Browse by: "2013"

As Mexico seeks to boost economic growth, pressures on its natural resources and environmental outcomes may intensify, jeopardizing the sustainability of that growth and the well-being of the population. Costs of environmental degradation were estimated at approximately 5% of GDP in 2011, primarily from the health impact of air pollution, while overexploitation of natural resources – such as water – threatens their sustainability. Subsidies and prices do not reflect environmental externalities or cost of providing natural resources, including scarcity costs. They result in poor environmental outcomes, represent a heavy burden on the government budget and, contrary to their original objective, have not efficiently tackled poverty and inequality. Such subsidies should be gradually removed. In the energy sector, reforms are needed in order to allow the state-owned oil company PEMEX to become more efficient operationally and environmentally, and to better provide fiscal revenues.

With sound framework conditions, fine universities, good infrastructure and policies friendly towards foreign direct investment, Ireland scores high in international innovation scoreboards. Overall, policies to boost innovation and entrepreneurship are on the right track, but investment in knowledge-based capital could be made a more dynamic source of growth and jobs. While Ireland has made good progress towards building up its scientific capabilities, innovation capacity remains weaker than in other small advanced OECD countries, such as Austria, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland. To become more effective, the innovation strategy should be simplified, with a drastic reduction in the number of government agencies involved in funding innovation, so as to better focus on strengthening the linkages between the business and academic communities. While attracting high-tech multinationals should remain central, there is potential to better develop spillovers between these firms and domestic SMEs, notably by establishing applied research centres. Entrepreneurship should be fostered by improving the business environment, including access to non-bank finance, streamlining the insolvency regime and transfer of intellectual property rights, and upgrading the broadband network. This working paper relates to the 2013 Economic Survey of Ireland (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/ireland)

This paper provides an overview of the differing ways in which capital income is taxed across the OECD. It provides an analytical framework which summarises the statutory tax treatment of dividend income, interest income and capital gains on shares and real property across the OECD, considering where appropriate the interaction of corporate and personal tax systems. It describes the different approaches to the tax treatment of these income types at progressive stages of taxation and concludes the discussion of each income type by summarising the different systems in diagrammatic form. For each income type, the paper presents worked calculations of the maximum combined statutory tax rates in each OECD country, under the tax treatment and rates applying as at 1 July 2012. These treatments and rates may have changed since this date and the paper should not be interpreted as reflecting the current taxation of capital income in OECD countries.

The economic downturn is likely to have a lasting impact on the fund management industry and on long term asset allocation strategies of institutional investors. On one hand, in promoting more cautious investment strategies and a greater focus on portfolio risk management in the coming years. On the other hand, the prolonged low-yield environment has heightened the need for return-enhancing strategies, pushing some investors to invest in alternative assets. More fundamentally, the role of institutional investors in long term financing is constrained by the short-termism increasingly pervasive in capital markets as well as structural and policy barriers such as regulatory disincentives, lack of appropriate financing vehicles, limited investment and risk management expertise, transparency, viability issues and a lack of appropriate data and investment benchmarks for illiquid assets such as infrastructure.

This paper presents an analysis of the labour market and mobility indicators generated by the second large-scale data collection on Careers of Doctorate Holders, a joint project by the OECD, UNESCO Institute for Statistics and Eurostat.

There has been a steady increase in the number of doctoral degrees being awarded across the OECD and the evidence points to a sustained labour market premium of doctorate holders relative to other highly qualified individuals in 2009, prior to the potential impact of the economic crisis. Women and younger doctoral graduates, however, fare relatively worse in terms of employment rates, but these results are less marked than for lower degree holders. While temporary positions are increasingly common in academics, coinciding with the rise of postdoctoral positions, they are less so in business. Natural scientists and engineers are those who are more likely to be engaged in research, while social scientists find more opportunities in non-research occupations. Doctorate holders in the medical and health sciences are generally better paid. Earnings are also typically higher in the business sector than in other sectors, but there are exceptions. Job mobility patterns differ markedly across countries, with mobility being more frequent among doctorates not working in research. Oftentimes mobility from the business sector to the higher education sector is higher than the other way around. International mobility, as well as migration of doctoral graduates, have kept increasing over the decade.

