Browse by: "2019"

This report builds on the OECD Well-being Framework and applies a new perspective that analyses synergies and trade-offs between climate change mitigation and broader goals such as health, education, jobs, as well as wider environmental quality and the resources needed to sustain our livelihoods through time. This report takes an explicitly political economy approach to the low-emissions transitions needed across five economic sectors (electricity, heavy industry, residential, surface transport, and agriculture) that are responsible for more than 60% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Synergies between emissions reduction and broader well-being objectives, such as reduced air pollution and improved health, increase the incentives for early mitigation action. At the same time, the impact of climate policies on issues such as the affordability of energy and jobs need to be taken into account to counter growing economic and social inequalities within and between countries. The report argues that reframing climate policies using a well-being lens is necessary for making visible such synergies and trade-offs; allowing decision-makers to increase the former and anticipate, manage and minimise the latter. This requires us to rethink societal goals in terms of well-being, reframe our measures of progress and refocus policy-making accordingly.

Kazakhstan has recorded impressive economic growth rates since its independence, driven mainly by export of commodities and high rate of energy use. These rates are not sustainable and are generating significant air pollution, in particular from industrial stationary sources. This is putting at risk the country’s development ambitions to become one of the top global economies by 2050 and converge towards OECD living standards. Building on OECD previous analysis, this publication shows that Kazakhstan’s environmental payments (environmentally related taxes, non-compliance penalties and compensation for damage regulation) for industrial air pollutants, as currently applied, impede energy efficiency and pollution abatement with heavy-handed non-compliance responses and focus on rising revenues. They also add to the cost of doing businesses in the country with limited environmental benefit. In the spirit of the Polluter-Pays Principle, much more reforms of regulation of environmental payments are needed. This report provides guidelines for reform drawing from air pollution regulations in OECD member countries and the results of the analysis of the system in Kazakhstan carried out by the OECD in close co-operation with the Government of Kazakhstan.

Over the past few years, Canada and the United States have been experiencing an opioid crisis as a result of problematic opioid use fueled by the emergence of synthetic opioids such as fentanyl and carfentanil. Problematic opioid use is also spreading in other OECD countries, due to the upward trend of prescription opioid use and the complexities of the illegal drug supply. This report presents evidence on the magnitude of problematic opioid use across OECD countries, describes the main drivers, and identifies a set of policy actions to address them. The report highlights the opioid crisis as a complex public health issue that requires a comprehensive approach across all sectors, including health, social services, and law enforcement. Strong health information systems are also needed, particularly data and research. Preventing problematic opioid use requires a combination of policies that ensure more information is provided to patients and health care practitioners, while providing access to appropriate pain management treatment for patients. A public health approach to problematic opioid use must incorporate socio-economic considerations (e.g. employment and housing), which also need to be addressed to prevent problematic substance use in general.

This report assesses the impact on citizens and businesses of the administrative simplification measures carried out by the Mexican Social Security Institute. Administrative burdens are measured in the time it takes citizens and businesses to complete forms and wait in line to request or deliver information to the government. Using an adaptation of the Standard Cost Model, this report finds that such burdens for users have decreased by at least 25% thanks to the simplification and digitalisation of administrative formalities. It also suggests how the Institute could reduce burdens even further. By promoting the use of online formalities, IMSS could reduce administrative burdens by an additional 11%.

While Italy has made major progress in the past decade to up-skill its population and workers, further efforts are needed to improve access to good quality adult learning opportunities. Training funds represent one important tool through which Italy could face the pressures brought about by the mega-trends, and equip adults and workers with the skills needed to thrive in the labour market and society. This report analyses how training funds are designed, used, and monitored, and provides actionable policy recommendations to ensure that they are put to their most effective use.

