Browse by: "2010"

Greater integration into the world economy and important policy reforms have resulted in Brazil, China, India and South Africa becoming major actors in the globalisation process, with impressive results in terms of economic growth, social development and poverty reduction. But the benefits of stronger growth have not always been shared equally and income inequality has remained at very high levels. 

Existing evidence suggests that the evolution of the distribution of income in these four countries is the result of many forces. These include demographic change, migration, unequal access to education, informal employment, existing regulations and their enforcement, social norms and cultural legacy. These forces are often interlinked and reinforce one another. However, as employment is the primary source of income for most households, understanding the impact of labour market outcomes is crucial.  

This book focuses on the role of growth and employment/unemployment developments in explaining recent income inequality trends in Brazil, China, India and South Africa, and discusses the roles played by labour market and social policies in both shaping and addressing these inequalities. It includes the papers presented at the joint OECD and European Union High-Level Conference on Inequalities in Emerging Economies held in Paris in May 2010. This work is part of OECD’s ongoing dialogue and co-operation with non-member economies around the world.

The OECD’s new Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS) has been designed to provide data and analyses on the conditions needed for effective teaching and learning in schools. As the first international survey with this focus, it seeks to fill important information gaps that have been identified at the national and international levels of education systems.

This TALIS Technical Report describes the development of the TALIS instruments and methods used in sampling, data collection, scaling and data analysis phases of the first round of the survey. It also explains the rigorous quality control programme that operated during the survey process, which included numerous partners and external experts from around the world.

The information in this report complements the first international report from TALIS, Creating Effective Teaching and Learning Environments: First Results from TALIS (OECD, 2009) and the User Guide for the TALIS International Database.

Agriculture is the major user of water in most countries. It also faces the enormous challenge of producing almost 50% more food by 2030 and doubling production by 2050. This will likely need to be achieved with less water, mainly because of growing pressures from urbanisation, industrialisation and climate change. In this context, it will be important in future for farmers to receive the right signals to increase water use efficiency and improve agricultural water management, while preserving aquatic ecosystems.  

This report calls on policy makers to recognise the complexity and diversity of water resource management in agriculture and the wide range of issues at stake. And it gives them the tools to do so, offering a wealth of information on recent trends and the outlook for water resource use in agriculture, including the impacts of climate change. It examines the policy experiences of OECD countries in managing their water resources for agriculture, with focus on: the extent to which countries subsidise the supply of water to farmers; flood and drought risk policies; and institutional organisation and governance as it relates to water and the agricultural sector. The report offers concrete recommendations on what countries should be doing and why. 

This publication reviews measures taken to support investment policy and governance reforms in Iraq.  It finds that Iraqi parliamentary elections, held without major security incidents in March 2010, are the latest in a series of indicators suggesting that the country may be achieving greater stability in governance and security - a key prerequisite for foreign and domestic investment, growth and job creation. Furthermore, the business environment is gradually improving as a result of an ongoing institutional capacity building process supported by the international community.

The MENA-OECD Initiative on Governance and Investment for Development is part of this effort, playing a key role in building the capacity of the National Investment Commission and its one-stop shop for investment licensing. The Initiative has helped raise awareness on corruption and bribery issues, provided training for the negotiators of international agreements, and advised on implementing regulations for the landmark Investment Law of 2006. This publication examines these issues, and MENA-OECD involvement in advancing them, for the period 2007-2008.

This publication provides a summary of the information available in the OECD Structural and Demographic Business Statistics (SDBS) database. Key economic variables are presented at the International Standard of Industrial Classification, Revision 3 (ISIC) 2-digit level, for all industries and OECD member countries.

It provides a wealth of information at a very detailed sectoral level including: turnover, value-added, production, operating surplus, employment, labour costs and investment. The breakdown by industrial sector, including services, is supplemented by a further breakdown into business size classes, further enhancing the analytical capabilities of the database. The database also includes business demography statistics such as business birth, death and survival rates as well as the number of high-growth enterprises.

As such, the database and the publication will help answer such questions as: Which sectors have experienced positive/negative growth in recent years? What contribution do small businesses make to economic activity? How does the structure of businesses vary across OECD countries? Which industrial sectors have the highest labour productivity? How does labour productivity vary by business size? Are small and medium enterprises (SMEs) more or less profitable per employee than large businesses? Which sectors invest most?

