Browse by: "S"

Over the last several years the author conducted 126 interviews and held four focus groups with academic staff, administrators and others associated with Australian universities, about the problems and challenges they believed faced the system of tertiary education. Widespread concern and pessimism pervaded the interviews about the future of tertiary education in Australia. Approximately three quarters of the interviewees said that the system was worse, or certainly no better, today than a decade ago; a similar number held out little hope that the system would improve, if not deteriorate further, in a decade. In this article the author outlines what he sees as systemic barriers to change and then offers suggestions for ...

Systemic financial crises are a recurrent phenomenon, and despite regulatory efforts they are likely to occur again. This report compares the ex ante funding of deposit insurance schemes in a selection of countries, highlighting the “funding gap” left by these arrangements in the recent systemic financial crisis. To fill that gap, different approaches have been adopted across countries in the recent crisis. Where support for the financial sector was provided as part of policy response to the crisis, new taxes have been adopted to generate revenues ex post, although the specific approaches have differed. While there is no single solution in this regard, this report finds that ex ante funded systemic crisis resolution funds, together with strengthened failure resolution powers, are in principle adequate to help fill the gap. JEL Classification: E44, G01, G21, G28, E61, H21. Keywords: systemic financial crisis, systemic crisis resolution fund, deposit insurance, financial activities taxes, ex ante versus ex post funding.

Safety governance refers to the approaches taken to minimise the risk for patient harm across an entity or system. It typically comprises steering and rule-making functions such as policies, regulations and standards. To date, governance has focused on the clinical level and the hospital setting, with limited oversight and control over safety in other parts of the health system. All 25 countries that responded to a 2019 OECD Survey of Patient Safety Governance have enacted legislation that aims to promote patient safety. These practices include external accreditation and inspections of safety processes and outcomes. Safety governance models are also moving away from punishment and shaming towards increased trust and openness. Learning from success as well as failures represents a paradigm shift in safety governance, an approach that has been increasingly adopted in OECD countries.

“System accreditation” is a new approach developed for German universities to conduct the mandatory accreditation of all their study programmes. A pilot project at Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz is playing an important role in paving the way for this alternative to prevailing programme accreditation. This article describes how system accreditation, an innovative approach towards organisational adaption to national regulations, was conceived and how it functions. Based on the experience of Johannes Gutenberg University, the article explores the potential of system accreditation to improve quality assurance and the development of study programmes. System accreditation faces three global challenges: that of creating an integrated approach, establishing a solid evidence base and fostering the effectiveness of evaluation efforts.

The design of intergovernmental fiscal relations can help to ensure that tax and spending powers are assigned in a way to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Decentralisation can enable sub-central governments to provide better public services for households and firms, while it can also make intergovernmental frameworks more complex, harming equity. The challenges of fiscal federalism are multi-faceted and involve difficult trade-offs. This synthesis paper consolidates much of the OECD’s work on fiscal federalism over the past 15 years, with a particular focus on OECD Economic Surveys. The paper identifies a range of good practices on the design of country policies and institutions related strengthening fiscal capacity delineating responsibilities across evels of government and improving intergovernmental co-ordination.

Improved integration of cycling and transit has the potential to overcome the fundamental limitations of each mode by combining their opposite strengths of flexibility and action radius. The benefits of such integration potentially extend beyond user benefits and the trip level. We present seven conceptual mechanisms that lead to synergies, understood as benefits not attributable to cycling or transit in isolation, but to their integration only. As an illustration, we analyse and allocate such synergies by a case study of the Dutch cycling-transit system. Where the practical absence of cycling has limited such potential in many locations elsewhere, the recent resurgence in cycling practice and culture, especially in urban agglomerations, enables new opportunities for improved cycling-transit integration. Urban agglomerations are also the locations where land-use and mobility related issues seem particularly pressing and where we claim cycling-transit synergies are strongest. The article concludes with a discussion of implication and application.

This report develops quantitative and qualitative frameworks to test the possibility of systematically assessing a range of policies and their intended and unintended effects. The analysis spans the three policy objectives of enhanced productivity, climate change mitigation, and climate change adaptation. The preliminary findings and lessons learned are drawn from two applications of a qualitative framework (France and the Netherlands), where information was gathered through a wide-ranging questionnaire, and from two applications of a quantitative modelling framework which was tested using data from Finland and from selected sites in one region of the United States.

This paper focuses on Swiss GDP revisions and the uncertainty they generate from the point of view of monetary policy. After a description of the revisions features, we use GDP vintages to compute real-time output gaps using a production function approach. Then, with a nominal feedback rule, we assess the impact of GDP – and hence output gap – on revisions monetary policy. The main results are threefold. First, Swiss GDP revisions – similarly to those of other small economies – are large, and estimates converge slowly to their final value. Second, GDP mismeasurements clearly exacerbate the difficulty in estimating output gaps. Third, the impact of revisions on monetary policy varies over time. Via its effect on output gaps, ceteris paribus, the inaccuracy of GDP estimates risks introducing a procyclical bias in monetary policy decisions.

Being able to swim empowers individuals to make choices, have agency, and be free to choose core aspects of their life, such as working safely on or near water. It is also associated with lifelong health benefits and reduces the risk of drowning. Using data from the Lloyd’s Register Foundation World Risk Poll 2019, this paper provides the first global estimates of adults’ ability to swim without assistance. Individuals in high-income countries are considerably more likely to report being able to swim without assistance than individuals in low-income countries. Disparities also exist within countries. In particular, women are less likely to be able to swim without assistance than men in virtually all countries, birth cohorts, and levels of education. Investing in reducing inequalities in life skills, such as swimming, can foster economic development and empowerment, especially in light of threats, such as climate change.

Iceland has been experiencing a tourism boom. The number of tourists visiting annually quadrupled between 2010 and 2016 and shows continued strength. The tourism sector is now the major export earner and is also creating new jobs and supporting new businesses. The government budget has also benefitted from high tax revenues. The surge in tourism supported growth after the crisis and the sector has become a major pillar of the economy. But, the breakneck growth of tourism has created a number of challenges. Growing pains have emerged as accommodation supply has lagged in the wake of unexpectedly large number of tourists, contributing to pressure on the local housing market. The environment, particularly in some popular sites, has also come under pressure. The government has reacted to these environmental and social impacts and has worked with the industry to agree on a path forward. Sustaining a nature-based tourism for Iceland will require more coordinated policy across government and a long-term strategic plan that builds on Iceland's strengths. Protecting the unique environmental attractions of Iceland - while mitigating adverse social impacts - will lay the basis for the healthy development of a new important sector.
This working paper relates to the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of Iceland (http://www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-iceland.htm).

Some governments hit by recession have chosen to invest in higher education as part of long-term economic and social development and international competitiveness agendas; others have opted for a route of cuts, financial stringency and contraction of their higher education systems. This article explores challenges to leadership in the latter context. Different types of institutional responses are examined in terms of three categories: reactive, adaptive and generative, first in terms of the nature of responses and second in relation to three institutional case studies. The higher education responses are then compared with the responses – and associated leadership lessons – that have been compiled from other sectors. Different forms of leadership development are also helping leaders to meet the challenges at individual, team and organisational levels, within and across countries and sectors.