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Hungarian family policy focuses on providing generous options to take time off work to look after children. This system not only contributes to Hungary’s low employment rate but encourages long separation from the labour market, has largely failed to significantly influence fertility rates and is relatively expensive to run. This paper looks at how to shift the policy focus towards reconciling work and family life. Reasons for under-provision in childcare by local governments are discussed and recommendations for further central-government intervention to improve supply are made. Recommendations for reform are also made regarding the complex system of family cash benefits and leave allowances.

There is growing recognition throughout the OECD of the need to link economic development and employment policies at the level of the individual city if the twin objectives of raising competitiveness and reducing worklessness are to be met. The challenge is particularly clear in the UK, where the employment rate of the working age population in the major cities has lagged consistently behind the relatively strong performance of the nation as a whole (HM Treasury, 2007). The Government has recognised that raising the UK employment rate towards its ambitious 80%national target will  require special  efforts to tackle unemployment and economic inactivity in the cities (Department of Work and Pensions, 2006). This is an important departure from the traditional  emphasis on national  labour market policies and standardised welfare to work programmes that pay little regard to geographical variations in socio-economic conditions.

One of the issues arising is the appropriate balance between measures to stimulate labour demand and create  jobs, on the one hand, and measures to strengthen  labour  supply by improving people’s skills, employability and motivation, on  the  other.  There is also an issue about how to connect employment opportunities to people in need of work but who face multiple disadvantages and barriers to employment, such as poor transport access and lack of childcare. Another issue relates to the amount of decentralisation and local control of the policy levers that government should encourage, and what form this should take.  

The purpose of this paper is to address these important questions by  focusing on the labour market context and policy situation in Glasgow.

Fiscal equalisation is a transfer of fiscal resources across jurisdictions with the aim of offsetting differences in revenue raising capacity or public service cost. Its principal objective is to allow sub-central governments to provide their citizens with similar sets of public services at a similar tax burden. Fiscal equalisation can be seen as the natural companion to fiscal decentralisation as it aims at correcting potential imbalances resulting from sub-central autonomy. If sub-central governments had no fiscal power, no fiscal equalisation would be needed. Distinct fiscal equalisation arrangements first emerged during the 1940s and 1950s in a number of federal countries, and today most OECD Member countries have introduced some explicit or implicit fiscal arrangement that reduces fiscal disparities across jurisdictions. The significance of fiscal equalisation is highlighted not only by its extensive use in both federal and unitary countries, but also by the fact that its objectives and principles are often laid down in the constitution and hence form a central pillar of national fiscal policy.

This paper is the first of four country case studies which is a part of a broader research programme addressing trade and structural adjustment issues in non-member economies which was conducted as a follow-up to Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation (OECD, 2005) which identified policies for successful trade-related structural adjustment. This paper studies the trade liberalisation experience of Chile from 1973 onward. The report consists of 5 main parts; Part 1 provides the introduction, part 2 looks at the trade liberalisation in Chile which was implemented in three phases, (1) initial trade reforms (1973-84), (2) trade reform after a temporary policy reversal(1985-89) and (3) after 1990. Part 3 looks at the evolution and structure of exports and imports, and Part 4 looks at sectoral developments in the copper industry, agrofood industry, wood and wooden products industry and the textiles and clothing industry. Part 5 concludes with lessons learnt. The experience of Chile shows that trade reform has been essential for realigning the incentive structures in Chile. A stable macroeconomic environment, trade reform starting with the elimination of quantitative restrictions, introduction of flat tariffs, coherent exchange rate policy, sound institutional framework, rule of law, mild promotion of exports, use of foreign capital, and relatively flexible labour market policies have been important factors in Chili's successful trade liberalisation experience.

