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CELE has carried out its first review of a national school building programme, which aims to tackle the physical deterioration of the building stock, poor environmental standards in terms of energy performance...

Governments are confronted with crises that may spread beyond national borders and trigger significant economic knock-on effects. Managing crises is a key responsibility for governments, which have a crucial role to play to strengthen the resilience of their population, communities and critical infrastructure networks.

The paper highlights the changing landscape of crises with which governments are confronted today, discussing new approaches to deal with both traditional and novel crises. The paper invites a reflection on how best governments can adapt to change while still maintaining capabilities to deal with more classic crises.

It concludes with identifying five cross-cutting issues in crisis management where government should pay attention when framing their policies and practices: an overall crisis governance framework, the role of science and expertise, leadership issues, the governance of response networks, and international cooperation. International exchange of experiences among governments and the development of shared best practices are core objectives for the OECD High Level Risk Forum under which the paper was prepared.

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced governments to take unprecedented measures such as restricting travel and implementing strict quarantine requirements. In this difficult context, most countries are putting stimulus packages in place, including measures to support employment, for example, taking on the burden of unpaid salaries on behalf of companies suffering from the economic effects of COVID-19 pandemic. As a result of these restrictions, many cross-border workers are unable to physically perform their duties in their country of employment. They may have to stay at home and telework, or may be laid off because of the exceptional economic circumstances.

This unprecedented situation is raising many tax issues, especially where there are cross-border elements in the equation; for example, cross-border workers, or individuals who are stranded in a country that is not their country of residence. These issues have an impact on the right to tax between countries, which is currently governed by international tax treaty rules that delineate taxing rights.

At the request of concerned countries, the OECD Secretariat has issued this guidance on these issues based on a careful analysis of the international tax treaty rules.

1. The Ageing-Related Diseases study compares treatment trends and health outcomes on a disease-by-disease basis. Most of the day-to-day decisions that determine health care system performance are made in treating specific diseases. Therefore, the ARD’s bottom-up approach to comparing health care system performance at the disease level, rather than the more common top-down approach, goes to the heart of health care system performance. This paper presents such an analysis for ischaemic heart disease.
2. There is considerable variation in treatment trends for the same diseases across countries and much of this variation can be explained by differences in structural characteristics of health care systems. A disease-level analysis begins with an examination of these characteristics: the economic incentives, policies and regulations that affect individual providers’ decisions for treating a specific disease, defining a particular health care system’s approach. In order to properly assess ...

This submission provides a brief factual survey of statutory minimum wage systems in OECD countries (Section B) as well as a summary of recommendations concerning minimum wages which have been presented in the OECD Jobs Study and recent OECD Economic Surveys (Section C). This is followed by a discussion of the factors which should be considered when reviewing the likely effects of statutory minimum wages on employment and unemployment (Section D), and on low pay and poverty (Section E). It is based on recent empirical evidence from OECD countries and, whenever possible, discusses the relevance of the different factors characterising minimum wage for the UK context. The need for further research is discussed in Section F.

This submission provides a brief factual survey of statutory minimum wage systems in OECD countries (Section B) as well as a summary of recommendations concerning minimum wages which have been presented in the OECD Jobs Study and recent OECD Economic Surveys (Section C). This is followed by a discussion of the factors which should be considered when reviewing the likely effects of statutory minimum wages on employment and unemployment (Section D), and on low pay and poverty (Section E). It is based on recent empirical evidence from OECD countries and, whenever possible, discusses the relevance of the different factors characterising minimum wages for the Irish context. The need for further research is discussed in Section F.

1. This submission provides a brief factual survey of statutory minimum wage systems in OECD countries (Section B) as well as a summary of recommendations concerning minimum wages which have been presented in the OECD Jobs Study and recent OECD Economic Surveys (Section C). This is followed by a discussion of the factors which should be considered when reviewing the likely effects of statutory minimum wages on employment and unemployment (Section D), and on low pay and poverty (Section E). It is based on recent empirical evidence from OECD countries and, whenever possible, discusses the relevance of the different factors characterising minimum wages for the Irish context. The need for further research is discussed in Section F.

B. Minimum-wage systems in OECD countries

1. The description of minimum-wage systems in this section has been derived from a number of sources, including national submissions in response to an OECD questionnaire. However, it should be noted that the ...

A. Introduction

1. This submission provides a brief factual survey of statutory minimum wage systems in OECD countries (Section B) as well as a summary of recommendations concerning minimum wages which have been presented in the OECD Jobs Study and recent OECD Economic Surveys (Section C). This is followed by a discussion of the factors which should be considered when reviewing the likely effects of statutory minimum wages on employment and unemployment (Section D), and on low pay and poverty (Section E). It is based on recent empirical evidence from OECD countries and, whenever possible, discusses the relevance of the different factors characterising minimum wage for the UK context. The need for further research is discussed in Section F.

B. Minimum-wage systems in OECD countries

1. The description of minimum-wage systems in this section has been derived from a number of sources, including national submissions in response to an OECD questionnaire. However, it should be noted that the information presented has not yet been verified for factual accuracy by the relevant national authorities ...

