Browse by: "2019"

Novice teachers bring new energy and ideas to schools and classrooms that could improve the learning environment of students, if harnessed correctly. At the same time, novice teachers are, by definition, inexperienced in some aspects concerning classroom practices and schoolwork. As is the case for any other profession, novice teachers need time, support and guidance to improve their skills and adapt to the tasks they are confronted with on a regular basis. Thus, providing novice teachers with adequate support in their initial years is a key challenge of developing teaching as a profession.

In light of the many discussions advocating the use of pay-for-performance and performance budgeting, this paper argues that discouraging experience with both approaches should temper expectations that performance measurement can be a reform that will make health care systems more "sustainable" or even more efficient. The link between sustainability and efficiency is tenuous, and attention to performance is not new. Measurement's accuracy tends to be overstated and its costs understated or ignored. Nor does it easily lead to changed behaviour. Yet some measurement is useful for managing any complex activity. In particular, there are situations in which measures are more accurate and the proper responses to shortfalls are generally agreed. Policymakers should look for those conditions and encourage the more limited, targeted improvement that measures then can make possible.

This article presents the main findings of two OECD Surveys of Senior Budget and Health Officials conducted in the Latin American and Caribbean region. The surveys help to understand the approaches to budgeting, and take account of the prominent role of agents in the health system across the region, including social health insurance agencies and subnational governments. The focus, however, is on the application of performance-orientated reforms to budgeting, and the extent to which countries in the region have adopted such reforms to improve the efficiency of health expenditure to achieve universal health coverage. The findings point to the use of performance and results-based budgeting in the region, along with new models of provider payment systems integrating performance measures.

This article looks at the application of performance measurement systems in the health sector across OECD countries. The data comes from the 2017 OECD Survey on Performance Measurement Systems in the Health Sector and Responsibilities across Levels of Government. The results show that the majority of countries have national performance measurement systems in place, covering multiple aspects of the health system. Despite varying objectives, measurement systems are usually aimed at improving performance of the health system, rather than at containing costs.

Measuring health care productivity is important as health is a large sector of the economy and with the majority of funding coming from public sources, the outlook for productivity growth is a critical factor in the debate about fiscal sustainability. The UK has over 20 years’ experience of measuring health care productivity. The UK measure of productivity is relatively comprehensive; measuring hospital, mental health and primary care services. It compares changes in the volume of quality-adjusted output with changes in the volume of quality-adjusted inputs. The productivity measure plays a role in budget setting, fiscal risk assessment and within the health system, hospital reimbursement. The UK experience has considerable strengths but also highlights some of the challenges of health care productivity measurement. Robust productivity measurement requires high quality, comprehensive data collected on a consistent basis over time. Even in a national health service this is challenging. The emerging evidence on allocative efficiency also highlights the importance of shifting the focus from the outputs of healthcare to outcomes. But, however productivity is measured, for fiscal sustainability the critical issue is how to realise potential productivity gains within the healthcare system and the mix of policy and managerial support needed to help the system optimise the trend rate of efficiency growth.

This article presents the findings of the OECD Survey of Senior Budget Officials on Budgeting Practices from a 2017 survey covering the Asia and Oceania, and Central, Eastern and South Eastern European regions. The survey is part of the ongoing engagement between health and budget officials in the OECD’s regional networks and provides an comparable set of data to analyse and benchmark good practices in health budgeting. The results of the survey point to an increasing use of budgeting tools from developed countries and support continued engagement to improve budget activities and to meet future challenges of health systems.

In this article we give a presentation of the Norwegian quality based financing (QBF) mechanism and our experiences with this financing mechanism. The article outlines the main features of the Norwegian health care system, and its financing mechanisms. We then focus in on the QBF with a description of the system and the main considerations on which the system is based. We give a short theoretical framework on how to design quality based financing systems, and show how the consequences can vary depending on the design of the system. The Norwegian system has been evaluated, and the main findings of this evaluation is discussed together with some tentative predictions about the future developments.

This article sheds light on the role of subnational governments in health systems across OECD countries. The views in this article show a move away from traditional measures of decentralisation, such as the share of subnational government expenditure of total expenditure, to measures capturing a range of responsibilities in the health sector. The data comes from the 2017 OECD Survey on Performance Measurement Systems in the Health Sector and Responsibilities across Levels of Government. The results show that despite health representing a large sector of subnational government expenditure, central governments still have considerable decision-making power. This power applies to key policy-making and budgeting decisions.