This paper is the second of four country case studies which is a part of a broader research programme addressing trade and structural adjustment issues in non-member economies which was conducted as a follow-up to Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation (OECD, 2005) which identified policies for successful trade-related structural adjustment. This paper studies the trade liberalisation experience of the Philippines from the 1980s. The report consists of 7 main parts; Part 1 provides the introduction, part 2 looks at the economic policies in the Philippines from the 1970s, and part 3 takes a general look at the general structure of the economy. Part 4 takes a closer look at the trade liberalisation in the Philippines which was implemented in three phases, (1) initial trade reforms (1981-88), (2) second phase (1991-93) and (3) third phase (1994-96). Part 5 takes an overview of the structural adjustments which took place in manufacturing and agriculture, with Part 6 taking a closer look at four sectors, electronics, food processing, cement, and business process outsourcing sectors. Part 7 concludes with lessons learnt and opportunities and challenges for further liberalisation. Despite considerable liberalisation including in trade policy since the 1980s, the Philippines economy posted only lacklustre performance initially. After a growth period in the 1990s and the Asian crisis, it is only in the recent past that some of the reforms are starting to pay off. The importance of a stable political and macroecnomic environment, need for appropriate exchange rates, need for early elimination of quantitative restrictions in trade reform, early deregulation on FDI are some of the lessons learnt. While challenges remain, better results are expected in the future if complemented with further reforms.

This paper analyses the effect of fiscal decentralisation on health outcomes in China using a panel data set with nationwide county-level data. We find that counties in more fiscally decentralised provinces have lower infant mortality rates than counties where the provincial government remains the main spending authority, if certain conditions are met. Spending responsibilities at the local level need to be matched with county governments’ own fiscal capacity. For county governments that have only limited revenues, the ability to spend on local public goods such as health care depends crucially upon intergovernmental transfers. The findings of this paper, therefore, support the common assertion that fiscal decentralisation can lead to more efficient production of local public goods, while also highlighting the conditions required for this result to be obtained.

It is a truism that future prices of energy for transportation will be determined by the forces of supply and demand. For transport fuels, these forces have entered a crucial phase that is likely to persist for several decades. Oil production from conventional resources outside of the OPEC countries will peak within a few years. Unconventional fossil resources that can be exploited at current prices, resources whose early development is already well underway, pose an even greater threat to the global climate. To bring these resources to the market at a rate to match the growth in demand for mobility fuels in the developed and developing economies will require massive, risky investments. Serious risks are posed by the environmental acceptability of these fuels and also by the fact that a sudden downturn in world oil prices would turn them into stranded assets. It is also a truism that no one can accurately predict the price of oil. Today, oil costs $70 per barrel. Ten years ago, it cost less than $20 per barrel. Twenty seven years ago oil prices peaked at $90 per barrel. Thirty-seven years ago oil cost only $10 per barrel and its price had been relatively stable for almost fifty years. Those who carefully craft future oil price scenarios know that they are not predicting but rather attempting to define alternative paths of central tendency. Even the best official oil price projections look nothing like the past thirty-five years of history. It is important to understand why this is so. Since 1972, world oil prices have been strongly and unpredictably influenced by the actions of the OPEC cartel. It is very likely that they will be for the next thirty years, as well.

America’s higher education system is among the best in the world. Nevertheless, there is scope for improvement. In particular, there appear to be substantial financial barriers to higher education despite large government expenditures aimed at promoting access. Policy makers have proposed addressing these barriers by increasing student grants. However, grants are costly, inefficient, inequitable and ineffective. Income tax concessions and state government subsidies suffer from similar problems. In contrast, international best practice seems to be converging on student loans with repayments that vary according to income. Income-contingent loans facilitate access to college at low fiscal cost and without the inefficiency and inequities that accompany grants, subsidies or tax concessions. At the same time, they do not discourage risk-averse or uninformed students in the way that conventional loans do. The United States has an income-contingent loan programme that should be expanded. While the design of repayments could be improved, the main problem with this programme is that lending limits are too low. Higher limits, especially for unsubsidised direct loans, would benefit students and promote access at little cost to the government. Were a good system of loans in place, then less cost-effective means of promoting access, such as grants and tax concessions, should be cut back.