This annual report monitors and evaluates agricultural policies spanning all 6 continents, including the 36 OECD countries, the 5 non-OECD EU Member States, and 12 emerging economies. It is a unique source of up-to date estimates of support to agriculture using a comprehensive system of measuring and classifying support to agriculture – the Producer and Consumer Support Estimates (PSEs and CSEs), the General Services Support Estimate (GSSE) and related indicators – which provide insight into the increasingly complex nature of agricultural policy and serve as a basis for OECD’s agricultural policy monitoring and evaluation. Comprehensive country chapters and the Statistical Annex containing detailed background tables with indicators of agricultural support are available in electronic form at the publication website.

Climate change is altering the ecological and social systems that underpin human well-being and economic activity, and developing countries are particularly vulnerable to its impact on the growth and sustainable development prospects of every sector and community. Being part of the solution requires all providers of development co-operation to align their activities with the objectives of the Paris Agreement. However many still lack the mandates, resources, incentives and strategies to do so. This report outlines how providers can make changes at home, in developing countries and in the international development co-operation system, to help create low-emissions, climate-resilient economies, and how they can avoid supporting activities that lock the world into an unsustainable future.

Online platforms support so many of our daily activities that we have become dependent on them in our personal and professional lives. We rely on them to buy and sell goods and services, to find information online and to keep in touch with each other. We use them for entertainment, news, transportation, accommodation, finding jobs and employees, finding apps and for many other purposes. Online platforms have also raised new and important policy questions, but the businesses themselves can be more complex than they appear so they are not always well understood. This report contains detailed profiles of twelve of the world’s leading platform companies and derives insights from those profiles about what platforms actually do, how they do it, and why they succeed financially. For example, the report finds that although platforms tend to have a number of economic characteristics in common, they also vary so greatly that they cannot be compartmentalised into just a few categories, let alone a single sector. Moreover, they do not all succeed for the same reasons. In addition, although the major Chinese platforms still have a low profile within the OECD, they are in the process of expanding globally and deserve more attention.

This report uses the OECD Principles on Water Governance as a tool for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue and practical assessment of the performance of flood governance systems. It applies the Principles to flood-prone contexts to help strengthen governance frameworks for managing the risks of “too much” water. By 2050, 1.6 billion people will be at risk of flooding, affecting nearly 20% of the world’s population at an increasing rate and many times over with dire social, economic and environmental consequences. In this report, a checklist is proposed as a self-assessment tool for stakeholders in flood management, based on lessons learned from 27 case studies that feature practical experiences and highlight common features and key challenges in flood governance.

The artificial intelligence (AI) landscape has evolved significantly from 1950 when Alan Turing first posed the question of whether machines can think. Today, AI is transforming societies and economies. It promises to generate productivity gains, improve well-being and help address global challenges, such as climate change, resource scarcity and health crises. Yet, as AI applications are adopted around the world, their use can raise questions and challenges related to human values, fairness, human determination, privacy, safety and accountability, among others. This report helps build a shared understanding of AI in the present and near-term by mapping the AI technical, economic, use case and policy landscape and identifying major public policy considerations. It is also intended to help co-ordination and consistency with discussions in other national and international fora.

This report outlines good practice for regulatory impact assessment (RIA) in transport. It describes the rationale and the benefits of RIA frameworks and offers guidance for the practical implemention of RIA in the transport sector. The report also contains recommendations for governments seeking to implement RIA within their jurisdictions.

Many countries are struggling to reconcile greater flexibility in school choice with the need to ensure quality, equity and coherence in their school systems. This report provides an international perspective on issues related to school choice, especially how certain aspects of school-choice policies may be associated with sorting students into different schools. A key question fuelling the school-choice debate is whether greater competition among schools results in more sorting of students by ability or socio-economic status. At the macro level, school segregation can deprive children of opportunities to learn, play and communicate with other children from different social, cultural and ethnic backgrounds, which can, in turn, threaten social cohesion. The report draws a comprehensive picture of school segregation, using a variety of indicators in order to account for the diversity of the processes by which students are allocated to schools.