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Historically low productivity gains and record high inequality are major challenges for policy makers around the world. Both concerns have been exacerbated by the global financial crisis but took roots well before and reflect fundamental challenges with the way our economies function.
This report proposes a new comprehensive approach to promote better productivity performance and reduce inequalities. It not only gathers the most recent empirical evidence on the main factors behind slowing productivity gains and rising or persisting inequalities but also suggests possible common foundations and linkages between these two trends. It stresses the risk of a vicious cycle setting in, where individuals with fewer skills and poorer access to opportunities are confined to unproductive and often precarious jobs. This reduces aggregate productivity and widens inequality. The report focuses on how to expand the productive assets of an economy by investing in the skills of its people and providing an environment where all firms have a fair chance to succeed, including in lagging regions. It draws preliminary conclusions on the type of policy packages that are needed and on their implications for policy making. It also sets an agenda for future research to deepen empirical evidence and make concrete country-specific policy recommendations.
This report examines how public stockholding policies related to rice in Asia can influence domestic and international markets. Following a review of the working of rice public stockholding programmes in eight Asian countries (Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Thailand), the report examines the impacts of these programmes over the medium term (2018-2030) and analyses how these impacts would change should the selected countries collectively set their public stocks to either a low or high level. Results show that the strongest impacts would occur during the three-year transition period when countries adjust their public stocks to the new levels, but that there would also be structural impacts over the medium term, although at a lower intensity, on procurement, domestic and international prices, availability, private stock levels, and public expenditure. In the event of a global production shock, the model projects that the immediate impact on prices and availability would be less severe under the high public stock scenario, but that recovery would be faster and public expenditure lower when countries hold smaller public stocks.
This third edition covers the latest tax policy reforms in all OECD countries, as well as in Argentina, Indonesia and South Africa. Monitoring tax policy reforms and understanding the context in which they were undertaken is crucial to informing tax policy discussions and to supporting governments in the assessment and design of tax reforms.
Raising skills is critical to Portugal’s economic success and social well-being. As globalisation and digitalisation are transforming how people work, how societies function and how individuals interact, Portugal needs to equip its entire population with strong skills so that they can benefit from new opportunities.
Portugal has put education and skills at the forefront of the political agenda for many years, but more than half of adults have not completed upper secondary education. With the population ageing rapidly and a growing skills divide between generations, Portugal needs to further strengthen its adult-learning system. To make change happen, Portugal will need a clear vision for the adult-learning system and a strong partnership between all stakeholders – all levels of government, education and training providers, employers, trade unions, the non-profit sector and learners.
This report outlines areas where the accessibility, flexibility and quality of the adult-learning system can be improved, where governance and financing mechanisms can be strengthened, and provides examples of international and national good practice to help achieve these objectives. The report provides a series of concrete actions to help Portugal improve the adult-learning system and in turn enhance economic growth and social cohesion.
The OECD Secretary-General's annual report to ministers covers the OECD’s 2017 activities and some 2018 highlights. It includes the Secretary-General's activities and those of his office, the OECD’s horizontal programmes and directorate activities, as well as the activities of its agencies, special entities and advisory committees.
For more than 50 years, the OECD has sought to promote better policies for better lives in almost all areas of policy making and implementation through co-operation, dialogue, consensus and peer review. The OECD is one of the world’s largest and most trusted sources of comparable statistical data on economics, trade, employment, education, health, social issues, migration, the environment, and many other fields.
Road and Rail Infrastructure in Asia: Investing in Quality discusses the challenges facing the region and possible policy options, including those previously or currently used in Emerging Asian countries, with reference to the experiences of OECD member countries. It provides analysis and recommendations for the region’s policy makers to consider in their efforts to improve the quality of infrastructure. In particular, it highlights the importance of considering the spill-over effects of infrastructure in investment decisions. A comprehensive infrastructure impact evaluation does not simply consider the financial feasibility of an individual project, but attempts to judge the full extent of the externalities of planned investments, looking at the positive and negative economic, social and environmental effects over different time periods. The report first presents project case studies, illustrating how policy makers have incorporated the principles of quality infrastructure. It then examines the local economic impact of infrastructure, the role of local governments in infrastructure development and the benefits and challenges of their involvement. It then goes on to discuss different infrastructure financing options including funding from public and private sectors, as well as public-private partnerships, and concludes with a focus on fostering improved alignment between national development strategies and infrastructure planning.
