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This review examines the successes and challenges for the United Kingdom’s Office for Budget Responsibility. It discusses its institutional context, its resources, its publications and underlying methodologies, and its impact on the public debate.
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.
OECD governments are facing ongoing challenges in the markets for government securities as a result of continued strong borrowing amid concerns about the pace of recovery and sovereign risk. The third OECD Sovereign Borrowing Outlook† Raising large volumes of funds at lowest cost, with acceptable roll-over risk, remains a great challenge for several countries, with most OECD debt managers continuing to rebalance the profile of debt portfolios by issuing more long-term instruments and moderating bill issuance. provides revised estimates for 2010 and projections for 2011. Gross borrowing needs of OECD governments are expected to reach almost USD 17.5 trillion in 2010, up from an earlier estimate of almost USD 16 trillion. In 2011, the borrowing needs of OECD sovereigns are projected to reach almost USD 19 trillion, nearly twice that of 2007. Against this backdro,p government debt ratios are expected to further deteriorate. An additional challenge for government issuers is how to deal with the complications generated by the pressures of a rapid increase in sovereign risk, whereby “the market” suddenly perceives the debt of some sovereigns as “risky”. JEL Classification: G14, G15, G18, H6, H60, H62, H63, H68 Keywords: sovereign borrowing, public deficits and debt, roll-over risk, sovereign risk.
The borrowing requirements of African governments in financing their budget deficits are increasingly met by selling marketable instruments but also by the issuance of non-marketable debt in the form of bi-lateral, multilateral and concessional loans. The second edition of the OECD Statistical Yearbook on African Central Government Debt provides comprehensive quantitative information on African central government debt instruments, including both marketable and non-marketable debt. Individual country data are presented in a comprehensive standard framework to facilitate cross-country comparison.
- 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.
- 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 wages for the Irish context. The need for further research is discussed in Section F.
B. Minimum-wage systems in OECD countries
- 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
- 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
- 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 ...
Meeting the Paris Agreement goals will need a rapid acceleration of finance towards clean energy investments in emerging and developing economies. Blended finance is an important tool that can help mobilise commercial investment towards clean energy, whilst preserving scarce public resources for wider climate and development objectives. A systematic approach to the deployment of blended finance – that tailors instruments to the nature of underlying barriers to commercial investment, minimises concessionality, has a clear exit strategy, and is co-ordinated within a wider ecosystem of support and enabling measures – can help maximise its development impact and stimulate private sector development.
This paper explores specific features of clean energy projects, and the wider transition, to draw lessons for donors, policymakers in beneficiary governments, and financial institutions on whether and how best to deploy blended finance in the sector. It revisits the OECD DAC's Blended Finance Principles, specifically Principle 2: designing blended finance to increase the mobilisation of commercial finance, and explores their applicability to clean energy. It also explores sector-specific considerations for the deployment of clean energy, setting out the considerations development practitioners can make to inform better decision-making on, and maximise the development impact of, blended finance interventions.
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.
This report describes Norway’s landscape for Digital Science and Innovation Policy (DSIP) - the overarching framework through which governments make intensive use of digital technologies and data resources to support the formulation, delivery and administration of STI policy. The report describes how Norway’s DSIP landscape is shaped by its broader digital government framework and agenda, introduces the main actors in the DSIP system and discusses their main features in relation to their key objectives and the generic purposes of DSIP approaches. Special attention is paid to the role of STI statistics. It concludes by drawing out key findings and potential implications to help the Norwegian government identify opportunities that promote the system’s further development in line with its strategic objectives. This study also provides an indication of the potential opportunities and challenges that other countries might face when developing, implementing and maintaining digital systems for STI policy and administration.