This paper provides a new taxonomy of industries according to their level of R&D intensity - the ratio of R&D to value added within an industry. Manufacturing and non-manufacturing activities are clustered into five groups (high, medium-high, medium, medium-low, and low R&D intensity industries), drawing on new and expanded evidence from most OECD countries and some partner economies. This paper also reports on differences in R&D intensity within industries across countries. This document represents an update and reframing of previous OECD taxonomies based on earlier versions of the International Standard Industrial Classification (ISIC), including services, whose coverage has improved in the R&D tables published by OECD (ANBERD). This taxonomy aims to support the presentation of statistics for industry groups when R&D is a relevant discriminant factor. Other existing or in-development taxonomies may be more appropriate for capturing differences in overall knowledge intensity or technology use.

Designing school buildings to respond to change is not a new idea. But perhaps what is different today is the kind and degree of change which we have to anticipate. The OECD is carrying out projects that can help in the planning and design of future educational facilities – exploring trends in education and studying innovative learning environments. Education planners have long grappled with the type of change connected with demography, for example changing local patterns in the number of school places needed over a period of time. But new challenges lie in the complexity and uncertainty which are characteristic of the 21st century world. The findings of the OECD’s project “Schooling for Tomorrow: Trends Shaping Education” show some sources of this uncertainty, including falling birth rates, increasing economic globalisation and growing numbers of single parent families. Such issues suggest that policy makers and education providers alike need to address questions about what education is and how it should be delivered. Another OECD project, a study of innovative learning environments, is looking at how schools can respond to changes in the type of teaching and learning that make individuals lifelong learners. Developing individuals as self-directed learners, who are able to acquire expert knowledge in different fields and to change careers, benefits the economy and society generally. Research into learning shows both the importance of allowing students to take control of their own learning and that learning must be a social, cultural, intrapersonal and an active process. Research also demonstrates that an understanding of complex subjects can be best achieved in settings where the learner is engaged with others in the community, in activities where knowledge is being applied. The learning environments that support this must be fundamentally different from what has gone before, with less emphasis on teachers addressing a group of students in a traditional classroom setting. However, just how the physical environment must respond is a complicated issue. To meet the needs of 21st century learning, the physical environment will have to be agile so that it is capable of providing a mixed range of learning settings from large group spaces to smaller, more individual tutorial type spaces. However, the interaction between a building’s users and the physical infrastructure is complex. The physical environment is always a constraint, but a key question might be to what extent does it offer the teachers the freedom and empowerment to do with it what they want. The different learning settings may be facilitated by clever use of furniture which can be easily rearranged in a variety of ways thus providing a range of spaces within spaces. These are all issues that future work of the Programme on Educational Building will explore further, building on the current OECD work on innovative learning environments.

In May 2007, OECD Ministers mandated the preparation of an OECD Innovation Strategy. The Strategy has two broad aims: first, addressing countries’ needs for a more comprehensive, coherent and timely understanding of how to promote, measure and assess innovation and its underlying dynamics of change; and, second, shedding light on appropriate multi-sector and whole-of-government approaches to innovation as a driver of sustainable growth, productivity and development and as a tool to address global challenges. Work on the Strategy is to take place over 2008-09, with a synthesis report to be delivered to the Ministerial Council Meeting in 2010. This paper forms part of the first phase of work on the Innovation Strategy. It draws on OECD work from the last ten years to provide a broad-brush overview of “what we know” about good policy practices for innovation. It also highlights recent changes in innovation processes and patterns, describes the increasing levels of internationalisation, and draws together early thinking on the contribution of innovation to solving global challenges related to the environment.

This report presents an overview of OECD member country frameworks for consumer dispute resolution and redress. Part I focuses on the different mechanisms that have been put in place to respond to the varying nature and characteristics of consumer disputes including: internal complaints handling processes; payment cardholder protections; alternative dispute resolution; small claims courts; private collective action lawsuits; legal actions by consumer associations; and government obtained redress. Part II examines the impediments to ensuring that monetary judgments for consumers in cross-border cases ultimately result in compensation to consumers. The report aims to identify the elements of effective domestic frameworks for consumer dispute resolution and redress, examine how these frameworks can better address cross-border cases, and consider how increased international cooperation could improve the effectiveness of judicial remedies across-borders.

Providing internationally comparable measures on prices of communication services has been a core task of the OECD through its Working Party on Communication Infrastructures and Services Policy (WPCISP) for decades. Currently, the majority of broadband services in OECD countries are based on bundled offers. This report develops OECD price baskets for bundled communication services to complement existing fixed and mobile price baskets. The baskets for bundled communication services range from dual play to quadruple play baskets, which include different combinations of fixed broadband, fixed voice, mobile voice and data, and pay-TV services. The report proposes 30 bundled baskets, accounting for different usage patterns and service elements. With increased convergence and the prevalence of communication bundles in the majority of OECD countries, this methodology sets a reference point for discussions on price baskets for bundled communication services in international fora.