The service sector, in aggregate, now dominates total employment and value-added in OECD countries, accounting for more than 70% of these two measures, and continues to increase in importance. While services may play a slightly smaller role in rural regions than in urban areas, they are the dominant component of the rural economy. It is clear that a vibrant service sector is both vital for a prosperous local economy and crucial for meeting the needs of rural citizens. 

This book provides an overview of the underlying problems in delivering services to rural regions.  It contains a conceptual structure for thinking about rural service delivery problems and a strategy for thinking about the role of government in service delivery, as well as a discussion of the role that innovation and public management tools like co-design and co-delivery can play in designing better service delivery approaches.  Also included are examples of different, successful policy strategies drawn from OECD countries.

Also available

The New Rural Paradigm: Policies and Governance (2006)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Germany (2007)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Mexico (2007)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Finland (2008)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: The Netherlands (2008)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: China (2009)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Italy (2009)

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Spain (2009)  

OECD Rural Policy Reviews: Québec, Canada (forthcoming)

Governments around the world are increasingly intervening in automobile markets to improve fuel economy and reduce emissions of CO2 from new vehicles. This report reviews the rationale for such intervention and examines measures for maximum effectiveness and minimum cost.

The Round Table brought together economists, policy makers and auto engineers with the aim of advancing understanding of why car markets currently fail to deliver sufficient fuel economy. It started by questioning whether any additional measures would be necessary once an appropriate price for carbon dioxide is established via fuel taxes. It confirmed that there are indeed market imperfections that merit additional government intervention. Fuel economy and CO2 regulations are an essential part of the package. The key to maximising the benefits of such regulations is long-term planning. The longer the timeframe, the less industry investment is handicapped by uncertainty.

Subsidies to electric vehicles are more problematic because of the risks of prematurely picking winning technologies and creating subsidy dependence. And electricity production has yet to be decarbonised. However, intervention to steer innovation in this direction is merited so long as the risks of not attaining climate policy targets are seen as higher than the risks of intervention.

The global financial crisis has offered an important opportunity for Southeast Asian countries to rethink past growth strategies and project new development visions. This inaugural edition of the Southeast Asian Economic Outlook looks at current efforts to rebalance growth for the region and at what form growth will take in the future.

The analyses and discussions presented in this volume highlight the need to implement five-year development plans with a view to rebalancing growth and instituting a credible fiscal policy framework conducive to greater fiscal discipline. In particular, well-designed fiscal rules, independent fiscal agencies and a medium-term budgetary framework are crucial elements. Although such institutions are becoming increasingly important across OECD countries, there is room for improving the institutional settings in Southeast Asia.

The 2010 Outlook also addresses the fact that the future development of Southeast Asian countries is likely to be uneven across sectors and economies, unless necessary measures are taken. Sectors of new growth in the region will need to be supported by going beyond the current narrow range of electronic products and developing more niche and speciality products that are priorities of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Another area of policy action proposed is to develop more integrated transport networks. Given the huge investment needs for infrastructure development, new financing methods, such as infrastructure revenue bonds, should be further explored to promote public-private partnerships in the region.

Too many workers leave the labour market permanently due to health problems or disability, and too few people with reduced work capacity manage to remain in employment. This is a social and economic tragedy common to virtually all OECD countries. It also raises an apparent paradox that needs explaining: Why is it that the average health status is improving, yet large numbers of people of working age are leaving the workforce to rely on long-term sickness and disability benefits?  

This report, the last in the OECD series Sickness, Disability and Work: Breaking the Barriers, synthesises the project’s findings and explores the possible factors behind the paradox described above. It highlights the roles of institutions and policies and concludes that higher expectations and better incentives for the main actors – workers, employers, doctors, public agencies and service providers – are crucial. Based on a review of good and bad practices across OECD countries, this report suggests a series of major reforms are needed to promote employment of people with health problems. 

The report examines a number of critical policy choices between: tightening inflows and raising outflows from disability benefit, and promoting job retention and new hiring of people with health problems. It questions the need for distinguishing unemployment and disability as two distinct contingencies, emphasises the need for a better evidence base, and underlines the challenges for policy implementation.  

The books on “Safety Assessment of Transgenic Organisms” constitute a compilation of the OECD Biosafety Consensus Documents. When published, Volume 1 and 2 contained the documents issued before 2006; Volume 3 and 4 are a continuation of the compilation up to 2010.

