Browse by: "2021"
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3D printing technologies have attracted the attention of the trade policy community for their potential to disrupt international trade. It is argued that greater cross-border exchange in design files for local printing may lead to less trade in physical goods. New evidence presented in this paper suggests quite the opposite: that the adoption of 3D printing technologies, proxied by measures of imports of 3D printers, appears to be complementary to goods trade. On average, an increase of around USD 14 000 in imports of 3D printers is associated with a USD 3.3 million increase in the value of exports of 3D printable goods. Similar dynamics are found for imports of 3D printable goods. Overall, this implies that the wider adoption of the technology has, at present, limited implications for the ongoing debate on the renewal of the WTO Moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions as it is unlikely to result in loss of goods trade and traditional tariff revenue.
This report looks at the policies and programmes Chile has been putting in place over the past few decades to foster the development of public transport in remote communities. In particular, it has been taking a regional approach and encouraging private investment in transport.
This paper describes the aggregate findings of a survey conducted to assess where the members of the OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Results Community stand with regard to the Guiding Principles on Managing for Sustainable Development Results (MfSDR) adopted in July 2019. In addition to presenting detailed findings against each Principle, the paper examines the main strengths and constraints providers are facing to align to the Principles and analyses the correlations between the Principles, concluding on the more practical consequences for systemic and tailored approaches to implementing them.
This paper advances our understanding of the spatial dimension of productivity by investigating the link between subnational governance arrangements and urban labour productivity. It presents a detailed study of the direct and indirect effects of decentralisation (local autonomy), government quality and fragmentation and empirically demonstrates the need for a comprehensive approach when considering the effects of governance-related characteristics on regional economic outcomes. Multi-level analysis of data for Functional Urban Areas (FUAs) in Europe during 2003-2014 suggests that labour productivity tends to be higher in regions with higher quality of government. Productivity, on average, is lower in more decentralised countries. However, under “the right” conditions (high quality of government and low fragmentation), decentralisation is positively linked to productivity. Overall, cities with high levels of government quality and local autonomy but low horizontal fragmentation tend to be the most productive.
This paper discusses housing challenges facing people with disabilities in OECD and EU countries, and policy supports to make housing more affordable, accessible and adapted to their needs. It focuses on the adult population with disabilities living outside institutions, drawing on data from the European Union Survey of Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC), household surveys, national population census and disability surveys, and country responses to the 2021 OECD Questionnaire on Affordable and Social Housing. The paper summarises housing outcomes; discusses policy supports to ensure that people with disabilities can be safely, affordably and independently housed; and outlines actions for policy makers.
Around the world, researchers, policy makers, parents and children all agree that teachers matter to student outcomes. However, we are only beginning to understand what makes a difference in terms of quality teaching. Teaching and learning are complex processes that challenge the skills and abilities of both teachers and learners. Teachers must know how, when, where and why to use specific teaching practices related to the subject matter to meet learners’ needs and move them forward.
The OECD’s Global Teaching InSights: A Video Study of Teaching uses new research methods to shed light more directly on teaching and learning processes, which are key to improving education at scale.
This paper proposes a ranking of the countries where forest carbon sequestration is the most cost-efficient among 166 countries for which data are available. Taking into account the main cost factors leads to a more nuanced ranking of the countries to be favoured for cost-efficient forest carbon sequestration compared to the assumption that these would always be in tropical areas with high rainfall. The ranking reflects the differences in the opportunity cost of land use and labour cost (production costs), the quality of the business environment (transaction costs), natural conditions (forest productivity), wildfire risk and the avoided GHG emissions from alternative land use. Cost-efficiency also depends on the type of forest project (afforestation, reforestation or forest conservation) and how private (wood harvest) and non-private (environmental and social) co-benefits are counted. A sensitivity analysis is undertaken to examine the robustness of the results with respect to uncertainties in values of the cost and quantity factors of forest carbon sequestration. The results support the view that forests can be a cost-efficient way to offset GHG emissions and that significant cost reductions are possible by targeting the country and sub-national regions in which to locate forest carbon sequestration projects. The report also reviews the literature on the significance and cost of forest carbon sequestration and provides an overview of forest carbon offset schemes.