This study evaluated the precipitating and debilitating factors that occurred in the emergence and growth of the private university system in Nigeria. Three research questions guided the analysis and examined enrolment patterns in seven pre-2003 private universities, students’ preferences for enrolment and the factors that encouraged and discouraged their emergence and growth in Nigeria. Data was gathered from published documents, research reports, government releases, memos, newspapers and the Internet and then analysed qualitatively, using tables and simple percentage computations. The study found that the private university system, having suffered an initial setback in the 1980s, has renewed success today because of the obvious failure of the public university system to adequately address multiple problems such as access, quality, funding, strikes, cultism, stability of the academic calendar –- which the private system has been able to overcome more effectively. However, it was noted that the private system is prohibitively expensive for the majority of qualified but indigent prospective applicants. The study recommends, in addition to special scholarship programmes, the design of a special student aid programme, accompanied by a traceable and institutionalised repayment system based on models found in certain developed countries.

by Gboyega Ilusanya and S.A. Oyebade

OECD countries invest significant resources in evaluating agricultural pesticides before they are marketed (or re-evaluating pesticides that have been in use for many years) to ensure that they do not pose unacceptable risks to human health and the environment. Since many pesticides used in OECD countries are the same, governments have recognised the substantial benefits that can be gained if the task of pesticide evaluations for registration and re-registration is shared, rather than duplicating each others' work. The OECD Pesticides Programme is working to establish the infrastructure that will facilitate such work sharing. The recent adoption of an OECD-wide future "vision", with specific deadlines for work sharing, should lead to additional (and more routine) work sharing arrangements between governments and industry.
This document provides responses to questions that are frequently asked by governments and industry about the concept of work sharing, and how it would operate in practice. Many of the questions were raised at an OECD seminar on work sharing, held on 31 May, 2006, at the Pesticide Control Service in Ireland. The answers were prepared by a panel of OECD government representatives at that seminar.

China helps growth and debt sustainability in Africa through debt relief, infrastructure investment and higher exports. China and other emerging lenders should engage in a debt transparency initiative that considers such growth effects. This will encourage emerging lenders to co-operate with the ‘international community’ on Africa’s debt sustainability.

Among economists and policy makers more general, the fuel efficiency standard for cars and the fuel tax have been the subject of extensive debate. The major benefits of stricter fuel efficiency standards and higher fuel taxes are the reduction of Greenhouse gas emissions and the reduced oil dependence. The major costs are the increased production cost, the reduced comfort and the negative impact on mileage related externalities (congestion, accidents) due to the rebound effect. In this contribution we use a wider framework than Harrington (2008), Plotkin (2008) and Raux (2008) to discuss the CO2 1 emission reduction in transport. In section 2 we analyze, for the EU, the effects on welfare and CO2 emissions of pricing all transport activities according to their full social costs. In section 3, we go beyond the transport sector and compare the options to reduce emissions in the transport sector with the possibilities and costs to reduce emissions in other sectors of the economy. In section 4 we take a world view and analyze the impact of two types of international climate negotiations on the emission reduction strategy in the transport sector.

This paper is the fourth of four country case studies which is a part of a broader research programme addressing trade and structural adjustment issues in non-member economies which was conducted as a follow-up to Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation (OECD, 2005) which identified policies for successful trade-related structural adjustment. This paper studies the trade liberalisation experience of Thailand from the 1970s. The report consists of 6 main sections; Section 1 provides the introduction, while section 2 provides an overview of Thailand's growth experiences. Section 3 takes a closer look at the trade liberalisation and investment policies in Thailand: Thailand's initial trade regime and three phases of trade liberalisation: (1) initial tariff reforms (1982-84), (2) comprehensive tariff reform and its reversal with the Asian financial crisis (1993-), and (3) post crisis reforms (1999-) are studied. Section 4 looks at the changes in the investment and trade structure, while section 5 takes a closer look at structural adjustment in three sectors, the automotive and auto-parts sector, textile and clothing, and the telecom services sector. Section 6 concludes with lessons learnt. Thailand's experience confirms that a sound macroeconomic environment, sustainable public finances, a relatively stable political and economic environment, flexible labour markets and reliable infrastructure are crucial for economic growth. It provides an example of gradual trade liberalisation, and demonstrates the benefits of openness to international trade and foreign investment in correcting distortions in the economy.

