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OECD nations face particularly powerful fiscal pressures over the coming decades. To handle these pressures without lapsing into fiscally irresponsibility, they will need to make courageous decisions on both the expenditure and tax sides. This paper looks at the implications of this for budgeting. It focuses particularly on reallocation and expenditure discipline, including the role of spending review, and the design and implementation of expenditure ceilings. The question of the relevance of net worth as a fiscal policy measure is also discussed, as is the potential for efficiency savings to relieve the fiscal pressure on governments.
Digital transformation affects every aspect of our lives, providing new spaces and tools for us to connect, work, consume, and enjoy our rights. It offers a multitude of social and economic opportunities, but also brings new and complex risks. An empowering and safe digital environment that puts people first is therefore a core policy goal of the digital age. Through the lens of a fictional family navigating these opportunities and risks, this paper looks at how digital transformation impacts us as individuals, be it as citizens, consumers, or workers. It outlines the policy landscape, and describes the international, multi-stakeholder, and nuanced efforts needed to strike a balance between different rights, interests, and values. A background paper for the 2022 Digital Economy Ministerial meeting, this paper supports senior policy makers in designing and achieving a human-centric digital transformation.
Environmental amenities provide a range of direct and indirect benefits in cities, and amenity provision often figures within policy portfolios to advance sustainability in urban areas. As environmental pressures and urban populations increase, it will be necessary to find ways to ensure that environmental policies do not contribute to existing inequalities in these areas. This report synthesises empirical research on the impact of environmental amenities on housing prices, examines implications on housing affordability, and offers perspectives on how negative impacts can be mitigated. The report finds that the provision of environmental amenities tends to raise housing prices, which reduces affordability, especially among renters and low-income households with reduced access to mortgages. The report concludes that there is scope to accompany amenity provision with complementary measures to mitigate distributional impacts and outlines policy avenues in that regard.
While sustainable finance approaches are increasingly used by financial market participants, a number of challenges still undermine and hinder the efficient mobilisation of capital to support environmental, social and governance (ESG), and climate-related objectives. These challenges include limited transparency and comparability of climate transition and ESG methodologies and metrics. This document provides guidance for policy makers and market participants seeking to strengthen ESG investing and finance a climate transition through the use of quality metrics, ratings, targets and frameworks.
This paper provides an overview of how social services are organised in European Union countries. With a special focus on Spain and countries with federal or semi-federal organisation, the paper starts by analysing social services from a legal perspective. It provides a comparative perspective on several concrete aspects of social services: sources of funding (national, regional, local, etc.), organization of service provision, expenditure, human resources, governance and coordination between institutions. The analysis finds that, despite differences across countries, there is no link between the existence of a comprehensive national social services laws and the comprehensiveness of the social service offer (the main differences concern family services and housing services in countries which consider housing as a right). There exist large differences in the contribution of central, regional, and local governments to social expenditure. Spending more on services does not necessarily imply spending less in cash transfers. Indeed, it appears that Nordic countries, that spend more on services as a share of their GDP, also spend more on cash transfers. Finally, the paper stresses the important role of the information technology and the horizontal and vertical coordination mechanisms to improve service quality and accessibility.
Reflecting on the experiences of responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, this OECD working paper illustrates selected international trends that are driving innovation in the practice of public communication across the OECD to make it more inclusive, responsive and compelling. These include advanced uses of “big data” and analytics to power precise, targeted communication, collaboration with trusted third-party messengers in diverse communities, and the application of behavioural insights (BI) to communication. In turn, these trends can help promote the use of public communication for policy, openness and dialogue. The paper reflects on the implications of these international trends for four countries in Southeast Asia, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand. It looks at local lessons from the pandemic response and identifies avenues for adopting global good practices more widely. The paper focuses on a set of institutional prerequisites, including fostering a culture of innovation in public communication mandates and approaches, ensuring access to specialised skillsets, and strengthening ethical guidance in the use of new technologies and BI.
