Browse by: "F"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
The OECD Anti-Bribery Convention is the foremost global legal instrument for fighting the supply side of foreign bribery. The supply side of foreign bribery relates to what bribers do – it involves offering, promising or giving a bribe to a foreign public official to obtain an improper advantage in international business. In contrast, the demand side of foreign bribery refers to the offence committed by public officials who are bribed by foreign persons.
This study explores whether there is a "flip side" to enforcement actions that ended in sanctions for the supply-side of a foreign bribery transaction. It focuses on what happened on the receiving end of this transaction. That is to say, were the public officials in the demand-side country also sanctioned or otherwise disciplined?
The 2009 Commission on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress (“Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi” Commission) concluded that we should move away from over-reliance on GDP when assessing a country’s health, towards a broader dashboard of indicators that would reflect concerns such as the distribution of well-being and sustainability in all of its dimensions. This book includes contributions from members of the OECD-hosted High Level Expert Group on the Measurement of Economic Performance and Social Progress, the successor of the Stiglitz-Sen-Fitoussi Commission, and their co-authors on the latest research in this field. These contributions look at key issues raised by the 2009 Commission that deserved more attention, such as how to better include the environment and sustainability in our measurement system, and how to improve the measurement of different types of inequalities, of economic insecurity, of subjective well-being and of trust.
A companion volume Beyond GDP: Measuring What Counts for Economic and Social Performance presents an overview by the co-chairs of the High Level Expert Group, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Jean-Paul Fitoussi and Martine Durand of the progress accomplished since the 2009 report, of the work conducted by the Group over the past five years, and of what still needs to be done.
Foodborne disease caused by microbiological hazards and chemical contaminants continues to be a growing public health concern, according to the World Health Organisation. This report provides information on the incidence and costs of foodborne disease, which represent a significant economic burden on consumers, the food industry and governments. There is a need to improve interdisciplinary approaches in order to better understand public health issues and their economic consequences. This will also allow policy makers to design appropriate prevention strategies to lower the risk
Tourism is a major part of the contemporary experience economy, in which food plays an important role. Food is a key part of all cultures, a major element of global intangible heritage and an increasingly important attraction for tourists. The linkages between food and tourism also provide a platform for local economic development, which can be strengthened by the use of food experiences for branding and marketing destinations.
One of the major challenges in the experience economy is dealing with the shift towards intangible culture and heritage. The focus of many tourists has changed from the classic 'must see' physical sights such as museums and monuments towards a ‘must-experience’ imperative to consume intangible expressions of culture, such as atmosphere, creativity and lifestyle. This provides new opportunities for tourism destinations as well as new challenges, particularly in the areas of experience development, marketing and branding.
This publication provides an understanding of the role of food tourism in local economic development and its potential for country branding. It also presents several innovative case studies in the food tourism sector and the experience industry.
As part of the OECD Green Growth Strategy, this new series aims to provide in-depth reviews of the green growth issues faced by different sectors. The agriculture and fisheries sectors have an important role to play in contributing to greener growth, in particular through facilitating the uptake of green technologies and management practices and reducing waste in the food chain. This will involve a range of policies, including: the reform of environmentally harmful subsidies that distort efficient resource use; freer international trade; shifting towards targeted policies that will support poor and vulnerable farmers; rewarding the provision of ecosystem services; and encouraging R&D, technologies and management practices that improve the productivity of resource use. Framing appropriate “greening” policies is also a major governance issue which requires examining the incentives and disincentives generated by policies, as well as the regulatory and institutional framework more broadly.
This report, prepared by FAO and the OECD with inputs from IFPRI, IFAD, the World Bank and WTO, has been submitted to the G20 Presidency of the Argentine Republic in response to the Presidency’s request for information on future trends and challenges faced by global agriculture, with a special focus on the role of soils in promoting food security and the measures that could be undertaken to facilitate sustainable soil management.
