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The "OECD Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs Scoreboard: 2023 Highlights" document SME and entrepreneurship financing trends, conditions and policy developments. The report provides official data on SME financing in close to 50 countries, including indicators on debt, equity, asset-based finance and financing conditions. Data for 2021 are complemented by available information for 2022, along with demand-side information and recent developments in public policy and private initiatives to support SME finance.
Findings reveal that most economies showed the beginnings of a dynamic recovery from the COVID-19 crisis in 2021. However, data available for 2022 point to a deterioration in a number of SME finance indicators, due to high inflation and rising interest rates, exacerbated by the effects of Russia's war against Ukraine. These factors are impacting the accessibility and cost of debt finance for SMEs, and foreshadow a slowdown in lending. Likewise, equity finance showed a significant decline in 2022. In this context, governments should continue to foster the diversification of SME financing instruments and channels to enable them to build resilience and undertake crucial investments, such as those in digitalisation and greening.
As artificial intelligence (AI) integrates all sectors at a rapid pace, different AI systems bring different benefits and risks. In comparing virtual assistants, self-driving vehicles and video recommendations for children, it is easy to see that the benefits and risks of each are very different. Their specificities will require different approaches to policy making and governance. To help policy makers, regulators, legislators and others characterise AI systems deployed in specific contexts, the OECD has developed a user-friendly tool to evaluate AI systems from a policy perspective. It can be applied to the widest range of AI systems across the following dimensions: People & Planet; Economic Context; Data & Input; AI model; and Task & Output. Each of the framework's dimensions has a subset of properties and attributes to define and assess policy implications and to guide an innovative and trustworthy approach to AI as outlined in the OECD AI Principles.
The OECD GlobalRecalls portal was launched in 2012 as a single window for governments to share information about product recalls worldwide. It has since developed into a significant resource, with over 24 000 product recall notices and 47 participating countries, and these figures continue to grow. This report discusses the implementation of a series of enhancements to the OECD GlobalRecalls portal between 2015 and 2019, as well as support provided to jurisdictions by the OECD Secretariat between November 2018 and September 2019 to use the portal’s new API functionality. The report will inform ongoing OECD work to maintain the Portal and any future work regarding possible further enhancements.
The digital age provides great opportunities to transform how public services are designed and delivered. The OECD Good Practice Principles for Service Design and Delivery in the Digital Age provide a clear, actionable and comprehensive set of objectives for the high-quality digital transformation of public services. Reflecting insights gathered from across OECD member countries, these nine principles are arranged under three pillars of “Build accessible, ethical and equitable public services that prioritise user needs, rather than government needs”; “Deliver with impact, at scale and with pace”; and “Be accountable and transparent in the design and delivery of public services to reinforce and strengthen public trust”. The principles are advisory rather than prescriptive, allowing for local interpretation and implementation. They should also be considered in conjunction with wider OECD work to equip governments in harnessing the potential of digital technology and data to improve outcomes for all.
The OECD Guidelines on Pension Fund Asset Management set out a basic framework for the regulation of pension fund investment. The Guidelines start with the basic premise that the regulatory framework should take into account the retirement income objective of a pension fund. Two other essential aspects of the regulatory framework are the prudent person standard and the statement of investment policy. Regulations may also include quantitative limits, but only as long as they are consistent with and promote the prudential principles of security, profitability and liquidity pursuant to which assets should be invested. These Guidelines were developed by the Working Party on Private Pensions and the Insurance and Private Pensions Committee and were adopted by the OECD Council on 26 January 2006. They complement the "Recommendation of the Council on Core Principles of Occupational Pension Regulation", adopted by the OECD Council in July 2004.
The governance of infrastructure can affect how and whether infrastructure projects achieve desired outcomes and contribute to wider policy goals. This paper presents the conceptual framework, design and methodology of the OECD Infrastructure Governance Indicators (IGIs). The IGIs support the implementation and monitoring of the OECD Recommendation on the Governance of Infrastructure. This paper also describes the key findings from the first set of IGIs, which cover three areas: long-term strategic vision for infrastructure; fiscal sustainability, affordability and value for money; and efficient and effective public procurement. It identifies the governance dimensions that are well developed across OECD countries and those that require improvements under each of the three areas.
This paper forms part of the second round of the OECD Model Comparison Project on "The costs of cutting carbon emissions". It provides an overview of two global general equilibrium models GREEN and 12RT. The comparison exercise was carried out by means of five policy scenarios and a set of additional controlled experiments. The scenarios focus on alternative forms of joint implementation of international agreements to stabilise CO2 emissions ...
The annual Forum of the OECD Centre on Green Finance and Investment brings together leading actors in the green finance and investment community. This includes institutional investors, asset managers, ministries of finance and central banks, financial regulators, commercial and investment banks, international climate funds, multilateral development banks, green investment banks, corporations, civil society, philanthropic sectors and more.
This paper brings together the latest data and OECD productivity indicators in different areas with the aim of reviewing the main productivity trends over the past decade, comparing the United States, Europe and to some extent Japan. Concerning economy wide indicators of productivity, the slowdown appears to be due to a significant slowdown in investment in information and communication technologies (ICT) followed by a decrease in multi-factor productivity (MFP). However, a new set of indicators of MFP growth by industry shows that the decline of productivity is particularly marked in sectors such as construction and market services. Looking for possible explanations of the decline, a marked slowdown in innovation emerged as the most likely cause. It concludes that, if no new wave of innovation materialises, comparable in size to the one of the late 1990s (around notably the Internet), the OECD trend productivity growth is not likely to resume at its end-1990s level. Only a recovery in innovation itself could trigger a sustainable recovery in productivity in the major OECD countries.
The large need for investments in sustainable infrastructure will require investments from the private sector, including institutional investors. This working paper contributes to scaling up investments by analysing public project-level interventions for projects involving institutional investors. It presents findings from an updated database on institutional investments in environmentally sustainable infrastructure with project-level intervention by the public sector.
This review was originally published on 23 June 2021 and reflects the situation at that time. This version has been reformatted and lightly edited from the original to be in line with the OECD Journal on Budgeting guidelines.