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In the coming years, labour markets will face significant challenges. In this context, re- and upskilling of adults is an urgent priority for all at national, regional and local levels. To turn challenges into opportunities and to ensure that the supply of local skills matches constantly changing skills demands, there is a need to create strong adult learning systems for a more resilient and empowered society and productive economy. To support local governments in their efforts to future-proof adult learning systems, this policy manual presents a range of policy options and concrete actions that can inspire and guide work at the local level. It is designed for both policy makers and practitioners at the local and regional level, but also for national policy makers to support their efforts in supporting the diversity of local needs.

Across the OECD, healthcare spending has typically outpaced economic growth in recent decades. While such spending has improved health outcomes, there are concerns about the financial sustainability of this upward trend, particularly as healthcare systems are predominantly funded from public resources in most OECD countries. To better explore this financial sustainability challenge, many countries and international institutions have developed forecasting models to project growth in future healthcare expenditure.

Despite methodological differences between forecasting approaches, a common set of healthcare spending drivers can be identified. Demographic factors, rising incomes, technological progress, productivity in the healthcare sector compared to the general economy (Baumol’s cost disease) and associated healthcare policies have all been shown to be key determinants of healthcare spending.

It is a truism that future prices of energy for transportation will be determined by the forces of supply and demand. For transport fuels, these forces have entered a crucial phase that is likely to persist for several decades. Oil production from conventional resources outside of the OPEC countries will peak within a few years. Unconventional fossil resources that can be exploited at current prices, resources whose early development is already well underway, pose an even greater threat to the global climate. To bring these resources to the market at a rate to match the growth in demand for mobility fuels in the developed and developing economies will require massive, risky investments. Serious risks are posed by the environmental acceptability of these fuels and also by the fact that a sudden downturn in world oil prices would turn them into stranded assets. It is also a truism that no one can accurately predict the price of oil. Today, oil costs $70 per barrel. Ten years ago, it cost less than $20 per barrel. Twenty seven years ago oil prices peaked at $90 per barrel. Thirty-seven years ago oil cost only $10 per barrel and its price had been relatively stable for almost fifty years. Those who carefully craft future oil price scenarios know that they are not predicting but rather attempting to define alternative paths of central tendency. Even the best official oil price projections look nothing like the past thirty-five years of history. It is important to understand why this is so. Since 1972, world oil prices have been strongly and unpredictably influenced by the actions of the OPEC cartel. It is very likely that they will be for the next thirty years, as well.

This report summarises the OECD conference jointly organised with the Italian government which improved the understanding of the implications of the changing distribution of digital content and the Internet.

In 2008, the Czech government implemented a major overhaul of the personal income tax (PIT), replacing the previous progressive rate schedule with a single 15% rate levied on an enlarged base. This was accompanied by significant changes to the corporate income tax (CIT) and an increase in the concessionary rate of value added tax (VAT) applied to many goods and services. The reform made the tax system more transparent and was broadly consistent with OECD recommendations concerning pro-growth tax reform. These tax changes followed the adoption of significant changes to the benefit system, particularly housing and social assistance benefits, in 2006-07. This paper describes the main elements of these tax and benefit reforms and provides an initial assessment of their impact, with particular emphasis on changes in the effective tax rates of workers and firms. It begins with an overview of the systems and a summary of recent changes. This is followed by an evaluation of those reforms. A final section explores the scope for further reforms in future. This paper relates to the 2010 OECD Economic Survey of the Czech Republic. (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/czech).

Government revenues may be affected by economic growth and changes in demographics over time. The effect of economic growth can be captured by long-run buoyancy – responsiveness of government revenues to GDP growth – while the demographic effect can be captured by changes in labour income, asset income and consumption patterns over the life cycle, as well as population growth. This paper attempts to quantify the effect of population ageing on OECD tax revenues across different levels of government, by estimating error correction models of revenue buoyancies over the 1990 to 2018 period, by type of revenue, country and level of government. Multiple scenarios are used for the projections to 2040, which are combined with scenarios for the evolution of revenue bases using newly harmonized EU and UN National Transfer Accounts data as well as OECD Population Projections.

Most countries have separate pension plan for public sector employees. The future fiscal burden of these plans can be substantial as the government usually is the largest employer, pension promises in the public sector tend to be relatively generous, and future payments have to be paid out directly from government revenues (pay-as-you-go) or by funded plans (pension funds) which tend to be underfunded. The valuation and disclosure of these promises in some countries lacks transparency, which may be hiding potentially huge fiscal liabilities that are being passed on to future generations of workers.

In order to arrive at a fair comparison between countries regarding the fiscal burden of their DB public sector pension plans, this paper gathers more evidence on public sector pension plans regarding the type of pension promise and quantifies the future tax burden related to these pension promises. The reported liabilities are recalculated using both a fair value approach (local market discount rates) and a common, fixed discount rate across all countries which reflects projected growth in national income. We also estimate for a number of plans from a sample of OECD countries the size of the net unfunded liabilities in fair value terms as of the end of 2008. This fiscal burden can also be interpreted as the implicit pension debt in fair value terms.

The bulk of government investment is done at the local level in OECD countries, representing on average 41% of total public investment. Most studies on subnational government debt focus on the regional or state level, and very few studies analyse public investment specifically by local governments. This paper aims at filling this gap, presenting a framework to analyse the key factors, which affect the capacity of local governments to fund and finance public investment, and illustrates the framework with five case studies: Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Netherlands and New Zealand.