The fuel efficiency of conventional private vehicles is a key input in the design of several economic and environmental policies. Reliable projections of the fuel efficiency variable can improve estimates on the future emission savings from policies promoting vehicle replacement, and on future revenues from fuel taxes. This paper examines the evolution of fuel efficiency using data on cars entering the US market from 1984 to 2020. It uses a series of new indexes for the gasoline cost in OECD countries and the stringency of fuel economy regulations. The paper shows that the effect of fuel prices and taxes is significant and robust. Doubling the user cost of gasoline with a stringent carbon tax will cause an irreversible increase in fuel efficiency by 6-11%. Increasing the stringency of the US CAFE standards by 10% raises average fuel efficiency by 2-3%. The impact of cross-market regulations is ambiguous.
The COVID-19 pandemic has critically tested OECD economies, with major differences in economic repercussions at the subnational level. The pandemic can be characterised as a combination of shocks to local economies: (i) a recession, (ii) a supply-side shock mirroring a natural disaster, and (iii) the economic and workplace adjustments accelerated by pre-existing megatrends (e.g. automation, green transition). This paper reviews the empirical evidence for effective policies from across the OECD to strengthen local economic resilience through support for people, firms and places. There is a strong need for effective policies in times of recessions, natural disasters and long-term structural change. Policies that strengthen economic resilience strongly overlap with policies for local productivity growth and vice-versa. Moreover, some policies aiming to increase resilience through adding redundancy in production or infrastructure can serve productivity in the long-term.
The policy paper provides an overview of the institutional landscape on public integrity in Bulgaria, focusing on its key co-operation mechanism – the National Council on Anti-Corruption Policy – and the way it can best serve the implementation of Bulgaria’s main strategic anticorruption document, the National Strategy for Preventing and Countering Corruption. It also addresses the institutional arrangements for integrity within entities of the executive branch and elaborates on how they can be best strengthened and supported by national integrity actors. Together with the Centre of Government Scan and Regulatory Policy Scan this policy paper is a part of the governance scan series drafted in the framework of the “Driving Public Administration Reform Forward” project funded by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support.
In the face of slowing productivity growth, a number of OECD countries have set up pro-productivity institutions to produce objective evidence and data on productivity trends and growth drivers and help inform pro-productivity policies and interventions. The paper presents a new analytical framework to analyse the key characteristics of these pro-productivity institutions. The framework draws on a comprehensive stocktaking of pro-productivity institutions and applied policy advice work aimed at supporting capabilities and mutual learning across these institutions. The paper finds that pro-productivity institutions rely on a variety of set-ups and approaches to contribute to pro-productivity policies. Despite this variety, the paper does point to some lessons that can help pro-productivity institutions to continuously strengthen their capabilities. In particular, the paper highlights the importance of guaranteeing the analytical independence of pro-productivity institutions and access to micro-level data on firms and workers to inform policies and interventions with objective data and evidence. The paper opens a new line of research on the political economy of productivity policies that can support countries ensure the effective implementation of policies aimed at enhancing incomes and living standards.
This paper aims at supporting Lebanon in developing a tailored public procurement risk management strategy based on its national context and international good practices. It highlights the relevance of a risk management approach in public procurement and provides the country with practical steps to develop a public procurement risk management strategy, in accordance with the principles of the 2015 OECD Recommendation on Public Procurement.
This case study is part of a series of case studies on the measurement of the impacts of centralised purchasing bodies on procurement efficiency and productivity. It looks at procurement practices and strategies, assesses their impacts on the effectiveness of the procurement system and their influence on the economy at large. It further establishes linkages between procurement strategies and national well-being indicators. The case study also looks at the enabling factors that are critical to achieve a comprehensive measurement of the multi-dimensional impacts of strategic public procurement.