This paper, predominantly on the challenges for port development, in some important sense cannot help but also be about the deeper phenomena of structural change in the maritime industry and geographical shift. The main objective is to analyse the evolution of symptoms of change in the liner shipping industry within South America and more particularly on the West Coast, as these changes are direct drivers of port infrastructure and port system development, which is both economically interesting and a matter of serious policy significance in its own right.

Learning Study is a collaborative, action-research approach to improve the effectiveness of student learning by enhancing the professional competence of teachers. This is achieved through the collaborative construction of the pedagogical content knowledge enabling them better to teach specific objects of learning. Through inquiry and authentic learning by the teachers, it takes account of students’ prior knowledge in the lesson planning and so creates an authentic learning environment for the students. This paper explains how the Learning Study approach relates to the set of approaches known as “Lesson Study” and how it incorporates the principles for high quality learning proposed by the OECD project on Innovative Learning Environments (ILE) in its design and implementation. It examines how Learning Study helps to integrate the factors comprising innovative learning environments. It analyses the critical conditions that support its development and practice in schools and in professional learning networks and education systems in general.

• Des élèves immigrés partageant le même pays d’origine, et donc de nombreuses similitudes culturelles, affichent néanmoins des performances très différentes selon les systèmes d’éducation.
• L’écart de performance entre élèves immigrés et élèves autochtones issus du même milieu socio-économique est moindre dans les systèmes d’éducation qui présentent d’importants effectifs d’élèves immigrés et où la diversité des origines socio-économiques de ces élèves est comparable à celle des élèves autochtones.

• In an economically uncertain world, countries must balance the need for austerity with the need to invest in building a high-quality workforce.
• There is only a weak relationship between spending per student and tertiary attainment rates – the same level of spending can produce very different outcomes in different countries.
• The amount of time students spend getting their qualification varies widely across OECD countries but more time spent in education does not produce a better-qualified workforce.
• The risk of an over-educated population seems small: higher participation rates do not lead to higher graduate unemployment. Rather, the widening employment gap between the most and the least educated suggests countries should continue to aim for a highly-qualified young workforce.

• Immigrant students who share a common country of origin, and therefore many cultural similarities, perform very differently across school systems.
• The difference in performance between immigrant students and non-immigrant students of similar socio-economic status is smaller in school systems with large immigrant populations and where immigrant students are as diverse in socio-economic status as other students.

• One-third of the population of OECD countries hold an upper secondary vocational education and training (VET) qualification as their highest educational attainment, and it is estimated that nearly half will graduate from a VET programme in their lifetime.
• Keeping up with technology developments in industry can be a costly endeavour, although partnering with employers can help to spread the cost of VET programmes.
• While vocational qualifications offer young people a good chance of finding employment, they are sometimes seen as a second-class choice and limit their value in the labour market overall.
• Countries need to ensure their vocational programmes offer all students the basic skills they need in the labour market and in life, as well as the opportunity to progress on to tertiary education if they wish.

• Les systèmes d’éducation performants et les réformateurs efficaces partagent certaines caractéristiques essentielles : la foi dans le potentiel de tous leurs élèves, une solide volonté politique, et la capacité de toutes les parties prenantes à déployer des efforts durables et concertés pour atteindre leurs objectifs d’amélioration.
• Les pays/économies qui ont amélioré leur performance en compréhension de l’écrit au fil des cycles PISA y sont parvenus en réduisant le pourcentage d’élèves peu performants, en augmentant celui des élèves très performants, et/ou en atténuant l’impact du milieu socio-économique des élèves sur la performance de ces derniers.

• Strong performers and successful reformers in education share some key characteristics: a belief in the potential of all their students, strong political will, and the capacity of all stakeholders to make sustained and concerted efforts towards improvement.
• Countries/Economies that have improved their reading performance over the years have done so by reducing the proportion of poor-performing students, increasing the share of high performers, and/or weakening the impact of students’ socio-economic status on their performance.

