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Private debt owed to banks and other financial institutions has been at unprecedented high levels. This paper studies the role of these high levels of debt for workers, based on an assembled micro-dataset that harmonises household surveys from 29 OECD countries. High debt is found to be associated with two bad outcomes for workers: weaker wage growth and an increased risk that they encounter a sharp fall in their wages. People who tend to be particularly affected are the low-skilled, individuals with unstable employment paths and financially vulnerable households. Strong bank supervision and macroprudential measures that aim to avoid credit overexpansion are two policies that can improve the links of private debt with labour income growth and risk. Overall, the evidence in this paper points to finance as one factor behind wage stagnation and the social divisions in today’s labour markets.
The OECD Competition Committee debated barriers to entry in October 2005. This document includes an executive summary and the documents from the meeting: an analytical note by the OECD, written submissions from Brazil, Chinese Taipei, the Czech Republic, the European Commission, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, Korea, Lithuania, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Switzerland, