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On 15-16 February 2018 the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) hosted a Workshop on Digital Security and Resilience in Critical Infrastructure and Essential Services. The workshop brought together over 120 participants to discuss the effects of growing digital transformation on the resilience of critical infrastructures and essential services which rely increasingly on cross-border digital infrastructure. Over 25 experts discussed digital security in the financial, energy and transport sectors, in relation to the delivery of public sector services, and from the digital security public policy making perspective. Issues faced by SMEs were also addressed throughout the event. This report provides key cross-cutting high-level policy messages from the workshop, an issues paper developed to prepare the event, as well as a detailed account of discussions in each session.

Digital transformation of the economy has increased so quickly that some say economic statistics have failed to keep up. While on balance the current statistical standard used by countries to compile gross domestic product – the 2008 System of National Accounts – can reflect the changing nature of the digital age, some have questioned whether this is enough. Digital supply-use tables (digital SUTs) may provide, at least partly, a solution to this challenge. By disaggregating established indicators in the national accounts, information is generated for research and policy purposes that provides better insights on how digital transformation affects the economy, while still remaining consistent with SNA principles. This Going Digital Toolkit note identifies the measurement difficulties brought about by the digitalisation of the economy, and explains how digital SUTs are designed to help address them. Examples of relevant work that has been undertaken by OECD member countries and could contribute to the compilation of the digital SUTs are showcased.

Insufficient diffusion of new technologies has been quoted as one possible reason for weak productivity performance over the past two decades (Andrews et al., 2016). This paper uses a novel data set of digital technology usage covering 25 industries in 25 European countries over the 2010-16 period to explore the drivers of digital adoption across two broad sets of digital technologies by firms, cloud computing and back or front office integration. The focus is on structural and policy factors affecting firms’ capabilities and incentives to adopt -- including the availability of enabling infrastructures (such as high-speed broadband internet), managerial quality and workers skills, and product, labour and financial market settings. We identify the effects of structural and policy factors based on the difference-in-difference approach pioneered by Rajan and Zingales (1998) and show that a number of these factors are statistically and economically significant for technology adoption. Specifically, we find strong support for the hypothesis that low managerial quality, lack of ICT skills and poor matching of workers to jobs curb digital technology adoption and hence the rate of diffusion. Similarly our evidence suggests that policies affecting market incentives are important for adoption, especially those relevant for market access, competition and efficient reallocation of labour and capital. Finally, we show that there are important complementarities between the two sets of factors, with market incentives reinforcing the positive effects of enhancements in firm capabilities on adoption of digital technologies

This paper reviews the digital tools developed by the insurance industry to improve the health and wellness of policyholders. These tools are said to offer a win-win: better health for policyholders and reduced claims for insurers. Many tools apply lessons from behavioural economics by seeking to influence policyholder behaviour and overcome short-term barriers to change. This paper identifies issues and challenges, such as data privacy and security, safety risks, data quality, overall effectiveness, and relevant policy and regulatory frameworks.

Rules affecting digital trade are complex and spread across a diverse set of issues and fora. This paper provides an inventory of existing rules, standards, and principles related to issues that are being discussed in the context of the Joint Statement Initiative (JSI) at the WTO, highlighting the number of existing international instruments at the WTO and across a range of non-WTO fora on which these discussions can build. The Inventory thus aims to help governments better leverage resources towards enabling more informed discussions on digital trade. Additionally, the Inventory shows that there is already substantial uptake of instruments on issues related to digital trade among participants to the JSI discussions. Furthermore, many jurisdictions that do not currently participate in the JSI discussions are already in the process of undertaking reforms in the areas that are being discussed under that initiative.

Digital transformation is rapidly altering civic space, challenging the ways in which members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) and other providers of development co-operation strive to promote an enabling environment for civil society to contribute to sustainable development. This paper aims to support DAC members and other providers of development co-operation to integrate the implications of a range of plausible futures of civic space into positive policy action today. To this end, it provides an overview of the variables (i.e. current trends, drivers of change and uncertainties) that may determine the trajectory of civic space in the context of digital transformation; identifies four plausible futures that emerge from four different logical interactions of these variables - that could materialise over a ten-year horizon and be fully realised by 2030; and draws policy implications to support DAC members and other providers in designing development cooperation policies that best leverage the opportunities that digital transformation offers while mitigating its risks.

This paper assesses how the adoption of a range of digital technologies affects firm productivity. It combines cross-country firm-level data on productivity and industry-level data on digital technology adoption in an empirical framework that accounts for firm heterogeneity. The results provide robust evidence that digital adoption in an industry is associated to productivity gains at the firm level. Effects are relatively stronger in manufacturing and routine-intensive activities. They also tend to be stronger for more productive firms and weaker in presence of skill shortages, which may relate to the complementarities between digital technologies and other forms of capital (e.g. skills, organisation, or intangibles). As a result, digital technologies may have contributed to the growing dispersion in productivity performance across firms. Hence, policies to support digital adoption should go hand in hand with creating the conditions to enable the catch-up of lagging firms, notably by easing access to skills.

The world economy and societies are going through a digital transformation that goes well beyond computerisation and use of information and telecommunications technologies. This transformation is creating opportunities and challenges for all levels of government in the areas of tax and expenditure policy and administration, service delivery and fiscal-financial management, and regulatory practices and policies. However, governments (especially sub-national ones, SNGs) often also face shortages of skills, equipment and physical infrastructure, while having to address emerging challenges in cyber security risk management and data protection. The digital transformation calls for cooperation among the different layers of administration in support of effective and efficient digitalisation of SNGs. This paper reviews and discusses these opportunities and challenges.

The Russian Federation’s large-scale war of aggression against Ukraine is causing severe disruptions to Internet connectivity, that has been increasing rapidly across the country over the last decade. The digital delivery of public services, with new “state-of-the-art” services launched just before the war, is proving resilient after the first disruptions. The digital economy in Ukraine was experiencing rapid growth before the war, and the Diia City tax Law introduced tailor-made fiscal measures for the IT sector. Now the Ukrainian Government faces multiple challenges, and OECD policy tools can help Ukraine realise its ambitious plans to strengthen and rebuild its digital space in the short term (i.e. access to the internet), medium term (i.e. access to talent and finance) and long term (i.e. a sound data infrastructure for the digital economy).

Prepared for a Strategic Education Governance learning seminar, this working paper analyses the ways in which the Dutch government tried to reach overarching goals in education, in a system characterised by a high degree of distributed autonomy of education institutions and the participation of multiple actors, and consequently a government highly dependent on the collaboration with stakeholders. The paper introduces four perspectives on governance: ‘traditional public administration’, ‘new public management’, ‘network governance’ and ‘societal resilience’. In practice, these perspectives do not exclude each other. Based on three cases the paper shows that the Dutch government used simultaneously different perspectives in each case and across the cases, in various combinations. Each combination proved to have its pros and cons. The paper argues for a deliberate consideration and choice of governance perspectives as an important element of policy preparation.