Effective teaching starts with high-quality preparation that provides prospective teachers with a strong foundation on which they can continue to build throughout their career. Initial teacher preparation should provide beginning practitioners with a coherent learning experience that integrates coursework, practical training, induction and early career development. This requires education systems to conceive of initial teacher preparation as part of a career-long learning continuum, to expand the range of actors involved in the process, and to create and sustain strong partnerships and feedback loops between schools and teacher education institutions. While the importance of practice-based components in initial teacher education (ITE) is now widely recognised, the COVID-19 disruption of schooling has created new challenges for their implementation. This Policy Brief draws on evidence from the OECD School Resources Review and beyond to explore the following questions:
- What do we know about effective initial teacher education programmes?
- How to link teachers’ initial education to induction and continuing professional learning?
- How to adapt initial teacher preparation to remote and hybrid teaching contexts
Skills mismatch - the sub-optimal use of an individual's skills in their occupation - can be a source of dissatisfaction for workers and a brake for productivity growth. In our view, a difference in the level of skills within an occupation is not sufficient to infer that a skills mismatch exists. Since skills-mismatch is the result of a disparity between the supply and demand of labour, the quantifying of skills-mismatch must therefore be based on the mechanisms involved in this disparity. We propose to include in our measurement the level of education and field of study, which are key markers of an individual's skill level in the labour market. This makes it possible to identify, among individuals whose skill level differs from others within an occupation, those whose training profile can (or cannot) explain this situation. Through using the OECD PIAAC 2012 survey, this paper first identifies with data for France, individuals who present an apparent skills mismatch according to the framework proposed. Following an international comparison of “apparent skills mismatch rates”, we conclude this study by observing how the different groups identified differ in terms of how they perceive their employment situation as well as their individual characteristics.
As the United Nations Decade on Ocean Science for Sustainable Development begins, this paper explores recent and likely future digital technologies - especially in the field of ocean observation - that will contribute to ocean sustainability. It examines advances that could lead to substantial improvements in the data collection and analysis of the impact of climate change and human activity on marine ecosystems, while also contributing to the monitoring and reduction of the ecological footprint of ocean-related economic activity. The paper also provides preliminary reflections on how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect digitalisation in the ocean economy, and what strategies could help support ocean research and innovation during and after the crisis.
This paper develops a new large-scale firm-level simulation model, the Corporate Sector Agent-Based (CAB) Model, which is applied to analyse the COVID-19 shock and policy options in Barnes, Hillman, MacDonald and Wharf (2021). Agent-based models (ABMs) simulate the interaction of autonomous agents to generate emergent aggregate behaviours. The CAB model takes into account: heterogeneity across firms; a realistic customer-supplier network; interactions between firms; rule-of-thumb behaviour by firms and bankruptcy constraints.
This paper presents a simulation framework developed to assess the impact of ageing on the financial sustainability of the Czech pension system. It accompanies the publication OECD Reviews of Pension Systems: Czech Republic. The framework has two components: a macroeconomic model to project long-term GDP and a cohort model to simulate the evolution of pensions. The macroeconomic model takes into account the evolution of the labour force and productivity. The cohort model simulates the career of a representative sample of the working-age population and their path in retirement. It replicates and projects the main features of the labour market, in particular, participation, wage and unemployment. It captures non-linear features of the pension system and distributional effects. The model estimates and simulates the main demographic variables of the pension system, in particular, the number of old-age pensioners and disability pensioners. It allows to simulate different policy options to close the financing gap of the pension system.
Pension spending is projected to increase to 11.9% of GDP in 2060 from 8.2% in 2018, leading to increasing deficits of the pension system. Among the different options to close the financing gap, further increasing the retirement age after 2030 in line with life expectancy gains appears to be the most efficient policy measure to boost growth and reduce the financing needs. However, additional measures would be needed to close the financing gap of the pension system.
This Working Paper was developed to assist policy makers, education and Indigenous leaders, as well as education practitioners, to better support Indigenous children’s early learning and well-being. The paper focuses on early years policies and provision in Aotearoa New Zealand, Australia and Canada. It sets out a synthesis of evidence on children’s early development, with a particular focus on the conditions and approaches that support positive outcomes for Indigenous children. The Working Paper then outlines a set of promising initiatives that seek to create positive early learning environments for Indigenous children. Drawing on the available evidence and promising approaches, the paper presents a framework for strengthening Indigenous children’s early learning and well-being.
