harmonised data suitable for international comparisons remains a key limitation to monitoring progress across countries. This review makes a first step towards developing a system of well-being statistics. A data source that has been underutilised in assessing the multidimensionality of human well-being and the joint distribution of outcomes are General Social Surveys, which are run by the majority of national statistical agencies as part of their regular survey programme. Using the OECD well-being framework, this review systematically considers the outcome domains of How’s Life?, taking stock of how each domain is being measured through General Social Surveys conducted in OECD countries and could be drawn upon in comparative analyses of well-being such as How’s Life?. The paper highlights inconsistencies between General Social Surveys across countries, and makes recommendations towards harmonization.

This report collects five case studies of regional economic development models that have been considered of interest to Wales and similar regions. For each of the five strategies the aim has been to analyse rationale and conceptual framework, policy pillars, delivery mechanisms and potential transferability to Wales. The case studies have been prepared following a qualitative approach that has consisted of desk reviews of existing policy documents and interviews with regional policymakers and other relevant local development stakeholders.
This Review of Local Economic and Employment Development Policy Approaches in OECD Countries has been carried out by the OECD LEED Programme in collaboration with the Welsh Assembly Government (WAG). The aim of the review is to identify successful and/or innovative policy initiatives that could be relevant to Wales and regional economic development models that could inspire Wales's future strategy-making. Given the large volume of material already available on Welsh economic challenges and policies, the focus was not on "looking in" but on "looking out" at initiatives that could inspire Wales from other OECD regions, based on existing understanding of the challenges. The two main objectives of the review have therefore been: a) identify and analyse innovative and/or successful single policy tools that could potentially be applied in Wales; b) identify and analyse some broader regional economic strategies and their delivery arrangements that could inspire the overall economic development approach of Wales.
This section introduces the first of the three 'learning tools' (i.e. policy audits, transferability papers, regional case studies) envisaged by the 'OECD-WAG Review of Local Economic and Employment Development Approaches in OECD Countries' and covers four areas: the nature of the policy audits; the selection process; an overview of the lessons learned; some general conclusions.
This paper is written in the context of a coalition government in the Welsh Assembly which is committed to full employment (defined as an employment rate of 80%) based on quality jobs. At the outset it should be noted that not all activities relevant to the subject matter of this report have been devolved to the Welsh Assembly. Though the Assembly has powers relating to education and training it does not have responsibility for employment issues. It should also be emphasised that the Welsh Assembly has introduced many new policies and strategies and has recently integrated bodies such as Education and Learning Wales (ELWa) and the Welsh Development Agency into Government Departments. This report considers the transferability of ten policy audits focusing on specific policy interventions in different OECD countries in the fields of labour market participation, skills development and economic and physical regeneration. First, it considers the main policy challenges for Wales in relation to the labour market. It then examines evidence of policy gaps in the current approach of the Welsh Assembly Government. This leads on to an assessment of the policy options that might be considered in relation to the challenges facing Wales. The next section attempts to consider the potential role of the reviewed initiatives in filling these gaps. A final section draws conclusions and makes some policy recommendations.
The aim of this paper is twofold. First, to begin a policy and regulatory evaluation of developments in telecommunication market openness following the liberalisation in 1998 in the context of the WTO agreement and the liberalisation in the European Union. Second, it is aimed at stimulating reflection on the issues that may need to be examined to enhance market liberalisation and market openness. Although a full assessment of recent market opening may be too premature, there are nevertheless indications of areas where further consideration and action may be required. In addition market developments are raising a number of issues which are likely to become relevant in the event that there are further discussions on market opening in the context of any future WTO service negotiations. As a paper aimed at beginning discussion and reflection, a number of questions are raised which could be used by delegations to provide their own assessment of issues and future problem areas which need consideration.
This paper evaluates the different approaches to quantifying the trade impact of standards in the agri-food sector. The approaches discussed fall into two broad categories: ex post empirical estimation and ex ante simulation. Recent developments on the impact of standards on market segmentation are also examined. Since both the level and design of a standard are important determinants of its impact, the most suitable choice of quantification strategy will depends on the characteristics of the standard itself. For example, ex ante simulation techniques are more appropriate when measuring the impact of complex standards regimes. On the other hand, ex post empirical estimation is preferable when the level of the standard is more important than its design.
This report provides a brief review of how national government policies and guidelines apply to or regulate the use of environmental labelling and information schemes (ELIS) in selected OECD countries. The report reviews definitions relevant to environmental claims and identifies four types of potentially false or misleading environmental claims. The report also reviews countries’ different approaches to guidance and regulations relating to such claims, as well as approaches to monitoring and enforcement of compliance with rules and guidance. Examples of court action relating to the use of consumer protection laws for environmental claims in several countries are described. Based on the reports available, it is not possible to assess to what extent the enforcement processes have been effective in improving the overall quality of environmental claims. The report also notes the extensive similarities in how different national guidelines categorise misleading environmental claims, perhaps beacuase many of the guidelines are derived in part from the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) 14020 series of internationally-agreed standards. Moreover the report acknowledges that several attempts have been made towards harmonisation across countries concerning environmental criteria, mainly concerning eco-labelling schemes and organic agriculture standards. There appear to be strong incentives for this type of cross-country certification, including reduced administrative costs and a potential for increased trade of environmentally-certified goods. This makes further harmonisation of criteria for self-reported environmental claims a real possibility. The ongoing pursuit of harmonisation regionally, or bilaterally, might be a first step forward in such a process.
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