This study provides the first evidence that air pollution causes economy-wide reductions in market economic activity based on data for Europe. The analysis combines satellite-based measures of air pollution with statistics on regional economic activity at the NUTS-3 level throughout the European Union over the period 2000-15. An instrumental variables approach based on thermal inversions is used to identify the causal impact of air pollution on economic activity. The estimates show that a 1μg/m3 increase in PM2.5 concentration (or a 10% increase at the sample mean) causes a 0.8% reduction in real GDP that same year. Ninety-five per cent of this impact is due to reductions in output per worker, which can occur through greater absenteeism at work or reduced labour productivity. Therefore, the results suggest that public policies to reduce air pollution may contribute positively to economic growth. Indeed, the large economic benefits from pollution reduction uncovered in the study compare with relatively small abatement costs. Thus, more stringent air quality regulations could be warranted based solely on economic grounds, even ignoring the large benefits in terms of avoided mortality.

This report builds on the OECD’s longstanding work measuring government support in agriculture, fossil fuels, fisheries, and more recently in the aluminium value chain in order to estimate producer support and related market distortions in the semiconductor value chain. Results for 21 large firms operating across the semiconductor value chain indicate that total government support has exceeded USD 50 billion over the period 2014-18. Government support provided in the form of below-market debt and equity appears to be particularly large in the context of the semiconductor industry and concentrated in one jurisdiction. Other types of support identified include support for R&D and investment incentives, which benefitted all firms studied in this report. The report also discusses the implications that these findings have for trade rules, and in particular for subsidy disciplines in a context of growing government involvement in semiconductor production and poor transparency of support measures.

This paper describes the EU-OECD method to define functional urban areas (FUAs). Being composed of a city and its commuting zone, FUAs encompass the economic and functional extent of cities based on daily people’s movements. The paper first presents briefly the methodological approach and subsequently provides a detailed description of the identification algorithm, together with the data needed to apply it. This definition has been applied to 33 OECD member countries and Colombia, as well as to all European Union member countries.

This study provides new insights into factors that enable effective triangular co-operation. These include sound national ecosystems to support triangular partnerships through high-level political will, guiding documents, institutional structures, partnerships, resources and management procedures. Furthermore, against the background of the 2030 Agenda and the outcomes of BAPA+40, a shift of thinking from ‘donor-recipient’ relations to ‘partnerships’ needs to run through political discourse, public opinion, strategies and systems of all partners in triangular co-operation. Moreover, for the first time, the issue of ‘transaction costs’ in triangular co-operation is discussed systematically. Based on the research, interviews, and meetings that were conducted for this study, broad agreement emerged that these are investments in the partnership, and should not be regarded as costs. Finally, five options to engage effectively in triangular co-operation are offered. The decision for one of these five approaches, depends on the specific context of the partners that wish to set up new triangular co-operation initiatives. There is no one-size-fits-all approach, thus this study aims to contribute ideas and policy implications based on existing experiences and evidence.

Chile is now working to develop stronger integration processes after being largely unprepared for the influx of immigrants who arrived in recent years. In the education sector, evidence suggests important differences in the academic and well-being outcomes between students with an immigrant background and native Chilean students. While available data on immigrant students in Chile is limited, these disparities highlight the need to reflect on the types of policies that can reverse emerging gaps, advance the educational and long-term success of students and promote social cohesion. As such, the Ministry of Education invited the OECD Strength through Diversity project to develop this Spotlight Report, which examines four policy priorities regarding the inclusion of immigrant and refugee students in the country: (1) School choice and segregation; (2) Language training; (3) Capacity building; and (4) Inclusive education. The findings of this report reflect existing OECD work on education policy in Chile and in the area of migration policy. The report also draws on national data, questionnaire results on policies and practices implemented in Chile to support the educational achievement and socio emotional well-being of immigrant students and examples of policies and practices in peer-learner countries and regions that were collected through desk based research (notably from Australia, Canada, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United States). Finally, interviews conducted by the OECD Strength through Diversity team during a review mission and a stakeholder workshop that took place in Santiago in June 2018 help inform the report.

This paper examines the relationship between workplace organisation and innovation in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). It uses data for 30 countries, drawn from the European Company Survey, the OECD Programme for International Assessment of Adult Competencies and the Community Innovation Survey. It contrasts SMEs adopting a “learning organisation” or “discretionary learning” form of workplace organisation with SMEs adopting more hierarchical organisational forms. Learning organisation or discretionary learning SMEs are characterised by high levels of self-planning of tasks by employees, teamwork, knowledge exchange with employees and supervisors, on-the-job training, and employee performance incentives. They account for approximately one-third of SMEs across the countries examined. SMEs with this form of work organisation are more likely than other SMEs to develop new products/services and processes. At a macro level, countries with high proportions of these SMEs have higher rates of new-to-the-market innovations among SMEs and of SME innovation collaborations with other firms and organisations. The findings point to the potential role of policies favouring organisational change in SMEs as a means of stimulating SME innovation.