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The forces shaping the revolution in banking and capital markets have radically changed the financial landscape during the past three decades. A remarkable feature of this changing new landscape has been the astonishing rate of internationalisation of the financial system in the last two decades, with emerging markets becoming increasingly important participants. At times, this participation led to an excessive reliance on foreign financing, making the participation of these countries in the global financial system more vulnerable to shifts in expectations and perceptions. The sovereign debt management strategy suffered from many structural weaknesses, failing to take into account international best practices in financing budget deficits and developing domestic government securities markets. Consequently, emerging markets experienced serious financial crisis episodes. Against this background, the paper focuses on new and more sophisticated strategies to develop domestic bond markets, taking into account the risk profile, complexities and other constraints of emerging markets. The paper’s central thesis is that risk-based public debt management and liquid domestic bond markets are important, mutually reinforcing strategies for emerging financial markets to attain: i) enhanced financial stability, and ii) a more successful participation in the global financial landscape. It will also be shown that this twin-strategies approach requires taking a macroeconomic policy perspective.

Indicators based on patents provide a good measure of the innovative performance and technology outputs of countries. However, because of legal rules imposed by the patent application process, information on patents is generally publicly disclosed after 18 months. Patent indicators are consequently faced with a timeliness issue, which can extend to more than five years depending on the computational method used to develop indicators. This study aims at designing simple but robust methods that would enable to "nowcast" patent indicators - forecast the present (or the recent past) - in order to mitigate the timeliness issue. The nowcasting exercise is conducted here on two separate sets of patent indicators: the number of patents applied to the European Patent Office (EPO) and the number of Triadic Patent Families (patents taken at the EPO, the Japan Patent Office (JPO) and the United States Patent and Trademarks Office (USPTO)). Portion of patent filings at the EPO were made under the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). The nowcasting method developed in the present document is based on estimates of the transfer rate of patents filed under PCT into the EPO regional phase, given that information on PCT patents at international phase is disclosed before reaching the regional/national phase. This method provides robust estimates up to year t-2 (instead of year t-4), even though patenting activity of small patenting countries or emerging economies are difficult to predict, in terms of both level and growth...

With concern about how to finance the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) widespread, recent donor pledges to raise aid volumes are welcome. However, aid alone will not suffice – bringing in new actors and sources of development finance will be essential. In many developing countries, this is already happening, creating new opportunities and challenges for their governments and donors....

The government of New Zealand delegates property expenditure decisions to each individual school. Such a decentralised environment creates a challenge for school boards and principals to obtain advice on the complex issues around designing schools. To inform schools, the Ministry of Education provides numerous publications related to design and selected best practice samples via its website.

Belarus
Act on the development of atomic energy in the Republic of Belarus (2008)
Decree on the construction of a nuclear power plant (2007)
Statute of the Department of Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection in the Ministry of Emergency Situations – Gosatomnadzor (2007)

France
Decree establishing a Political Nuclear Council (2008)
Decree authorising the establishment of the “Agence France Nucléaire International” within the Atomic Energy Commission (2008)

Germany
Ratification of the International Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism (2007)
Amendments to the 1993 Foreign Trade Ordinance (2008)
List of Foreign Trade Regulations (2008)

Italy
Decree designating a working group to identify the procedures and methodology for establishing a centre for technological services and research (2008)

Japan
Criminal Radiation Emission Act (2007)

Lithuania
Amendment to the Law on the Nuclear Power Plant (2008)

Poland
Regulation on the emergency plans for radiation emergency (2007)
Regulation on the requirements for controlled and supervised areas (2007)
Regulation on the requirements for individual dose registration (2007)
Regulation on the state owned public utility “Radioactive Waste Management Plant” (2007)
Regulation on import, export and transit of spent nuclear fuel intended for reprocessing or storage (2007)
Regulation on import, export and transit of nuclear materials, radioactive sources and equipment containing such sources (2007)

Romania
Government Decision on Romania’s Energy Policy for 2007 to 2010 (2007)
Guidelines regarding the road haulage of hazardous goods on the Romanian territory (2007)
Order adopting the INF Code (2008)

Russian Federation
Reform of the Russian nuclear power industry (2007)

Slovenia
Decree on the designation of affected areas and the compensation due to the limited use of land surrounding the Zirovki Vrh Uranium Mine (2008)
Decree on safeguarding of nuclear materials (2008)

Spain
Law creating the Nuclear Safety Council (2007)
Royal Decree amending the Regulation on Nuclear and Radioactive Installations (2008)

Turkey
Regulations on criteria to be met by investors who will construct and operate nuclear power plants (2008)

European Union
Commission Decision concerning the accession of the European Atomic Energy Community to the Convention on the Physical Protection of Nuclear Material and Nuclear Facilities (2007)
Council Decision establishing Statutes for the Euratom Supply Agency (2008)
Commission Decision establishing the standard document for the supervision and control of shipments of radioactive waste and spent fuel (2008)