The Revenue Statistics in Asian and Pacific Economies publication is jointly undertaken by the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration and the OECD Development Centre with the co-operation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Pacific Island Tax Administrators Association (PITAA), and the Pacific Community (SPC) with the financial support of the European Union and the Government of Japan. It compiles comparable tax revenue statistics for Australia, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Thailand and Tokelau and comparable non-tax revenue statistics for the Cook Islands, Papua New Guinea, Samoa and Tokelau. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to Asian and Pacific economies enables comparisons of tax levels and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among Asian and Pacific economies and with OECD, Latin American and Caribbean and African averages.
SPECIAL FEATURE: MANAGING TAXPAYERS' COMPLIANCE
Data on government sector receipts, and on taxes in particular, are basic inputs to most structural economic descriptions and economic analyses and are increasingly used in economic comparisons. This annual publication gives a conceptual framework to define which government receipts should be regarded as taxes. It presents a unique set of detailed an internationally comparable tax data in a common format for all OECD countries from 1965 onwards.
This report provides a new perspective to the nature of urban sprawl and its causes and environmental, social and economic consequences. This perspective, which is based on the multi-dimensionality of urban sprawl, sets the foundations for the construction of new indicators to measure the various facets of urban sprawl. The report uses new datasets to compute these indicators for more than 1100 urban areas in 29 OECD countries over the period 1990-2014. It then relies on cross-city, country-level and cross-country analyses of these indicators to provide insights into the current situation and evolution of urban sprawl in OECD cities. In addition, the report offers a critical assessment of the causes and consequences of urban sprawl and discusses policy options to steer urban development to more environmentally sustainable forms.
Globalisation, digitalisation, demographics and climate change are transforming our economies and our societies. They provide new opportunities for growth but at the same time increase the risk of deeper inequalities, in a context where these are already high. Reducing inequalities by making growth beneficial for all is the best way to build strong foundations for future prosperity and to give everyone the opportunity to contribute and succeed. To make this happen, equality needs to be considered from the start when governments design growth policies, rather than tackled afterwards through redistribution. Such an ex ante approach can help people, firms and regions fulfil their potential and drive growth, both locally and globally. By better aligning domestic and international policies, opportunities for growth can be used more effectively to provide higher standards for protection of social, environmental and human rights around the world. The OECD has developed a Framework for Policy Action on Inclusive Growth to help governments to improve the prospects of those currently being left behind. Using a dashboard of indicators, the framework presents key policy recommendations to sustain and more equitably share the gains of economic growth by investing in people and places that have been left behind, supporting business dynamism and inclusive labour markets, and building efficient and responsive governments.
This report provides a comprehensive assessment of Viet Nam’s urban policies and analyses how national spatial planning for urban areas, along with specific sectoral policies, directly and indirectly affect Viet Nam’s urban development. It points to a number of policy areas which Viet Nam can tap into, in order to fully capitalise on the unique opportunities that its urbanisation process may bring about, including urban transport, housing, land, the quality of urban environment, and urban green growth. The review also assesses the efficiency and effectiveness of current urban governance arrangements, and makes recommendations for Viet Nam to develop an attractive and well-managed system of large and medium-sized cities, thereby contributing to achieving its sustainable development objectives.
The 2018 edition analyses tourism performance and policy trends across 49 OECD countries and partner economies. It highlights the need for coherent and comprehensive approaches to tourism policy making, and the significance of the tourism economy, with data covering domestic, inbound and outbound tourism, enterprises and employment, and internal tourism consumption. Thematic chapters explore how understanding the potential impacts of megatrends can better shape the future of tourism, and the need for a shift towards investment and financing for sustainable tourism growth.
In an increasingly globalised world, cities and regions sometimes join forces with their neighbours to form "megaregions" and tap economies of scale. This report discusses how eight cities and counties in Norway and Sweden - along the coast joining up Oslo, Gothenburg and Malmö - have decided to work closer together as the megaregion of “Western Scandinavia”. With a total population of about 5 million inhabitants, this cross-border territory shows good potential to draw on its growing economic and cultural interlinkages, as well as its long history of institutional collaboration, to build a stronger, more sustainable and more inclusive megaregion. The report encourages local authorities to identify a common vision for their shared future development and to take concrete action towards implementing it. It also calls for national governments to tackle the challenges of cross-border transport planning to facilitate greener mobility and more inclusive labour markets.
This report is part of the OECD Tax Policy Reviews. The Reviews are intended to provide independent, comprehensive and comparative assessments of OECD member and non-member countries’ tax systems as well as concrete recommendations for tax policy reform. By identifying tailored tax policy reform options, the objective of the Reviews is to enhance the design of existing tax policies and to support the adoption of new reforms.