The OECD Biosafety Consensus Documents identify elements of scientific information used in the environmental safety and risk assessment of transgenic organisms which are common to OECD member countries and some non members associated with the work. This is intended to encourage information sharing, promote harmonised practices, and prevent duplication of effort among countries.

These books offer ready access to those consensus documents which have been issued on the website thus far. As such, it should be of value to applicants for commercial uses of transgenic organisms (crops, trees, microorganisms), to regulators and risk assessors in national authorities, as well as the wider scientific community.

More information on the OECD's work related to the biosafety of transgenic organisms is found at BioTrack Online (http://www.oecd.org/biotrack).

The books on “Safety Assessment of Transgenic Organisms” constitute a compilation of the OECD Biosafety Consensus Documents. When published, Volume 1 and 2 contained the documents issued before 2006; Volume 3 and 4 are a continuation of the compilation up to 2010.

The OECD Biosafety Consensus Documents identify elements of scientific information used in the environmental safety and risk assessment of transgenic organisms which are common to OECD member countries and some non members associated with the work. This is intended to encourage information sharing, promote harmonised practices, and prevent duplication of effort among countries.

These books offer ready access to those consensus documents which have been issued on the website thus far. As such, it should be of value to applicants for commercial uses of transgenic organisms (crops, trees, microorganisms), to regulators and risk assessors in national authorities, as well as the wider scientific community.

More information on the OECD's work related to the biosafety of transgenic organisms is found at BioTrack Online (http://www.oecd.org/biotrack).

Small firms are playing an ever-increasing role in innovation, driven by changes in technologies and markets. Some spin-offs and high growth firms are having remarkable success. However, the broad bulk of small firms are not capitalising on their advantages. This book explores how government policy can boost innovation by improving the environment for entrepreneurship and small firm development and increasing the innovative capacities of enterprises. Policy findings and recommendations are presented in three key areas: embedding firms in knowledge flows; developing entrepreneurship skills; and social entrepreneurship.  In addition, country notes present statistics and policy data on SMEs, entrepreneurship and innovation for 40 economies, including OECD countries, Brazil, China, Estonia, Indonesia, Israel, the Russian Federation, Slovenia and South Africa.

SMEs, Entrepreneurship and Innovation is part of the OECD Innovation Strategy, a comprehensive policy strategy to harness innovation for stronger and more sustainable growth and development, and to address the key global challenges of the 21st century.

We expect governments to protect citizens from the adverse consequences of hazardous events. At the same time it is not possible or necessarily in the best interest of citizens for all risks to be removed. A risk-based approach to the design and implementation of regulation can help to ensure that regulatory approaches are efficient, effective and account for risk/risk tradeoffs across policy objectives. Risk-based approaches to the design of regulation and compliance strategies can improve the welfare of citizens by providing better protection, more efficient government services and reduced costs for business. Across the OECD there is great potential to improve the operation of risk policy as few governments have taken steps to develop a coherent risk governance policy for managing regulation.  

This publication presents recent OECD research and analysis on risk and regulatory policy.  The chapters discuss core challenges today. They offer measures for developing, or improving, coherent risk governance policies. Topics include: challenges in designing regulatory policy frameworks to manage risks; different cultural and legal dimensions of risk regulatory concepts across OECD; analytical models and principles for decision making in uncertain situations; key elements of risk regulation and governance institutions; the use of management-based regulation to help firms make risk-related behavioural changes; an analysis of the risk-based frameworks of regulators in five OECD countries (Australia, Ireland, Netherlands, Portugal, United Kingdom) and across four sectors: environment, food safety, financial markets and health and safety; and the elements for designing formal guidelines for risk prioritisation, assessment, management and communication.

Education is a central priority for the State of Santa Catarina. Its policy makers are firmly committed to provide a relevant and efficient education system that responds to the requirements of the global economy and will allow the state to be competitive, both nationally and internationally .

This OECD review gives a brief overview of education in Santa Catarina and its development. It presents an analysis of the system from pre-school to tertiary education and lifelong learning, and identifies key directions for policy reform in light of the challenges encountered by officials, communities, enterprises, educators, parents and students. It concludes with a set of key recommendations concerning the structure of the system and its labour market relevance; access and equity; governance and management; research, development and innovation; internationalisation; and financing.