Belarus
Act on the Use of Atomic Energy (2008)

France
Safety guideline on final disposal of radioactive waste in a deep geological repository (2008)
Decree concerning the procedures applicable to foreign spent nuclear fuel and radioactive waste reprocessing (2008)

Germany
Amendment to the 1986 Act on Preventive Protection of the Public Against Radiation (2008)
Order on the International Carriage of Dangerous Goods by Rail (2008)
Act on the 2004 Protocols to Amend the Paris Convention and the Brussels Supplementary Convention;
Act to Amend the Atomic Energy Act (2008)

Hungary
Energy Policy 2007-2020 Framework Strategy (2008)

Indonesia
Regulation on licensing of uses of ionizing radiation sources and nuclear materials (2008)

Italy
Implementing law on urgent provisions for economic development etc. (2008)

Montenegro
Law on the Environment (2008)

Romania
Decision on the organisational structure of the Nuclear Agency (2008)
Decision on the selection of the investors of Units 3 and 4 of Cernavoda NPP (2008)
Consolidated version the Civil Protection Law (2008)
National strategy for preventing emergency situations (2008)
National strategy for information sharing and communication in the event of an emergency (2008)

Russian Federation
Decree transferring responsibilities to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology (2008)

Slovak Republic
Transposition of Council Directive 2006/117/Euratom (2008)

Ukraine
Decree creating the state enterprise “Nuclear Fuel” (2008)
Amendment to the law on radioactive waste management (2008)

United Kingdom
New Ministry for Energy and Climate Change (2008)

United States
Next generation nuclear plant licensing strategy (2008)
Public health and environmental radiation protection standards for Yucca Mountain, Nevada (2008)
Inflation adjustment to the Price-Anderson Act (2008)

This paper describes a number of national annuity markets, the types of products typically available, the demand for these products, the value for money on offer and the dynamics of the supply side. It explores supply and demand characteristics, asking what the main forces are that drive these dynamics and how they might be recognised and responded to by policymakers.

The United States has the largest professional nurse workforce in the world numbering close to 3 million but does not produce enough nurses to meet its growing demand. A shortage of close to a million professional nurses is projected to evolve by 2020. An emerging physician shortage will further exacerbate the nurse shortage as the boundaries in scope of practice necessarily overlap. Nurse immigration has been growing since 1990 and the U.S. is now the world’s major importer of nurses. While nurse immigration is expected to continue to grow, the shortage is too large to be solved by recruitment of nurses educated abroad without dramatically depleting the world’s nurse resources. Moreover, the domestic applicant pool for nursing education is very strong with tens of thousands of qualified applicants turned away annually because of faculty shortages and capacity limitations. The national shortage could be largely addressed by investments in expanding nursing school capacity to increase graduations by 25 percent annually and the domestic applicant pool appears sufficient to support such an increase. A shortage of faculty and limited capacity for expansion of baccalaureate and graduate nurse education require public policy interventions. Specifically public subsidies to increase production of baccalaureate nurses are required to enlarge the size of the pool from which nurse faculty, advanced practice nurses in clinical care roles, and managers are all recruited. Retention of nurses in the workforce is critical and will require substantial improvements in human resource policies, the development of satisfying professional work environments, and technological innovations to ease the physical burdens of caregiving. Because of the reliance of the U.S. on nurses educated abroad as well as the benefits to the U.S. of improving global health, the nation should invest in nursing education as part of its global agenda.

This paper suggests some avenues to explore as new sources of value creation and capture in the agro-food sector. The range of opportunities for value creation is vast, and this paper does not pretend to be exhaustive. New strategies are being prepared by different stakeholders in the sector, in an uncertain and competitive context of globalisation where the expectations of consumers and society in general are evolving.

The aim of this paper is to examine the economic impact of proposals to add a non-cost “premium” to international telecommunication charges. This work follows up on earlier OECD work which examined international traffic exchange. The paper concludes that attempts to use non-market methods, and distort prices, is likely to have negative implications for the provision of international telecommunication services and that competition is acting to more efficiently meet policy goals.

Nanotechnology is commonly considered to offer considerable promise extending from business opportunities throughout various industries to broader socio-economic benefits, especially in the context of pressing global challenges such as those related to energy, health care, clean water and climate change. Governments around the world have invested heavily in R&D in this field and companies are also becoming increasingly engaged. Despite this promise, investments and company involvement in nanotechnology developments are still poorly monitored. The objective of this report is to provide a comprehensive overview of these developments through a systematic and critical analysis of available indicators and statistics, while acknowledging that there is a need for further work to both broaden the range of, and develop further, nanotechnology metrics.

Government debt issuance procedures and policies differ across OECD jurisdictions, in particular in terms of technical standards for selling techniques, primary dealer systems and other primary market arrangements.

However, the increased integration of global financial markets (including the jump in the integration of European government debt markets since the introduction of the Euro) has been an important catalyst in the standardisation of the structure and types of instruments as well as the convergence of general procedures and policies for the issuance government debt. In many countries, the ongoing credit and economic crises have prompted a review of existing issuance procedures and policies.