Highly publicised outbreaks of food-borne diseases have put food safety at the heart of a topical debate. Demands for increased food safety regulation and stricter enforcement have gained momentum. In fact, consumer concerns go well beyond basic food safety. The quality of food and how it is produced, animal welfare, the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), hormones and other growth promoters, cultural preferences, resource sustainability and protection of the environment have all become major issues in the public debate over regulation of the food industry. The issues are complex and the required policy response remains unclear. With the strengthening of international rules, increased trade in consumer food products and the growing use of biotechnology, trade conflicts over food regulatory issues and their reform could become more common. The economic stakes are high and such disputes are likely to remain a priority in the future trade agenda. This report examines the trade conflicts arising from food safety and quality issues. It summarises the key international agreements, illustrates the range and nature of current disputes, reviews the potential contributions of economic analysis to conflict resolution, and identifies areas requiring further analysis.
What worries people across Latin America, North America, Israel and Europe? How do attitudes towards governments’ provision of social protection differ cross-nationally? A collaboration between the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Latin American Public Opinion Project (LAPOP) illustrates how views of economic risk and government effectiveness vary across the Americas and Europe. This report finds that economic discontent is global, as many respondents of both the OECD’s Risks that Matter and LAPOP’s AmericasBarometer surveys say that their country’s economic situation is worse than it was last year, and that public satisfaction with government is low. More than half of all respondents in the OECD and Latin American countries studied in this report say that government is failing to incorporate their views in social policy design and reform.
Complex policy issues cannot be solved by government alone. Delivering high-quality public services at the least cost and achieving shared public policy goals requires innovative approaches and greater involvement of citizens. This book is a valuable source of information on government performance in fostering open and inclusive policy making in 25 countries. It offers rich insights into current practice through 14 in-depth country case studies and 18 opinion pieces from leading civil society and government practitioners. It includes 10 guiding principles to support open and inclusive policy making and service delivery in practice.
“Including more people, earlier and more creatively, in public policy issues is vital not just to secure legitimacy for policy decisions, but also to unlock a mass of creativity and commitment. Innovation is increasingly going to become an open, social and networked activity. That is true in politics and policy as much as in business. This timely, thoughtful book will help make open innovation in public policy a practical reality.”
-Charles Leadbeater, author We-think: Mass innovation not mass production
“We cannot engage the public only on issues of service delivery, but need also to seek their views, energy and resources when shaping public policy. To do otherwise is to create a false distinction between design and delivery, when in the citizens’ eyes it is all connected.”
-Irma Pavliniè Krebs, Minister of Public Administration, the Republic of Slovenia
“Focus on Citizens shines a light on the practical difficulties and significant benefits of open and inclusive policy making – not only for OECD member country governments but equally for non-member countries.”
-Bart W. Édes, Head, NGO and Civil Society Center, Asian Development Bank
In today’s economic context, governments are required to take centre stage, helping workers to compete in the global market whilst also supporting employers so that they may retain jobs, increase productivity and offer better-quality employment at the local level. This book provides a new indicator for benchmarking labour-market policy, reviewing the flexibility available in its management throughout OECD countries. The research offers new evidence of the link between flexibility and employment outcomes. Concrete examples of how localities can harness greater flexibility to generate better economic and social outcomes are provided. The new style of management recommended in this book will be key to any national strategy for returning economies to prosperity.
In most IEA Member countries, natural gas demand varies strongly during the year, according to temperature. Flexibility is needed to cover seasonal swings and variations in gas demand, especially for household customers. This book analyses how new flexibility tools and mechanisms are developing with market liberalisation and with the evolution of supply and demand trends. It highlights differences in flexibility requirements and provisions among IEA Member countries.
The quality of corporate governance regulations matters. If they are well designed, they can help governments achieve important policy objectives, such as higher levels of investment, increased productivity and better business sector dynamics. But for this to happen, the rules and regulations must be allowed to evolve over time. They must also be able to meet the many different needs of those entrepreneurs, investors and stakeholders who are supposed to implement them.
This is why the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance state that policy makers have a responsibility to shape a regulatory framework that can meet the needs of corporations that operate under widely different circumstances.
Importantly, this concept of flexibility and proportionality is not about less demanding rules or the acceptance of sub-standard practices. On the contrary, it represents a functional and outcome oriented approach to regulation that facilitates implementation and makes enforcement more effective.