The digital environment offers opportunities that can enrich children’s physical and mental well-being. Yet, false and misleading digital content, including disinformation and misinformation, is a risk. It can deepen political polarisation, erode public trust in democratic institutions and threaten public health. Media literacy is part of a suite of policies countries are using to maximise digital opportunities and minimise digital risks. This paper has four parts. First, it outlines current research and definitions relating to false and misleading digital content and looks at children's behaviour in the digital environment. Second, the concepts of media literacy, digital literacy and other relevant competencies are discussed. Third, research on children’s experiences of false and misleading digital content and their perceived levels of digital media literacy is analysed. Finally, policies and practices which deliver media literacy are discussed. Research limitations and other barriers, such as teacher training, are described.
The impacts of the war in Ukraine will be felt severely within OECD economies, especially in border regions on the front-line of the humanitarian refugee crisis. The economic impacts, in particular those driven by rising energy prices, will also be spatially differentiated, affecting some regions more than others. Italy is no exception, with gas-intensive industries concentrated in northern regions, and wheat-based food and farming prevailing in southern regions and islands. While, overall, Russia accounted for a minor share of Italian exports, some regions and industries are more vulnerable than others to falls in bilateral trade, including destinations popular with high per-capita expenditure Russian tourists.
The military coup of August 2020 upended Mali’s fragile liberal democratic order. The junta-led transitionary government defies international pressure to fasten the return of democratically-elected rulers and constitutional rule. The ability of the junta to shape the course of Malian politics rests on two interconnected pillars. First, there is public resentment towards the post-1991 political class and France’s military involvement in the country. The forces representing that resentment view the junta as change makers and have formed influential political organisations that oppose there turn to the status quo ante. Second, there is the security co-operation with Russian mercenaries, which provides the transitionary government with an alternative security partner. The paper traces the origins, evolution, and the future strength of these pillars. It concludes by outlining future political scenarios and the future role of the military in Malian politics.
Liner shipping and container ports have repeatedly made headline news since 2020 as companies across supply chains were hit with price hikes and shipment delays. Predictability became a thing of the past. This report assesses these disruptions to containerised maritime transport and analyses their causes and impacts.
In recent years, a number of consumer product safety authorities have established product safety pledges with online marketplaces as a new way to better protect consumers from the risk of purchasing unsafe products that may be available on those platforms. Product safety pledges involve online marketplaces committing to actions to better protect consumers that go beyond their existing legal obligations (e.g. removing unsafe product listings within a specified timeframe upon notification).
This policy guidance builds on a 2021 Communiqué from the OECD Working Party on Consumer Product Safety calling for the development of further such pledges globally and outlining key commitments for greater consistency. It provides practical examples on how each of the Communiqué’s four key commitments can be implemented and highlights strategies to ensure that pledges are successful in both the short and long term.
The impacts of the war in Ukraine will be felt severely within OECD economies, especially in border regions on the front-line of the humanitarian refugee crisis. The economic impacts, in particular those driven by rising energy prices, will also be spatially differentiated, affecting some regions more than others. Italy is no exception, with gas-intensive industries concentrated in northern regions, and wheat-based food and farming prevailing in southern regions and islands. While, overall, Russia accounted for a minor share of Italian exports, some regions and industries are more vulnerable than others to falls in bilateral trade, including destinations popular with high per-capita expenditure Russian tourists.
This policy brief on access to finance for inclusive and social entrepreneurship was produced by the OECD and the European Commission. It presents evidence on the access to finance challenges faced by entrepreneurs from under-represented and disadvantaged groups and social entrepreneurs, and discusses how public policy could harness the potential of fintech to address these challenges. This covers crowdfunding, blockchain and the application of big data to finance for inclusive and social entrepreneurship. The policy brief also discusses the growing need for governments to strengthen financial literacy among the target groups of inclusive and social entrepreneurship policy, including with respect to fintech. Different policy approaches are discussed, including embedding financial literacy training in financial intermediation.
This policy response addresses implications for public governance in Ukraine caused by Russia's large-scale aggression. It looks at impacts and development initiatives related to public administration reform, rule of law, public integrity and anti-corruption, as well as multi-level governance. The policy response suggests some key considerations for policy makers as part of Ukraine's recovery efforts.