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Accurate measurement of shipbuilding capacity is critical to inform market stakeholders of excess capacity issues. This report presents several approaches to improve the estimates of shipbuilding capacity. It shows how the use of average production would allow for smoothening the proxy of capacity in the yard-by-yard production approach. It discusses how firm level indicators, such as productivity, can also be considered. An analysis of productivity developments for a sample of shipbuilding firms shows that their productivity evolves in function of the market situation which, therefore, should be taken into account in the proxies of capacity based on yard production. Finally, the report studies how mergers and acquisitions of shipbuilding firms may impact capacity.
This report presents new evidence on how Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are changing the demand for skills at work. While the use of ICT at work increased in a large majority of countries between 2011 and 2014, a significant number of workers do not seem to have sufficient skills to use these technologies effectively. The diffusion of ICTs is also changing the way work is carried out, increasing the raising the demand for “soft skills” such as communication, self-direction and problem solving. While these findings offer some new and interesting insights, the report discusses various avenues for further analysis.
As the global benchmark in educational assessments, PISA results are always hotly anticipated. The eighth round of PISA assessment was originally planned to take place in 2021 but the disruption caused by COVID-19 forced the assessment to be postponed by a year. The first results of PISA 2022 will be unveiled in two volumes on 5 December 2023. The focus of PISA 2022 is mathematics, with an emphasis on mathematics reasoning, to highlight its importance in tackling complex real-life challenges. The first volume examines how student performance in mathematics, reading and science as well as equity in education evolved before and after the pandemic. The second volume of PISA 2022 identifies “resilient education systems” that maintained or promoted student learning, equity, and well-being amid the pandemic.
This article aims to examine the new mechanisms of accountability and incentives for higher education institutions (HEIs) that are emerging at regional level in relation to the development of knowledge-based economies and new structures of governance. A new landscape of higher education emerging in a particular region in the United Kingdom will be analysed, and the influence of multiple levels of public policy instruments will be considered, including national and European policy initiatives as well as the influence of the globalisation of the economy. The seeks a new conceptualisation of “accountability” in a decentralised national framework in light of the formation of “localised learning systems” in the global learning society. The different roles and functions ascribed to universities at various geographical levels, namely, local, regional, national and international, are becoming highly complex, and universities will need to share more effectively some of their key functions with other institutions in society. Incentive mechanisms are needed to create links between “entrepreneurial universities” and other stakeholders in society within a strategic framework.
This paper surveys empirical studies of the costs of reducing carbon dioxide emissions. It updates and extends an earlier paper, which focused on baseline emission scenarios and the aggregate cost of emission reductions. It attempts to explain some of the differences in simulation results and highlights some major policy issues ...
This paper reviews some of the difficult challenges facing debt managers in the years to come. In countries experiencing a rapidly diminishing gross debt, particularly the United States, this raises the issue of whether private-sector securities can serve as a substitute for the traditionally important government debt market. In the euro area, following the creation of the common currency, the issue is how to avoid that independent debt management strategies hamper the creation of a more efficient euro-area financial market. Turning to Japan, the level of debt is projected to rise rapidly and there is a need to improve the liquidity of the Japanese government bond market. To this end, a number of measures could be introduced to make debt management more efficient, yielding significant cost saving ...
A survey of the literature on asset price impacts on the real economy shows a much wider range of work on consumption and related wealth effects than on investment. The existence of wealth effects on consumption per se is little contested, but there remains an issue of whether different effects should hold between countries and across assets. On balance we contend that the literature suggests a role for housing and tangible wealth as well as financial wealth as a determination of consumption. In terms of investment there are numerous studies implying that uncertainty and balance sheet effects on investment can both be detected, albeit the latter more in micro than macro studies. In the light of the investment literature, we undertook panel investment functions on a macro basis for up to 23 OECD countries. Developing earlier work, it was found that the main significant effects arising from asset prices come from the financial accelerator, credit channel and Tobin’s Q (especially in the G7) and uncertainty as proxied by asset price volatility (especially in smaller OECD countries). There is also evidence for non-linearities in volatility. Descriptive analysis as well as tentative cross-sectional regression showed that both balance sheet and uncertainty channels played a role in the recent financial crisis, when investment fell sharply, although the simple accelerator was also important. The work has implications for monetary, fiscal and regulatory policies, all of which can impact on asset prices and the financial sector and thus via this channel on the wider economy.