Browse by: "O"

OECD Ministers have endorsed a new initiative to promote safe international travel during the COVID-19 pandemic at the OECD’s annual Ministerial meeting in Paris. The Initiative involves a safe travel blueprint and a temporary international cross-sectoral forum for knowledge sharing. The forum will allow governments and stakeholders to share information in real time on plans and approaches facilitating travel. The blueprint promotes greater certainty, safety and security in travel as re-opening takes place. It builds on existing initiatives and aims to increase interoperability amongst travel regimes. It will be implemented by countries on a voluntary basis.

Many OECD governments are facing unprecedented challenges in the markets for bonds and bills, as a result of the explosive growth in their borrowing needs. Amidst an unusually uncertain economic outlook, the gross borrowing needs of OECD governments are expected to reach almost USD 12 trillion in 2009. The key policy issue is how to raise smoothly new funds at low cost, while also managing a rapidly growing debt stock.

For the time being, several factors are offsetting the trend towards higher yields. But the risk is that when the recovery gains traction and risk aversion falls, yields will start to rise. There are already signs that issuance conditions are becoming tougher with reports of weaker demand at some recent government bond auncts. Thus far, these less successful auctions can best be interpreted as "single market events" and not as unambiguous evidence of systemic market absorption problems. Also from this perspective lowering OECD sovereign ratings is not obvious.

The future could become more challenging, given that rising issuance is occurring in tandem with increasing overall debt levels. Also contingent debt is on the rise. In response, sovereign debt managers have begun to plan or implement credible medium-terms exit strategies to avoid future "crowding out" and issuance problems.

Although fund raising strategies have become more flexible and somewhat more opportunistic, OECD debt management framework so as to minimise medium-term borrowing costs. The other key challenge, roll-over risk as a result of the increasing use of short-term instruments, is being addressed by OECD debt managers by rebalancing the profile of their issuance programmes by incorporating more long-term instruments.

The OECD Toolkit for A Territorial Approach to the SDGs is designed as a user-friendly checklist to guide policy makers at all levels of government to implement a territorial approach to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It provides a one-stop-shop including lessons learned from cities across the globe, proposing a How-To Guide for interested SDG champions, showcasing localised data and indicators, and a self-assessment tool for cities and regions looking to embrace the localisation path. Complimentary two-page snapshots illustrate the performance on the SDGs of cities and regions involved in the policy dialogues with the OECD.

The purpose of this working paper is to provide an overview of recent discussions on the quality of Chinese data, and to describe and evaluate the institutional organization and methods of data compilation in China. The first part outlines key criticisms of Chinese data and examines their validity. The second part describes the institutional organization of statistical data compilation in China--with a focus on the National Bureau of Statistics as China's statistical authority--and the latest innovations in data collection. The third part evaluates institutional aspects and data collection methods with reference to the data problems noted in the first part by pointing out some shortcomings and discussing various reform proposals ...

This paper provides a revised measure of regulatory restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI)for OECD countries and extends the approach to 13 non-member countries. The methodology is largely similar to that adopted in the previous version of the OECD indicator and covers three broad categories of restrictions: limitations on foreign ownership, screening or notification procedures, and management and operational restrictions. The FDI restrictiveness indicator captures statutory deviations from "national treatment", i.e. discrimination against foreign investment. When combined with other factors having an influence on foreign investment decisions, it has proven to be a good predictor of countries’ inward FDI performance.

This paper provides a revised measure of regulatory restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) for OECD countries and extends the approach to 13 non-member countries. The methodology is largely similar to that adopted in the previous version of the OECD indicator and covers three broad categories of restrictions: limitations on foreign ownership, screening or notification procedures, and management and operational restrictions. The FDI restrictiveness indicator captures statutory deviations from "national treatment", i.e. discrimination against foreign investment. When combined with other factors having an influence on foreign investment decisions, it has proven to be a good predictor of countries' inward FDI performance.