This OECD report presents the results of an OECD review on flexibility and proportionality practices in seven different areas of corporate governance regulation. The review covers 39 jurisdictions and six in-depth country case studies.
Recent years have seen a remarkable backlash against globalisation. The costs of increased openness and connectivity – including the consequences of trade and investment liberalisation – are weighted as never before against the benefits, with many voices advocating a slowdown or even a reversal of the global integration that has characterised the past three decades. While there are many economic, social and political reasons for this backlash, there is sufficient evidence showing that globalisation is leaving many people behind, particularly in the lower half of the income distribution, and especially in advanced countries. This backlash suggests that we need to act quickly to fix globalisation and make sure that its benefits are more equally shared. The consequences of a potential reversal of global integration could be dramatic: increased protectionism resulting in a net loss of wealth and opportunities and dangerous inward-looking policies that would put at risk many of the benefits achieved in the past decades.
Countries around the world continue to implement safety improvements and corrective actions based on lessons learnt from the 11 March 2011 accident at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. This report provides a high-level summary and update on these activities, and outlines further lessons learnt and challenges identified for future consideration. It focuses on actions taken by NEA committees and NEA member countries, and as such is complementary to reports produced by other international organisations.
A series of reviews of mental health and work policies in selected OECD countries revealed the challenge of mental health for social and labour market outcomes and policies and the high costs of the continued stigmatisation of mental health for individuals, employers and societies. To better respond to this challenge, in early 2016 health and employment ministers from the 38 OECD countries endorsed a Recommendation of the Council on Integrated Mental Health, Skills, and Work Policy. The Recommendation asked for a holistic mental-health-in-all-policies approach, with particular attention to a timely and integrated delivery of services and the involvement of frontline actors.
Five years later, it is time to assess progress achieved in the policy areas covered by the Recommendation (health policy, youth policy, workplace policy, and welfare policy). This report complements a legal document prepared by the OECD on the implementation of the Recommendation five years after its adoption, and adds quantitative evidence to it as well as considerations about the implications of the experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic on future versions of the Recommendation. Policy is in flux in most countries but much more will have to be done to implement the principles and fulfil the promises of the Recommendation.
The costs of mental ill-health for individuals, employers and society at large are enormous. Mental illness is responsible for a very significant loss of potential labour supply, high rates of unemployment, and a high incidence of sickness absence and reduced productivity at work. Following an introductory report (Sick on the Job: Myths and Realities about Mental Health and Work) and nine country reports, this final synthesis report summarizes the findings from the participating countries and makes the case for a stronger policy response.
During irradiation, nuclear fuel changes volume, primarily through swelling. This swelling is caused by the fission products and in particular by the volatile ones such as krypton and xenon, called fission gas. Fission gas behaviour needs to be reliably predicted in order to make better use of nuclear fuel, a factor which can help to achieve the economic competitiveness required by today's markets. These proceedings communicate the results of an international seminar which reviewed recent progress in the field of fission gas behaviour in light water reactor fuel and sought to improve the models used in computer codes predicting fission gas release. State-of-the-art knowledge is presented for both uranium-oxide and mixed-oxide fuels loaded in water reactors.
This publication highlights the main conclusions of the Fishing for Development joint meeting, held in Paris in April 2014. The meeting was organized by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the World Bank (WB) to initiate a dialogue between the fisheries and development policy communities from member and partner countries and organizations of the OECD. It brought together delegates to the OECD Fisheries Committee and OECD Development Assistance Committee, representatives of partner developing countries invited by FAO, as well as experts and representatives from FAO, WB, non-governmental organizations and regional organizations. The meeting focused on issues central to promoting sustainable fisheries and aquaculture in developing, emerging and developed countries alike.
This publication also includes the background papers originally prepared to provide context for the issues addressed. It identifies questions for a future work agenda on policy coherence in fisheries and aquaculture, and makes evident the strong need for further dialogue between the fisheries and development communities at global and regional scales.
The Sahel and West Africa Club (SWAC) and the OECD Fisheries Division are working with regional organisations to help them address the question of policy coherence. This book provides not only an analytical framework adapted to the local context, but also an action framework based on the facts and realities in the field in order to improve the coherence of fisheries policies.