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The relationship between agricultural support policies (adapted from the OECD Producer Support Estimate (PSE) classification) and a selection of environmental impacts are analysed in a range of country settings, using a farm-level and a market-level model. Based on the methods and environmental indicators used, market price support and payments based on unconstrained variable input use were the most environmentally harmful among the various PSE measures. Decoupled support payments based on non-current crop area were the least harmful, even when considering their impacts on the behaviour of risk averse farmers. The impacts of support policies that clearly change the competitiveness of one production activity in relation to another, such as payments based on current crop area or on animal numbers, were more equivocal. Support payments subject to environmental constraints can improve environmental outcomes compared to coupled support without restrictions, however, they can also have unintended environmental impacts.

This report provides an overview of methodologies to evaluate the effectiveness of policy instruments for biodiversity, covering impact evaluation, cost-effectiveness analysis and other more commonly used approaches. It then provides an inventory of biodiversity-relevant impact evaluation studies, across both terrestrial and marine ecosystems. The report concludes with lessons learned, policy insights and suggestions for further work.

Antimicrobial drugs are used in food animal production for several purposes: to treat a disease outbreak, to prevent disease, and to enhance feed efficiency and animal growth. While the technical benefits of antimicrobial use in animal production are well documented, there is a major lack of information on the economic impact on farmers’ incomes. This report reviews evidence on the economic benefits and costs of antimicrobials for the major animal producing species across several OECD countries as well as in Brazil and China. The findings indicate that the economic benefits are modest in modern farming systems where good production facilities, biosecurity measures, and management practices are in place. In large food animal producing countries such as Brazil, the use of antimicrobials is an important input to enhance the competitiveness of the industry. In China, the largest producer and user of antibiotics in animal production, antibiotics are often used as a substitute for less sanitary animal production facilities and the lack of appropriate biosecurity on the farm. This report concludes with several key policy options and practices, in particular those that induce farmers to place a greater emphasis on the economic benefits and costs of antimicrobials and alternative interventions in production in order to stem the rise in antimicrobial resistance.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of congestion pricing on the demand for clean transport modes. To this end, it draws on an empirical analysis of the effect of Milan’s congestion charge on the use of bike sharing. The analysis indicates that congestion pricing increases daily bike-sharing use by at least 5% in the short term. Extending the schedule of the congestion charge in the early evening increases bike-sharing use in the affected time window by 12%. The impact of the policy on bike-sharing use mainly occurs through the reduction of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling safer and more pleasant. The findings of the study indicate that policies aiming to reduce car use also have positive repercussions on the uptake of green mobility options. Relying solely on direct incentives for cycling, which often involve infrastructure projects, is likely insufficient to remove barriers to bike use.

Policy makers in many countries are giving more attention to ‘financial literacy’ or ‘financial capability’, and there are many financial education programmes. The need to evaluate the effectiveness of these programmes is likely to increase. But little evaluation is currently taking place, and the evaluations made so far show mixed and inconclusive results. It is not clear whether this is a consequence of poor evaluation methods or poor programme design, or, that financial education works patchily. But it does mean that a positive impact from financial education has not been unambiguously proven; nor has a clear picture emerged of what works best and why. Evaluation of financial education is inherently difficult, and the impact of any one programme can probably never be fully isolated. Nevertheless, this paper suggests that evaluating the effectiveness of financial education can and should be improved. It begins to develop an approach to do so, including a Financial Education Evaluation (FEE) Framework which can be tailored for any programme in any country. This paper also suggests guidelines for governments and other public authorities to lead the way towards better evaluation of the benefits, costs and value for money of financial education.

The principal purpose of this article is to analyse the trade-off between the (un)certainty in contributions on the one hand and benefits on the other that is embedded in different pension arrangements. The article employs the funding ratio (ratio of assets to liabilities) and the replacement rate (ratio of benefits to salaries) as key criteria for evaluating the risk sharing characteristics of a private pension plan from the perspective of the plan member. The stochastic simulations performed show that hybrid plans (those in between traditional DB and individual DC) appear to be more efficient and sustainable forms of risk sharing than either of the other two. Of the three main hybrid plans analysed, conditional indexation plans appear to have the greatest potential as sustainable forms of risk sharing.

