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The urgency of tackling COVID-19 has led governments in many countries to launch a number of short-notice and fast-tracked initiatives (e.g. calls for research proposals). Without proper co-ordination amongst ministries and agencies, they run the risk of duplicating efforts or missing opportunities, resulting in slower progress and economic inefficiencies.
Countries deploy a variety of financial, regulatory and soft policy instruments to promote science-industry knowledge exchange. While these instruments are often discussed in isolation, they are implemented collectively and may reinforce and complement but also weaken or even negatively affect each other and add excessive complexity. This paper develops a conceptual framework to map policy instruments for knowledge exchange and assess the interactions between them. The framework also considers how national contexts and global trends influence the choice of policy instruments. Policy examples drawn from the EC-OECD STIP Compass database and from case studies show that there are significant differences across countries in the relative importance given to each policy instrument in terms of budget, target groups, eligibility criteria, time horizon and implementation. These differences are also a consequence of different country conditions.
This paper examines how 37 US cities regulate scooter parking. It analyses rates of improper scooter parking and discusses how cities can employ scooter regulations, in conjunction with other policies, to realise broader goals such as promoting sustainability and mobility.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping economies, promising to generate productivity gains, improve efficiency and lower costs. At the same time, AI is also fuelling anxieties and ethical concerns. As AI’s impacts permeate our societies, its transformational power must be put at the service of people and the planet. This document presents the work conducted by the Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence at the OECD (AIGO) to scope principles to foster trust in and adoption of AI. In particular, this paper presents a common understanding of what is an AI system as well as a framework that details the stages of the AI system lifecycle. This work informed the draft Recommendation of the Council on Artificial Intelligence. On 22 May 2019, the OECD Council adopted the Recommendation – also referred to as the OECD AI Principles – at the Ministerial level.
The Tenth OECD/World Bank/IMF Annual Global Bond Market Forum highlighted that liquidity is a complex concept with different dimensions – micro liquidity vs. macro liquidity, market liquidity vs. funding liquidity, endogenous vs. exogenous liquidity, and so on. Relative liquidity (including ‘liquidity freezes or squeezes’) can best be explained by focusing on the market’s institutional structure, in particular the architecture of electronic trading platforms, the importance of OTC trading, the nature and width of the investor base, disclosure requirements, valuation methods, the role of primary dealers including market-making requirements or conventions, tax factors, and the role of issuers of government bonds and other fixed-income instruments in primary and secondary markets.
This paper considers the carbon market aspects of sectoral approaches to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in developing countries. It discusses three general ways to link sectoral goals with the carbon market: (i) intensity goals, based on a GHG performance per unit of output; (ii) fixed emission goals, with an ex-post issuance of credits or trading with an ex-ante allocation of allowances; and (iii) technology-based sectoral objectives.
This paper explores the domestic policy implications of moving from a single project approach (i.e., CDM), to a multi-plant, sector-wide carbon market mechanism implied by sectoral crediting and trading. It also touches on possible transition issues, especially from intensity-based emission goals to fixed ones. The paper concludes that sector-based market mechanisms, regardless of the design option chosen, will require some significant upfront effort both nationally and internationally to set appropriate baselines and ensure adequate measurement, reporting and verification in order to generate economically valuable and environmentally-credible credits. Technology diffusion goals may be supported by other means than the carbon market if developing GHG baselines for such activities were too difficult. Sectoral approaches also imply some significant policy effort in countries that adhere to them, to ensure that the baselines are exceeded so that carbon market revenues are generated, and that these revenues represent effective incentives for entities to pursue GHG mitigation, wherever it is most cost-effective to do so.
The paper also addresses the possible principles and technical requirements that Parties may wish to consider, as the foundations for further elaboration of the mechanisms. Beyond principles, a number of elements of a more technical nature need to be sorted out to set up new market mechanisms, such as: eligibility for participation by developed countries, as buyers; technical definition of baselines, including guidance on a process to agree to baseline levels, and possible revisions; length of the crediting period and frequency of issuance of credits; new trading units and registries; and national authorities for the new mechanisms. In the case of trading, a compliance reserve and liability rules may be topics for discussion as well.