This international study focuses on the funding systems in the area of higher education in the following countries: Austria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Latvia, Norway, Portugal and Slovak Republic. Each individual country study was designed and conducted within an overall common framework by a project partner from the respective country. By using the stakeholder approach, this study addresses and analyses the effects of funding systems on the higher education system and its institutions. In order to present a comprehensive overview, the study explicitly takes into account the stakeholders' diversity and explores the effects of how funding systems are perceived and assessed differently...

This paper outlines the regulatory framework within which occupational defined benefit pension plans are financed and addresses the challenges facing the funding of such plans. The Appendices include a summary and discussion of the funding regulations in twelve OECD countries plus Brazil – all of which have a long history of DB plans. The paper draws on these experiences in...

This paper provides a description of the risk-sharing features of pension plan design in selected OECD and non-OECD countries and how they correspond with the funding rules applied to pension funds. In addition to leading to a better understanding of differences in funding rules across countries with developed pension fund systems, the study considers the trend towards risk-based regulation. While the document does not enter the debate over the application of risk-based quantitative funding requirements to pension funds (as under Basel II or Solvency II), it identifies the risk factors that should be evaluated and considered in a comprehensive risk-based regulatory approach, whether prescriptive or principles-based. The three main risk factors identified are the nature of risks and the guarantees offered under different plans designs, the extent to which benefits are conditional and can be adjusted, and the extent to which contributions may be raised to cover any funding gap. In addition, the strength of the guarantee or covenant from the sponsoring employer(s) and of insolvency guarantee arrangements should be carefully assessed when designing funding requirements.

A well-functioning policy making system is a key pillar of a transparent and effective democratic system. It is also a crucial precondition for the country to make progress in the European integration process as the capacity of national administrations to undertake the obligations linked with European Union membership is a key criterion in the assessment of candidate preparedness. This is to ensure that the administration is capable of successfully dealing with the complex policy issues facing all European Union member states in an efficient manner.

This comparative analysis takes stock of the organisational set up, regulatory framework, and the practices of the key centre of government functions in the Western Balkans, highlighting similarities and differences, and it also gives examples from some EU Member States.

This paper applies the OECD-EU methodology to identify the functional urban areas (FUAs) in Colombia. Using the municipal boundaries, population grid data and inter-municipalities commuting flows from the 2005 population census, the paper identifies 53 FUAs accounting for 27 million people, or 63% of the national population. The resulting FUAs are then compared with the existing national definition (Misión del Sistema de Ciudades) and the legally constituted metropolitan areas in Colombia. Finally, using the OECD-EU methodology already applied to OECD countries, the eight largest FUAs in Colombia are compared with the 281 largest FUA in OECD countries, through a set of economic, social and environmental indicators. The application of the OECD-EU methodology allows to identify the whole system of urban areas in Colombia, with the same criterion; it thus provides a complementary tool to the national and city government to better plan and design future urban policy strategies. For example, this paper finds that metropolitan areas in Colombia have smaller commuting areas relative to OECD average and that improvements in the transport infrastructure may strengthen the economic integration of Colombian metropolitan areas.

There is growing recognition throughout the OECD of the need to link economic development and employment policies at the level of the individual city if the twin objectives of raising competitiveness and reducing worklessness are to be met. The challenge is particularly clear in the UK, where the employment rate of the working age population in the major cities has lagged consistently behind the relatively strong performance of the nation as a whole (HM Treasury, 2007). The Government has recognised that raising the UK employment rate towards its ambitious 80%national target will  require special  efforts to tackle unemployment and economic inactivity in the cities (Department of Work and Pensions, 2006). This is an important departure from the traditional  emphasis on national  labour market policies and standardised welfare to work programmes that pay little regard to geographical variations in socio-economic conditions.

One of the issues arising is the appropriate balance between measures to stimulate labour demand and create  jobs, on the one hand, and measures to strengthen  labour  supply by improving people’s skills, employability and motivation, on  the  other.  There is also an issue about how to connect employment opportunities to people in need of work but who face multiple disadvantages and barriers to employment, such as poor transport access and lack of childcare. Another issue relates to the amount of decentralisation and local control of the policy levers that government should encourage, and what form this should take.  

The purpose of this paper is to address these important questions by  focusing on the labour market context and policy situation in Glasgow.

Among economists and policy makers more general, the fuel efficiency standard for cars and the fuel tax have been the subject of extensive debate. The major benefits of stricter fuel efficiency standards and higher fuel taxes are the reduction of Greenhouse gas emissions and the reduced oil dependence. The major costs are the increased production cost, the reduced comfort and the negative impact on mileage related externalities (congestion, accidents) due to the rebound effect. In this contribution we use a wider framework than Harrington (2008), Plotkin (2008) and Raux (2008) to discuss the CO2 1 emission reduction in transport. In section 2 we analyze, for the EU, the effects on welfare and CO2 emissions of pricing all transport activities according to their full social costs. In section 3, we go beyond the transport sector and compare the options to reduce emissions in the transport sector with the possibilities and costs to reduce emissions in other sectors of the economy. In section 4 we take a world view and analyze the impact of two types of international climate negotiations on the emission reduction strategy in the transport sector.