This report presents the results of the local component of the OECD Review of SME and Entrepreneurship Issues and Policies at National and Local Levels in Mexico. It draws on case studies conducted in the two states of Morelos and Queretaro and examines regional disparities in entrepreneurship activity in Mexico; the governance of entrepreneurship and SME policies, focusing on coordination between national and local policies and how national programmes are tailored to the different state development needs; and policies at state level to support workforce and entrepreneurship skills, business innovation and industry-university knowledge flows, access to finance, and improvements in business regulations.

An important source of political opposition to measures aimed at reducing emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) arises from concerns over their negative effects on the competitiveness of domestic firms, especially those that are energy-intensive and exposed to competition from foreign producers. Politicians and industry representatives alike fear that imports from countries without similar regulations can gain cost-of-production advantages over domestic goods. With many of the major economies of the world contemplating unilateral action to restrict their carbon emissions (while continuing to pursue co-ordinated multilateral action), the parallel concern of carbon leakage — whereby domestic reductions in emissions are partially or wholly counterbalanced by increased emissions elsewhere in the world — has also arisen. Various adjustments have been proposed, both in the academic literature and in draft climate legislation, including levying a border tax or requiring importers to surrender a quantity of carbon permits. Collectively, these kinds of adjustments are often referred to as border carbon adjustments, or BCAs. This note reviews the existing literature on BCAs and alternatives to BCAs and discusses what various researchers have concluded about the efficacy of BCAs from both a trade and an environmental perspective.

Each year SIGMA produces assessment reports as a contribution to the EC’s annual reports on EU candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as to its programming of technical assistance. These reports assess progress made in public administration reform by our beneficiary countries. The report for Kosovo* analyses and takes stock of progress achieved by this country in 2013, with an aim to also provide inputs into its reform agenda. It focuses on policy making and co-ordination, public expenditure management, co-ordination, implementation and priorities of public administration reform, civil service, human resource management in the public sector and administrative law, and public procurement. *This designation is without prejudice to positions on status, and is line with UNSCR 1244 and the ICJ Opinion on the Kosovo Declaration of Independence.

As a continuation of the 2013 SIGMA assessments and as part of a longer-term programme of work, SIGMA has identified country priorities for public administration reform (PAR) for Serbia. Priorities cover the overall PAR needs of the country, including areas which were not covered by the assessments. Priorities in areas outside the scope of SIGMA assessments are based on other analytical sources and SIGMA’s practical experience of working with the country. SIGMA proposes priority 2020 targets for the countries, sub-targets when needed, and sequenced priority activities in 1-2, 3-5 and 5+ year time perspectives.

Each year SIGMA produces assessment reports as a contribution to the EC’s annual reports on EU candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as to its programming of technical assistance. These reports assess progress made in public administration reform by our beneficiary countries. The report for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia analyses and takes stock of progress achieved by this country in 2013, with an aim to also provide inputs into its reform agenda. It focuses on civil service and public employment, appealing against administrative decisions, public internal financial control, external audit, and public procurement.

Each year SIGMA produces assessment reports as a contribution to the EC’s annual reports on EU candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as to its programming of technical assistance. These reports assess progress made in public administration reform by our beneficiary countries. The report for Montenegro analyses and takes stock of progress achieved by this country in 2013, with an aim to also provide inputs into its reform agenda. It focuses on policy making and co-ordination, co-ordination, implementation and priorities of public administration reform, human resource management in the public sector, and function of the Ombudsman.

Each year SIGMA produces assessment reports as a contribution to the EC’s annual reports on EU candidate countries and potential candidates, as well as to its programming of technical assistance. These reports assess progress made in public administration reform by our beneficiary countries. The report for Serbia analyses and takes stock of progress achieved by this country in 2013, with an aim to also provide inputs into its reform agenda. It focuses on public administration reform co ordination, implementation and priorities, public expenditure management, public internal financial control, and public procurement.