The third issue explored by this paper is domestic implementation of sectoral market mechanisms by host countries, and how the transition between current and future mechanisms could be managed. Transition issues including the situation of existing CDM projects vis-à-vis broader crediting mechanisms and also sectoral trading must be clarified. Domestic policy implementation in developing countries is of paramount importance to ensure the effectiveness of possible new international market mechanisms. Several illustrations are offered to show how a mix of policies could be used to outperform a baseline to generate credits, and how credit revenues could be used to further support domestic policy implementation. Among the options discussed are subsidies to low-carbon technologies (e.g. feed-in tariffs), mandated performance standards, and an entity level baseline-and-crediting system.
This paper discusses product market regulatory reforms in Italy over the past decade. Special attention is given to the underlying macroeconomic context for sectoral reforms and the role played by such reforms in consolidating the gains of macroeconomic convergence for entry into the European Monetary Union. The paper suggests that the shift towards more market-oriented and less interventionist policies, has allowed Italy’s legal and institutional framework to come closer to the mainstream of good regulatory practices in the OECD countries. With Italy having been initially a laggard on the regulatory reform front, recent achievements have been remarkable. They are, however, incomplete. A major challenge is the need to secure competition in the sheltered sectors of the economy, where inflation inertia raises costs and affects the exposed sectors, thereby weakening international competitiveness ...
This paper sheds light on the importance of aggregation bias in the analysis of wage shares developments over time and across countries. We focus on five European countries and the United States and show that the trend decline in the aggregate wage share observed in these countries over much of the 1980s and 1990s partly reflects changes in the sectoral composition of the economy. The application of a fixed-weight aggregation method changes the profile of the observed wage share in a significant way: in particular there is no longer sign of an overshooting of the wage share levels of the early-1970s. Error-correction wage equations based on the adjusted wage shares generally have a better regression fit and show long-run elasticities of real wages to unemployment that vary less across countries and are substantially lower than those obtained with observed shares. These results are broadly confirmed by wage regressions using sectoral data and the Pooled Mean Group estimator ...
This study explores the impact of export shocks on firms and re-aggregates results to derive distributional effects on sectors and regions. In a first step, firm level data are used to assess the empirical relationship between exports and three outcome variables – labour productivity, employment and wages. In a second step, an illustrative set of changes in trading relationships generate sectoral export shocks, which are simulated with the OECD METRO model of trade and subsequently fed into micro-level estimates. The method developed in this study can be applied to other countries, conditional on the availability of data. As an initial case study, the analysis is for the United Kingdom which has weak regional productivity outside London, partly related to sectoral and trade specialisation. In particular, the most productive regions are specialised in knowledge-intensive services and are more intensive in tradable services. The results suggest limited impacts of export shocks on sectoral employment, except for car and truck manufacturing, consistent with a high integration of the sector with European value chains. Labour productivity and wages are negatively affected across most sectors, but the effects are smaller on the services sector relative to the goods sector. Given that services activities are concentrated in more productive regions, these regions are more resilient to shocks. The United Kingdom has a strong comparative advantage in services sectors and promoting the opening of global services markets would be an important way to offset potential negative impacts of export shocks on the other sectors of the economy.
In order to increase efficiency, the EC has defined six priority areas for its activities, and three key cross-cutting issues. The clearer focus reflects an understanding of the comparative advantage of the EC regarding the linkage of trade and political dialogue with development co-operation and complementarity with the Member States. The overall policy framework for development co-operation and the sectoral action plans show the linkages to poverty reduction. The increasing use of sector wide approaches, including budget support, are also intended to increase country ownership, efficiency, and effectiveness. The EC will still face capacity challenges to develop its implementation strategies and policy dialogue.
This document explores two interrelated aspects of leveraging movable assets to facilitate access to finance: first, the implementation of collateral registries for movable assets, and second, the collateralisation of intangible movable assets. Both dimensions benefit from a case study approach. The report examines how these different instruments function and highlights the opportunities and challenges for making better use of them. It also outlines the role that policies can play in this regard.