Browse by: "G"

Revamping fiscal relations across levels of government is of paramount importance in supporting fiscal consolidation and public sector effectiveness. This paper analyses a number of problems, including regulations that limit local governments’ ability to innovate and respond to local citizens’ preferences, the inefficient system of intergovernmental grants, the complex structure of local taxes and fiscal rules which are too lenient to secure fiscal discipline. The paper concludes that the grant system should be reformed to promote local governments’ incentives to introduce innovations so as to better respond to needs at lower cost. Barriers to the effective use of sub-national governments’ taxing powers should be removed while efforts should be made to keep the tax system as simple and neutral as possible. Existing fiscal rules and market instruments should be hardened. This would require that the central government state clearly that it will not intervene as a lender of last ...

Enhanced autonomy of sub-national governments has spurred innovative management. Spending assignments across levels of government, however, often overlap and/or are not yet fully understood by most citizens. Sub-national governments’ accountability is further reduced by the heavy reliance on federal transfers, as opposed to own-revenues (taxes and user fees). In addition, the use of federal transfers as collateral for states' borrowing potentially undermines the role of financial markets in disciplining fiscal behaviour. Getting the most out of decentralisation would thus require a national agreement clarifying responsibilities for each level of government. Improving sub-national governments’ incentives in delivering cost-effective public services would further require improving the quality of information on actual spending and outcomes, raising the volume of their own taxes and reforming the grant systems. Decentralisation should also be more consistent with the aim of improving interregional equity in obtaining access to core public services. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Mexico (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/mexico).

In about two decades, Spain was transformed from one of the most centralised countries to one of the most decentralised. Spending functions were devolved rapidly. The regions have exercised their discretionary powers quite extensively and innovative policies have been implemented. But devolution was also accompanied by a hike in public employment and pressures on public spending, reflecting duplication in resources and poor co-ordination across and between government levels. The recent devolution of taxing powers could raise the accountability of the regions and, thus, cost-consciousness, although their effective use has been limited. Securing fiscal discipline would require better information on sub-national governments’ policies and outcomes so as to allow citizens to press for improved performance. The financing system of the regions also needs to be reformed to ensure sustainability in the face of changing demographics, while the fiscal rules need to be upgraded to avoid recourse to off-budget operations. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Spain (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/spain).

This paper discusses policies to improve fiscal relations between levels of government to better meet the needs of citizens, an objective of the government’s “Roadmap for Decentralisation”. Although local government accounts for around half of total government spending, they have little autonomy and fiscal resources vary sharply between regions. The priority should be to enhance the independence of local authorities by establishing a clear division of responsibilities and transferring additional assignments to the local level. The general local governments should also have more influnence on education, while providing more support, through stronger linkages with the local education authorities, with a final aim of merger. The allocation of intergovernmental grants should be more transparent and the regulations attached to them should be relaxed to expand flexibility, while increasing reliance on block grants. Improving the fiscal federalism framework also requires more revenue raising power for local governments while simplifying the structure of local taxes. Greater accountability and rules are needed to ensure sound fiscal management by local governments. This Working Paper relates to the 2005 OECD Economic Survey of Korea (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/korea).

Throughout the world, teachers and schools are responding to one of the greatest disruptions to education systems in living memory. Routines and practices they have followed for decades have been changed, overhauled or suppressed to reduce the risk of contagion for students, teachers and parents, while ensuring continuity of teaching and learning. This puts the role and importance of teachers in the spotlight, while adding new demands and pressures to an already delicate job. When the COVID-19 crisis struck, teachers in many education systems had to teach in a new context of online contact and uncertainty over the reopening of schools. When schools opened again, they did so amidst varying safety measures and the constant threat of school closures. All this is likely to have substantially affected teachers’ job satisfaction and stress.

This paper forms part of an OECD project which addresses the issue of the cost of reducing CO2 emissions by comparing the results from six global models of a set of standardised reduction scenarios. The project provides evidence on: i)projected carbon dioxide emissions through the next century, and ii) the carbon taxes and output costs entailed in reducing these emissions ...

Policymakers and the research community have an integral leadership role to foster collaborative efforts to deliver the best available science for evidence based policies and approval processes. The second Lausanne Workshop of December 2015 reviewed the policy and stakeholder actions needed to accelerate biomedical research and health innovation for Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias. The agenda featured developments in regulatory and access pathways for potential innovations in dementia. Participants discussed the perspectives of regulators and payers, specifically the evidence and tools needed to support regulatory and payer evaluation of innovations. A particular focus was placed on the large and growing societal implications of Alzheimer’s disease and the heightened urgency to define sustainable access strategies for future diagnostics and therapies. There is consensus across all stakeholders to move from global agenda setting in Alzheimer’s disease to action oriented programmes and implementation.

Both the magnitude and the composition of capital flows from rich to poor countries have changed markedly over the past decade. While official flows have stagnated, private flows have mushroomed and portfolio investment and bank lending have grown more rapidly than foreign direct investment (FDI), though with much higher volatility. Given the impact of investment decisions on patterns of resource use (including the environment), what are the implications of these trends?