This paper is the second of four country case studies which is a part of a broader research programme addressing trade and structural adjustment issues in non-member economies which was conducted as a follow-up to Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation (OECD, 2005) which identified policies for successful trade-related structural adjustment. This paper studies the trade liberalisation experience of Ecuador from the 1970s onwards. The report consists of 5 main sections; Section 1 provides the introduction, while section 2 provides an overview of Ecuador?s economic reforms from the 1970s onwards until the 2000s. Section 3 looks at the structural changes in the economy and trade dynamics behind the changes. Section 4 takes a closer look at structural adjustment in four sectors, the cut-flowers, processed tuna, cereals, and textiles and clothing. Section 5 concludes with lessons learnt. Ecuador provides a case of a country whose trade liberalisation and other structural reforms have led to mixed results. While trade liberalisation has improved resource allocations, macroeconomic instability, incomplete reforms, weak institutions and relatively restrictive (but also highly informal) labour markets have made it difficult for Ecuador to reap the full benefits of trade liberalisation.

This paper, together with five other background studies, is a part of a broader research programme addressing trade and structural adjustment issues in non-member economies which was conducted as a follow-up to Trade and Structural Adjustment: Embracing Globalisation (OECD, 2005) which identified policies for successful trade-related structural adjustment. This paper revisits and elaborates on specific parts of these policy recommendations with a view to reassessing their applicability to developing countries. The five background studies; a comparison study comparing East Asia and Latin America and four country case studies (Chile, Ecuador, the Philippines and Thailand), which were conducted as a part of this project, form the basis for the analysis, supplemented by existing literature. The report consists of 4 main sections; The first section provides an introduction and the second section provides an overview of the liberalisation experiences of the four countries. In the third section, some of the ?recommendations in OECD (2005) are revisited with a greater focus on developing countries, covering such issues as i) trade and investment policies, ii) macroeconomic policy, iii) social safety nets and labour market policies, iv) policies to facilitate export response, v) institutional frameworks and regulatory and competition environment, vi) role of multilateral cooperation and regional and bilateral initiatives, and vii) broad based approach to reforms. The fourth section concludes.

This paper examines varies areas of India´s fiscal policy, in particular fiscal discipline, the structure of government spending, the tax system and fiscal federalism. It describes reforms over the past decades which, as part of the overall economic reform agenda, helped lifting the Indian economy to a higher growth path. It also discusses where further reforms are desirable to further reduce economic distortions and improve the provision of public services. It finds that after high fiscal deficits have often been recorded during the past two decades, after the adoption of the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act in 2003, fiscal discipline has significantly improved. As to government spending, it argues that, given the large share which is used to subsidise commercial undertakings, agriculture and food distribution, there is much room to improve the quality of spending and to target it better to improving infrastructure and reducing poverty. It describes the tax system which has undergone major reforms since the early 1990s. Nonetheless, there are still many exemptions and loopholes which suggest that a broadening of the tax bases would allow further reductions in tax rates and make the system simpler, fairer and more efficient. The paper also suggests that reforms of indirect taxes should focus on creating a common market within India so that goods can move between states without border controls. Finally, on fiscal federalism it finds that India's federal structure has led to a well-developed system of tax-sharing and transfers, both through constitutionally empowered bodies and delivered through the annual budget. While overall, India´s fiscal federalism has worked well moving resources towards the poorest states, it has become very complex and there are still some features which weaken fiscal discipline of the states. Furthermore, a major drawback is the lack of an effective local government system, most notably in rural areas and strengthening the local level would be important for improving accountability and responsiveness to citizens’ needs as three-quarters of the population live in states with over 50 million inhabitants.

This paper provides a description of the risk-sharing features of pension plan design in selected OECD and non-OECD countries and how they correspond with the funding rules applied to pension funds. In addition to leading to a better understanding of differences in funding rules across countries with developed pension fund systems, the study considers the trend towards risk-based regulation. While the document does not enter the debate over the application of risk-based quantitative funding requirements to pension funds (as under Basel II or Solvency II), it identifies the risk factors that should be evaluated and considered in a comprehensive risk-based regulatory approach, whether prescriptive or principles-based. The three main risk factors identified are the nature of risks and the guarantees offered under different plans designs, the extent to which benefits are conditional and can be adjusted, and the extent to which contributions may be raised to cover any funding gap. In addition, the strength of the guarantee or covenant from the sponsoring employer(s) and of insolvency guarantee arrangements should be carefully assessed when designing funding requirements.