Browse by: "2016"

Global Insurance Market Trends provides comparable, cross-country data on insurance markets. It is a comprehensive source of statistical information for government authorities (regulators, finance ministries, and central banks), the insurance sector, the research community, and consumers. The report is based on the inputs from national insurance authorities and supports monitoring and analysis of the insurance sector. 

The Jordan Clean Energy Investment Policy Review is a country-specific application of the OECD Policy Guidance for Investment in Clean Energy Infrastructure. It aims to help Jordanian policy makers strengthen the enabling conditions for investment in renewable electricity generation in Jordan. The Policy Guidance is a non-prescriptive tool to help governments identify ways to mobilise private sector investment in clean energy infrastructure, especially in renewable electricity generation. The Policy Guidance was jointly developed by the OECD Working Party on Climate, Investment and Development (WPCID) of the Environment Policy Committee (EPOC) and the OECD Investment Committee, jointly with the Global Relations Secretariat (GRS). It benefited from significant inputs of the World Bank and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP). The Policy Guidance was annexed to the Communiqué of G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors at their meeting on 10-11 October 2013.

This report provides guidance on how to carry out an inquiry or examination into a particular market when there is a suspicion or indication that a market is not functioning well. It explains what market examinations are as well as their purposes, intended outcomes and substantive content. Although the manual describes the Mexican experience, it could be used as a non-binding proactive tool to be applied on a case-by-case basis on a standardised and flexible framework that seeks to provide greater clarity to procedures used in market examinations.

An estimated 22% of the world’s largest firms are now effectively under state control, this is the highest percentage in decades. These firms are likely to remain a prominent feature of the global marketplace in the near future. The upsurge of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) as global competitors has given rise to concerns related to a level playing field.  Some business competitors and observers claim that preferential treatment granted by governments to SOEs in return for public policy obligations carried out at home can give SOEs a competitive edge in their foreign expansion. The OECD has taken a multidisciplinary approach, looking at the issue from the competition, investment, corporate governance and trade policy perspectives.  The report aims to sort fact from fiction, and develop a stronger understanding, based on empirical evidence, on how to address growing policy concerns with regard to SOE internationalisation. The report concludes that although there is no clear evidence of systematic abusive behaviour by SOE investors, frictions need to be addressed, in view of keeping the global economy open to trade and investment.

This report examines the key design and implementation features that need to be considered to ensure that biodiversity offset programmes are environmentally effective, economically efficient, and distributionally equitable. Biodiversity offsets are being increasingly used in a wide range of sectors as a mechanism to help compensate for the adverse effects caused by development projects in a variety of ecosystems. In this report, insights and lessons learned are drawn from more than 40 case studies from around the world, with an additional 3 in-depth country case studies from the United States, Germany and Mexico.

This publication helps policy makers to better understand annuity products and the guarantees they provide in order to optimise the role that these products can play in financing retirement. Product design is a crucial factor in the potential role of annuity products within the pension system, along with the cost and demand for these products, and the resulting risks that are borne by the annuity providers. Increasingly complex products, however, pose additional challenges concerning consumer protection. Consumers need to be aware of their options and have access to unbiased and comprehensible advice and information about these products.

The OECD Pensions Outlook 2016 assesses policy issues regarding strengthening pension systems and, in particular, funded pension plans.  It covers defined benefits and defined contribution pension plans; fiscal incentives to save for retirement; policy measures to improve the financial advice for retirement; annuity products and their guarantees; pension design and financial education; and the pension arrangements for public-sector workers, including a comparison with those for private sector workers.

Pension Markets in Focus provides detailed and comparable statistics on retirement savings around the world. This annual statistical report contributes to the effort of making data on retirement savings available, as the OECD Core Principles of Private Pension Regulation advocates for, to enable regulators and stakeholders to evaluate the design and operation of pension systems relative to their goals. These statistics can support policy discussions through international comparisons and peer learning, and are the basis of policy recommendations in the OECD series of Pension Reviews. These statistics can also be helpful to private sector representatives, journalists, academics and anyone interested in funded pension systems.

A major challenge facing the Republic of Buryatia, subject of the Russian Federation, is how to balance the task of protecting Lake Baikal – a unique water object and ecological system included in the UNESCO list of World Natural Heritage Areas – with the need for dynamic and sustainable socio-economic development of the republic.  This requires streamlining and improving water policy jointly with economic, administrative, information and other policy instruments. The recommendations in this report aim to help achieve this objective. They include the introduction of abstraction charges for irrigation water as a  natural resource; enhancement of state support to the water sector; and improvement of economic instruments for managing risks of water-related hazards (such as compulsory insurance and differentiated land tax rates in flood prone areas). A few innovative instruments are also recommended for pilot testing such as establishing limits for discharges of certain hazardous substances in a pilot area (e.g. Selenga river basin) and progressive development of market for tradable quotas for discharges of the “capped” pollutants; and introducing a charge (tax) on toxic agricultural chemicals (pesticides, herbicides, etc.) and synthetic detergents so that to create incentives for the reduction of diffuse water pollution.