In an effort to ensure accountability, and in order to prepare students for a globalised world, the higher education sector in Mexico is seeking to implement an evaluation of public higher education. Higher education institutions (HEIs) need to balance this goal against the need to protect their autonomy. This would be preserved if each institution were to operate an efficient evaluation system which is designed and executed, at least in part, by the institution itself. The process must be effective and transparent, allowing a clear communication flow to be built up with the general public as well as with the educational authorities. HEIs must, therefore, rethink an earlier conception which presupposes that maintaining the quality and good functioning of education is a purely internal affair. Implementing evaluation systems at national level is relatively new, so it is still experiencing some problems in relation to co-ordination as well as resistance from evaluees.

Fiscal equalisation refers to the transfer of financial resources to and between subnational governments with the aim of mitigating regional differences in fiscal capacity and expenditure needs. However, the determination of fiscal capacity and expenditure needs is not a straightforward task. OECD countries use widely varying mechanism design approaches in their equalisation systems. This paper compares national approaches, covering the three modes of fiscal equalisation: pure revenue equalisation, revenue/cost equalisation and gap-filling equalisation, describing the distinct impacts of each approach on subnational revenue disparities. A clear inverse relationship emerges between the size of the cost-equalising component within a system and the percentage change in subnational per capita revenue disparities after equalising transfers are applied, although no significant relationship emerges between equalisation and regional convergence.

This report measures and evaluates total factor productivity (TFP) of crop farms in the European Union (EU) in the period after the implementation of a series of important reforms of the EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The analysis covers six EU Member states: the Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hungary, Poland and the United Kingdom. The data used in the analysis are based on the Farm Accountancy Data Network (FADN) data provided by the European Commission. To investigate sources of productivity growth, TFP is decomposed into three components – technical change, scale effect and technical efficiency. Technical change was found to be major source of productivity growth for most country samples for the two analysed periods. Technologies currently applied on crop farms were estimated to exhibit substantial economies of scale and therefore favour large-scale operations. However, economies of scale are not fully exploited which suggests the presence of some institutional constraints on farm growth. Large farms appear to be in a better position to exploit economies of scale; for West European countries covered in the report they were also found to exhibit larger persistent technical inefficiencies. Farm support payments were found to negatively influence crop farm productivity and efficiency of input use. More decoupled payments appear to be less distorting than other forms of support. A meta-level analysis of allocative efficiency shows that farms tend to be overcapitalised but to show relatively low allocative inefficiencies in their variable input use decisions. Substantial allocative inefficiencies appear also to exist in land and labour use. No significant economies of scope were found for the analysed crop production systems and levels of output aggregation. Farm flexibility was revealed to be determined mainly by the scale and convexity effects enabling cost efficient adjustments in the size of farm operations.

Earlier OECD research has shown that capital flow management measures (CFMs) that are used as macro-prudential measures (MPMs), including currency-based restrictions applied to banks’ operations also with non-residents, have the intended negative impact on capital account openness as measured by covered interest parity indicators. But what is their impact as macro-prudential tools to improve resilience to financial stability risks?
This paper refers to the Bruno and Shin (2013) study that suggests that currency-based restrictions act as an effective macro-prudential buffer by reducing the sensitivity in emerging economies of cross-border bank lending to global credit cycles as measured by the volatility index VIX. The specific restrictions considered by the Bruno and Shin study are defined as CFMs and MPMs by both the IMF and the OECD. The paper shows that this result is mitigated when using updated data and testing the same hypotheses for more countries. Therefore further research is needed before concluding on the effectiveness of CFMs used as MPMs. On the other hand, the paper does find that CFMs, including currency-based measures, play a role in managing the domestic credit implications of those central banks engaged in foreign exchange interventions.
The paper suggests that countries concerned with financial stability risks that may arise from global credit push factors, while wishing to avoid price distortions caused by CFMs, could use Basel III-consistent liquidity coverage ratios and net stable funding ratios as alternatives to CFMs; they also have the advantage of not having raised objections between governments so far regarding international commitments to exchange rate flexibility and cross-border openness, including the OECD Code of Liberalisation of Capital Movements.

Since 1990, research and teaching activities of academic staff in Spanish universities have been periodically assessed. There are national, regional and institutional assessments. Each evaluation is organized in a different way and the organisation itself reflects the importance given to each activity. In most cases, positive assessment are linked to a salary increase and other perk benefits. In this article, we analyse the evaluation system of teaching and research activities and how they could be, in fact, orienting to promote research activities and, as a consequence, to devaluate teaching activities.