The province of Córdoba, Argentina, uses the SDGs as a framework to promote social inclusion and well-being. Providing affordable housing, addressing the gender gap in unemployment, reducing air pollution, and improving water quality are key priorities to advance regional development in the province. The SDGs provide a holistic framework to address these challenges in an integrated way and can help to identify the drivers of social inclusion in the province of Córdoba. The province has undertaken a multi-stakeholder engagement process, which has led to five strategic lines of action for the achievement of the SDGs in Córdoba to: i) build a vision of multidimensional economic development for the province, ii) bridge the housing supply gap and foster sustainable construction, iii) generate decent work for the most excluded, iv) implement a sustainable water management system and v) deepen the process of coordination and transparency in policymaking.
Over the past decades, the city Kitakyushu, located in the southwest of Japan, has transformed from a manufacturing hub into a city putting strong emphasis on sustainability. The city has developed an SDG-based vision, which outlines the city’s main sustainable development targets and actions and sets up a governance framework with a strong focus on citizen participation and private sector engagement. Several local development challenges remain, including population decline, an ageing society and the lack of attractive job opportunities. The SDGs provide a framework to address those challenges in an integrated way. As reflected in Kitakyushu’s Voluntary Local Review and participation in the SDGs Future City initiative, 17 actions shape the local vision to foster sustainable development through, in particular, the transition to low-carbon energy production and a circular economy, female empowerment, inclusion of vulnerable groups and international cooperation.
Although the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are not integrated explicitly into the main urban development plans of the city of Moscow, the local government has started using them as a checklist to assess the contribution of its sectoral programmes to sustainable development, as well as related strengths and weaknesses. Moscow presents very positive educational results, low unemployment rates and a strong innovation capacity, but challenges exist regarding sustainable consumption and production, affordable housing and air quality. The SDGs provide a framework to address these challenges in an integrated way and to contribute, in particular, to the sustainable transition of its industrial sector, which accounts for 16% of the city’s value added. The SDGs also allow to promote synergies across the three main urban development plans, catalyse needed investments in sustainability and enhance collaboration with the private sector.
The state of Paraná, one of Brazil’s most populated and developed states, has been aligning its public policies with sustainable development since the 1990s. More recently, Paraná has used the SDGs as a tool and framework to reduce longstanding challenges related to health, education and safety as well as to address global megatrends affecting the state such as climate change, demographic pressures and digitalisation. Despite the absence of a state-wide sustainable development plan, Paraná is aligning its Multi-Year Plan (PPA) for 2020-23 and other planning and budgeting tools with the SDGs to face the socio-economic territorial disparities within the state. Through a multi-stakeholder governance framework, guidelines and financial contributions, the state provides incentives to align local and regional planning systems with the 2030 Agenda and to address sustainable development challenges in an integrated way.
This paper takes stock of official statistics on AI use in firms collected through ICT usage surveys. Its aim is to highlight statistically sound data that can be used to guide policymakers and other stakeholders in the complex field of AI. It provides a cross-country comparison of official AI measures in selected OECD countries and international organisations by reviewing the statistical AI definitions developed explicitly for measurement purposes as well as the AI questions in official ICT use surveys. Based on the results of these surveys, the paper provides an international comparison of AI uptake among firms. It also includes a brief overview of smaller-scale non-official measures of AI, which can complement official statistics. In its final part, it makes an initial attempt to match AI policy with the AI measures previously analysed, and highlights possible next steps. This paper is also a contribution to the OECD AI Policy Observatory.
Following the extraordinarily rapid development of COVID‑19 vaccines, immunisation is underway in many OECD countries. However, demand will continue to outstrip supply for some time and currently, distribution is strongly skewed in favour of high-income countries. This both inequitable and inefficient. Directing vaccine to where need is greatest would maximise the number of lives saved and speed bringing the pandemic under control, by slowing transmission and reducing the likelihood of the emergence of viral variants of concern. Governments should therefore act now to accelerate vaccination globally, regardless of international borders, by reallocating supplies to areas of greatest need; continuing the scaling-up of production; ensuring that necessary logistics and health care infrastructure are in place; providing further financial and in-kind support to COVAX; and developing long-term strategies that include commitments to making vaccines available where they are needed most, including through sharing intellectual property and facilitating technology transfer.
The first in a series of three reports on cross-border government innovation, this paper discusses at how governments are using new governance mechanisms to connect and collaborate in order to tackle issues that cut across borders between administrative entities or areas. Based on cases provided by countries as well as extensive research, it looks at cross-border governance bodies, networks for cross-border collaboration, and emerging governance system dynamics. It highlights progress made in collaboration and identifies lessons for successful cross-border innovation governance.