After decades of innovation, satellites now play a discrete but pivotal role in the efficient functioning of modern societies and their economic development. This publication provides the findings from a OECD Space Forum project on the state of innovation in the space sector, with a view to examine how space innovation may impact the larger economy. New analysis and indicators contribute to answering some of the following questions: is the space sector still a driver for innovation in the 21st century? What are the determinants for an innovative space sector? And what are the policy responses to encourage and harness better space-related innovation?

The outcome of COP21 urged developed countries to scale up their level of financial support, over and above their initial finance pledges, with a concrete roadmap to achieve their USD 100 billion a year commitment by 2020. This note provides analytical support to country preparation of such a roadmap, assessing the scale of future climate finance as well as identifying and discussing some key uncertainties. It sets out the resulting projections for climate finance in 2020 along with the underlying assumptions and methodologies.

Taking risks is a fundamental driving force in business and entrepreneurship. To reap the full rewards of risk-taking, however, firms need to have in place effective risk management practices. This publication provides a stocktaking of ways in which SOEs and those exercising the state’s ownership role address the issue of risk management from the perspective of corporate governance (“risk governance”), as recommended in the OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises. The report looks at this issue from three perspectives: by taking stock, first, of national legal and regulatory SOE risk management frameworks, and then by taking stock of risk-management practices at the level of the SOE and then at the level of the state.

Mongolia is a fledgling democracy that undergoes rapid transformation. Exploration of significant mineral resources exacerbated governance and corruption challenges. Mongolia has started a number of important reforms, including in the anti-corruption area, but they are far from producing sustainable results. The joint first and second monitoring rounds report on Mongolia takes stock of the anti-corruption developments in the country, tracks progress or lack of it and recommends further actions.

Addressing a call by G20 Leaders to develop practical tools for financial literacy measurement, the OECD/INFE has conducted an international data collection exercise for measuring financial literacy and financial inclusion. A total of 51,650 adults aged 18 to 79 from 30 countries and economies participated in the survey.

The new OECD Guidelines on Corporate Governance of State-Owned Enterprises provide an internationally agreed benchmark to help governments assess and improve the way they exercise their ownership functions in state-owned enterprises. Good corporate governance of state-owned enterprises is a key reform priority in many countries. Improved efficiency and better transparency in the state owned sector will result in considerable economic gains, especially in countries where state ownership is important. In addition, creating a level playing field for private and state-owned enterprises will encourage a sound and competitive business sector. The Guidelines, first adopted in 2005, provide a set of good practices on the legal and regulatory framework for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), the professionalisation of the state ownership function and the corporate governance arrangements of SOEs. This new version of the recommendation was developed in the light of almost a decade of experiences with its implementation and a number of thematic and comparative studies, developed on the basis of the earlier version of the Guidelines, that showed the need for, and supported, their revision, including in areas such as disclosure and transparency, public-private competition, board practices and funding and financing of SOE.

За последнее десятилетие Грузия добилась значительных успехов в борьбе с коррупцией. Этот успех был в значительной степени обусловлен сильной правоохранительной системой и административными упрощениями, которые устранили мелкую коррупцию в органах государственного управления. Теперь, когда эти "низко висящие" плоды собраны, Грузия переходит к следующему этапу борьбы с коррупцией и, как и многие другие страны, может столкнуться с новой проблемой - коррупцией высокого уровня и сложной коррупцией. Грузия находится в сильной позиции для решения этой проблемы, но для достижения успеха она должна не ждать в самодовольстве, а быть креативным и активным борцом с коррупцией, каким она и была до сих пор.

Georgia has achieved remarkable progress in fighting corruption over the past decade. This success was largely due to strong law-enforcement and administrative simplifications that eliminated petty corruption in the public administration. Now that these 'low-hanging' fruits have been picked, Georgia is now at the next stage of fighting corruption and, as many other countries, may be facing a new challenge of high level and complex corruption. Georgia is in a strong position to address this challenge, but to be successful it should not wait in complacency, but be a creative and active anti-corruption fighter, as it has been so far.

The OECD Core Principles of Private Pension Regulation provide governments, regulators and supervisors worldwide with a relevant common benchmark and high-level guidance on the design and operation of private pension systems.