This article provide (a) a survey of the general characteristics of government debt issuance procedures and related primary dealer (PD) arrangements in the OECD area; and (b) an evaluation of the challenges and changes generated by the impact of the turmoil in global financial markets on issuance procedures and policies.

Determining comparability of effort between mitigation actions and targets proposed by different countries is an ongoing issue for international climate negotiations. A number of indicators have been proposed to reflect comparability of effort and differences in national circumstances; key amongst these are greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions (per capita), GDP per capita, as well as GHG mitigation potential. This paper focuses on mitigation potential to provide a comparative assessment between six OECD member economies: Australia, Canada, the EU, Japan, Mexico and the US. GHG mitigation potential is defined to be the level of GHG emission reductions that could be realised, relative to the projected emission baseline in a given year, for a given carbon price.

Data for the selected countries were obtained across the time horizon of 2005-2050 from a total of 19 models, including models that are used to inform climate policy-makers in each of these economies. The paper examines the implications of model structure, and assesses how baseline scenarios vary between the models, before analysing the GHG mitigation potential estimates.

GHG mitigation potential is compared for carbon prices of USD 20, 50 and 100/tCO2e. For an assumed carbon price of USD 50/tCO2e, mitigation potential in Japan is estimated to be relatively lower than for the other five economies, ranging from 5-20% emission reduction from baseline in 2020. Although noticeably fewer models report data for Mexico at this price level, the models show deeper potential reductions in the range of 25-37% at the same carbon price. Mitigation potential estimates for Australia, Canada and the US show a wider range of 14-39% reduction relative to 2020 baselines. The EU shows a relatively tighter range of 16-29% emission reductions to 2020. The results of this study show greater emission reduction potentials in the year 2050 than in the year 2020 across the six economies examined, reflecting structural and technical changes that occur over time, including the availability of carbon capture and storage from 2030. In general, the paper finds closer agreement across the models for mitigation potential in 2020 than for later years, reflecting greater uncertainty as projections extend into the future.

This report makes a case for investment in a competitive, open-access national fibre-to-the-home network rollout based on potential spillovers in four key sectors of the economy: electricity, health, transportation and education. This research offers a new approach to evaluating the costs of building the most forward-looking network possible by evaluating what short-term cost savings (benefits) would have to be achieved in other key economic sectors to justify the investment. On average, a cost savings of between 0.5% and 1.5% in each of the four sectors over ten years resulting directly from the new broadband network platform could justify the cost of building a national point-to-point, fibre-to-the-home network.

BELARUS
The Statute on the State Supervision in the Field of Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (2008)
Amendment to the Law on Radiation Protection of the Public (2008)
Environmental impact assessment laws (2009)
The Statute on the Discussion of Questions of the Public in the Field of Atomic Energy (2009)

BELGIUM
Decree regarding the minimum criteria for X-ray apparatus use in veterinary medicine (2009)
Decree of the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control on the determination of exemption levels (2009)

ESTONIA
National Development Plan (2009)
New Radiation Safety Department (2009)
Amendment to the Radiation Protection Act (2009)

GERMANY
Ordinance on the Shipment of Radioactive Waste or Spent Fuel (2009)
Amendments to Acts and Ordinances on the Transport of Dangerous Goods (2009)
Amendments to the 1961 Foreign Trade Act and 1993 Foreign Trade Ordinance (2009)

ITALY
Law No. 99 of 23 July 2009 including provisions on the resurgence of nuclear energy (2009) 

ROMANIA
Decision on the prohibition of dangerous labour for children (2009)
Amendment to the regulations on the organisation and operation of CNCAN (2009)
Decision on the repatriation of nuclear material to the Russian Federation (2009)
Decision on the processing of uranium stocks (2009)
General requirements on environmental impact assessment (2009)

SPAIN
Regulation on the transboundary shipments of radioactive waste and spent fuel (2009)
Regulation on installation and use of X-ray devices for medical diagnostic purposes (2009)

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Federal law on the peaceful use of nuclear energy (2009)

UNITED STATES
Final regulations criminalising unauthorised introduction of dangerous weapons (2009)

The ability of discretionary fiscal policy to affect economic activity following shocks depends on how private agents react. This paper re-investigates the extent of possible offsetting private saving behaviour to fiscal policy changes. The results suggest that the private saving offset is around 40% on average across countries in both the short and the long term, which is somewhat lower than found in prior research. However, the estimates vary considerably across countries. Disaggregate analyses of the budget components shows that changes in current revenues are almost fully offset, whereas offsets to current spending are on average around one third to one half depending on the sample. There is no offset for public investment, making it the most potent policy tool. Saving offsets are stronger the higher the level of government debt consistent with the expectation that snowballing debt may ultimately lead to higher taxation. They are also stronger the better developed financial markets are, pointing to the importance of liquidity constraints for the effectiveness of policy.