This report provides a comprehensive tax policy assessment of the taxes paid by individuals in Slovenia as well as tax reform recommendations. The report is divided into six chapters, with a summary of the main findings upfront, followed by more detailed recommendations at the end of chapters 3 to 6. Chapter 1 sets the scene for tax reform in Slovenia. Chapter 2 focuses on the labour market, social policy and tax policy related challenges. The ensuing chapters assess the financing of the social security system (Chapter 3), identify strategies to strengthen the design of personal income tax (Chapter 4), indirect taxes (Chapter 5), and the taxation of capital income at the individual level (Chapter 6).
The 2018 edition of the OECD Sovereign Borrowing Outlook presents gross borrowing requirements, net borrowing requirements, central government marketable debt and funding strategies for the OECD area and country groupings. In addition, it examines: interactions between fiscal policy; public debt management and monetary policy; procedures and instruments; liquidity in secondary markets; and alternative approaches to sovereign borrowing such as green bonds and GDP-linked instruments in the context of global economic and financial developments.
Poland has seen impressive growth in recent years, and yet regional disparities in economic and social outcomes remain large by OECD standards. The overall living conditions in rural communities generally remain below those of urban communities, and rural households face higher poverty rates. This study examines the range of policies impacting rural development in Poland. It offers recommendations on how to boost agricultural productivity, support economic diversification, enhance inter-municipal co-ordination, deepen decentralisation, and improve multi-level governance.
OECD Reviews of Digital Transformation: Going Digital in Sweden analyses recent developments of the digital economy in the country, reviews policies related to digitalisation and makes recommendations to increase policy coherence in this area. The report examines recent developments in infrastructures for the digital economy, telecom markets and related regulations and policies in Sweden. It reviews trends in the use of digital technologies by individuals, businesses and the government, and examines policies to foster diffusion. Digital security policies are discussed with a view to assess its strengths and limitations. The report also examines opportunities and challenges raised by digitalisation in key areas and analyses policy responses to these changes. The areas covered range from global value chains and innovation to jobs, skills and work in the digital economy.
The report reconsiders these policies in relation to their coherence among different domains and in order to foster synergies across government ministries, levels and institutions, based on the policy framework of the OECD-wide "Going Digital: Making the Transformation Work for Growth and Well-being" project.
This review uses the OECD Policy Framework for Investment to present an assessment of the investment climate in Viet Nam and to discuss the challenges and opportunities faced by the government of Viet Nam in its reform efforts. It includes chapters on foreign investment trends and performance, the entry and operations of foreign investors, the legal framework for investment, corporate governance and competition policy, tax reforms, investment promotion and facilitation, infrastructure connectivity, investment framework for green growth and policies to promote and enable responsible business conduct.
OECD Factbook 2013 is a comprehensive and dynamic statistical annual publication from the OECD. More than 100 indicators cover a wide range of areas: agriculture, economic production, education, energy, environment, foreign aid, health, industry, information and communications, international trade, labour force, population, taxation, public expenditure, and R&D. This year, the OECD Factbook features a focus chapter on gender.
Data are provided for all OECD member countries including area totals, and in some cases for selected non-member economies (including Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Russia & South Africa). For each indicator, there is a two-page spread: a text page includes a short introduction followed by a detailed definition of the indicator, comments on comparability of the data, an assessment of long-term trends related to the indicator and a list of references for further information on the indicator; the opposite page contains a table and a graph providing – at a glance – the key message conveyed by the data. A dynamic link (StatLink) is provided for each table where readers can download the corresponding data.
The OECD Factbook is also available as a free app for your mobile device! Visit your app store.
The 2018 edition of the OECD Employment Outlook reviews labour market trends and prospects in OECD countries. Chapter 1 presents recent labour market developments. Wage growth remains sluggish due to low inflation expectations, weak productivity growth and adverse trends in low-pay jobs. Chapter 2 looks at the decline of the labour share and shows that this is partially related to the emergence of "superstar" firms, which invest massively in capital-intensive technologies. Chapter 3 investigates the role of collective bargaining institutions for labour market performance. Systems that co-ordinate wages across sectors are associated with better employment outcomes, but firm-level adjustments of sector-level agreements are sometimes required to avoid adverse effects on productivity. Chapter 4 examines the role of policy to facilitate the transition towards new jobs of workers who were dismissed for economic reasons, underlying the need of early interventions in the unemployment spell. Chapter 5 analyses jobseekers' access to unemployment benefits and shows that most jobseekers do not receive unemployment benefits and coverage has often been falling since the Great Recession. Chapter 6 investigates the reason why the gender gap in labour income increases over the working life, stressing the role of the lower professional mobility of women around childbirth.