A bricks–and–mortar investment by a multinational corporation (MNC) requires consideration of environmental impacts in a way that neither a bank loan nor portfolio investment does. The evidence suggests that foreign direct investment (FDI), especially by large MNCs, is not concentrated in “dirty” industries, and where it does go into such sectors environmental performance of MNCs is usually above local standards. For smaller OECD investors, reliance on public–sector investment guarantee and insurance agencies can ...

Today fish is the most traded food commodity in the World. This situation is not without generating potential issues. On the one hand, fish trade is said to support economic growth processes in developing countries by providing an important source of cash revenue. On the other hand, fish trade is also said to lead to a decline in food security and a decrease in the availability of fish for the local population. In this paper we explore more thoroughly those two opposite views in the specific case of sub-Sahara Africa. For this we consider a range of eight national development indicators that encapsulate both economic and well-being of sub-Sahara countries over the last decade and correlate them against four indicators reflecting the country-specific importance of fish trade, industrial and small-scale fisheries in the economy of Sub-Sahara Africa. Our statistical analysis shows that when sub-Sahara countries’ data are considered at the macro-economic level the fear that fish trade may affect negatively fish food security is not substantiated by any statistical evidences. At the same time the analysis also shows no evidence to support the claim that international fish trade contributes effectively to national economic development and/or wellbeing. The last section of the paper discusses the various possible reasons for this apparent lack of correlation and highlights the respective flaws underlying the two opposite discourse about the role of fish trade in national development and food security. fish trade poverty reduction Sub-Sahara Africa trickle down

The aim of this paper is to analyse the implications of the European Commission proposal of a mixed energy cum carbon tax to curb CO2 emissions from a global perspective. The paper deals with the effects of this proposal on emissions and welfare in both the EC and the rest of the world by concentrating on three main issues: i) the effectiveness of the proposed tax measures in terms of curbing EC and global CO2 emissions; ii) the implied costs for the EC and the other countries/regions of the world; and iii) the implications of the EC proposal for the world distribution of emissions and the competitiveness of the EC economy. In this connection, the relevance of the so-called "carbon leakages" -- i.e. the displacement of polluting activities from countries participating in an emission reduction agreement to countries not concerned by the agreement -- is examined. The paper provides quantitative answers to these issues using simulations with GREEN, the global dynamic applied general ...

The search for balanced, sustainable growth clearly involves the unwinding of large and persistent global imbalances. Much of the attention in the rebalancing debate has centred on how shifts in monetary and fiscal policies affect current account imbalances. This paper goes beyond macroeconomic management considerations and exchange rate realignments to assess how one type of structural policy reform – namely trade and trade-related policy reforms – may facilitate global rebalancing. In addition, the paper analyses how might various rebalancing scenarios, even if they do not explicitly include major trade policy reforms, impact global trade. Our analysis suggests that a co-ordinated response involving macroeconomic, exchange rate and structural reforms, including trade policy reforms, are needed to address imbalances in the global economy. Trade is a part of the solution since trade policy distortions reduce the benefits from trade and, through their effects on relative prices, jointly influence economic incentives on both the trade balance and net national savings sides of the national savings-investment identity. In particular, since some imbalances stem from the asymmetric pattern of remaining protectionism in goods and services sectors, a balanced approach to trade policy reform could facilitate the global adjustment process.

This paper presents a stylised model in which either a savings glut or an exchange rate peg in emerging economies drives down the level of interest rates in advanced economies and, when it hits the zero-rate bound, produces a welfare loss. It shows that structural reform in the pursuit of better social protection and financial markets in the emerging economies reduces this negative welfare spillover. An extension of the model with the short-run dynamics of exchange-rate and capital movements shows that adverse asymmetric shocks can lead to a race to the bottom of interest rates. In that case the global coordination of monetary policies is welfare enhancing for both groups of economies. However, the coordinated equilibrium is unstable, which indicates that strong pre-commitment arrangements are required to maintain coordination. This disadvantage diminishes if structural reform is adopted to reduce the volatility in capital flows.

Global industrial restructuring in the current era is characterised by an increase in cross-border strategic alliances, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) and other types of business networking. This presents new international opportunities for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Cross-border business networking allows SMEs to expand their markets and distribution channels, to realise economies of scale and scope in products and processes, and to profit from the sale and licensing of technology-based assets. Governments can help SMEs realise the benefits of global restructuring by maintaining a flexible business environment and openness in foreign investment and trade, fostering inter-firm networking, and upgrading SME capabilities to participate in international networks and foreign markets. This paper assesses the drivers of global industrial restructuring and the impacts on small firms. It presents a detailed sectoral analysis of small-firm participation in cross-border ...

Industrial economies are at the threshold of potentially radical structural changes in their economic structures. Communication networks and interactive multimedia applications are providing the foundation for the transformation of existing social and economic relationships into an "information society".