The 2010 update of the FDI Restrictiveness Index (FDI Index) expands the sectors covered and revises the way in which FDI measures are scored and weighted. The FDI Index is now available for all OECD Members, adherents to the Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises, Enhanced Engagement countries and other G-20 countries. The FDI Index, originally developed in 2003, is jointly maintained by the OECD Investment Division and the OECD Economics Department as one component of the revised 2008 OECD Indicator of Product Market Regulation (PMR) from which the Going for Growth policy priorities are drawn. It is also used on a stand-alone basis to assess the restrictiveness of FDI policies in OECD Economic Surveys; reviews of candidates for accession; and OECD Investment Policy Reviews, including reviews of Enhanced Engagement countries, new adherents to the OECD Declaration on International Investment and Multinational Enterprises and of other non-OECD partner countries. The FDI Index has been used as a summary measure of OECD members’ positions under the OECD investment instruments in the Committee’s 2009 report updating countries’ reservations to the OECD Codes and exceptions to the OECD National Treatment instrument (NTI). The extension to all G-20 countries enables its use in the G-20 context.

This paper presents the methodology adopted by the Economics Department to calculate indices of effective exchange rates and indicators of competitiveness, based on unit labour costs and export unit values in the manufacturing sector. The calculation derives from a double-weighting system which first measures competition among all competitors of a given country on each of its markets, this competition being then weighted according to the relative importance of each of the markets of the country in question. These indicators are generally used to analyse trends in trade variables. In this paper, indicators of export market growth and export performance are also calculated and compared with the export competitiveness indicators ...

The mission of the French High Commission for Pension Reform is to prepare the reform introducing a universal pension points system in France. This paper explains why implementing a universal points system in France would increase transparency, reduce inequality and generate efficiency gains for the whole economy. It documents the experience of OECD countries which have opted for a points or a notional defined contribution (NDC) schemes, and provides a technical framework to compare defined benefit, points and NDC pension systems. The paper discusses some key issues related to the main parameters of the new system. While it can include a wide range of redistribution schemes depending on political choices, indexation rules should be designed in a way that maximises, as much as possible, the rates of return on pension contributions within a pay-as-you-go system while ensuring financial sustainability and accounting for changes in life expectancy. This implies that the value of the point would vary at the individual level depending on the cohort and the effective age of retirement based on actuarial principles. No country having a points system currently uses age-cohort point values, and France could be the first one to introduce such an innovation.

This Working Paper relates to the 2019 OECD Economic Survey of France (http://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/france-economic-snapshot/)

This paper analyses the determinants of intra-African trade (IAT) to assess the potential obstacles to greater sub-regional trade. Both economic and political arguments suggest that increased IAT can foster a regional take-off. Trade linkages in Africa, however, are very weak. Official statistics show that IAT is a small fraction of each country’s total trade and has remained roughly constant over the years. The main obstacles suggested in the literature include trade policy, insufficient infrastructure, non-convertibility of currencies, ethnic, cultural and linguistic diversity and very high political instability. In order to rank such potential obstacles, the study develops an extended gravity model, using a new panel dataset for 41 African countries during the 1980-97 period. Bilateral trade flows between African countries and their major trading partners have been used to identify specific obstacles to IAT. Besides traditional gravity variables (income, income per capita ...

This paper considers a range of topics concerned with the statistical application of an occupational classification, focusing in particular upon the use of the international standard, ISCO-88. Following a brief presentation of the conceptual basis of ISCO-88 and on methods of collecting and coding occupational information, evidence is presented on the reliability and validity of occupationally classified data. The paper reviews progress on the implementation of ISCO-88 on a global basis and presents an assessment of the likely comparability between countries of occupational data based upon ISCO-88.

From the evidence available it appears that ISCO-88 has successfully superseded ISCO-68 and, in many countries, has become the model for a new national classification even where a national classification of occupations previously existed.

However, occupational classification remains a difficult process, subject to a fairly low level of reliability. In addition to problems of reliability ...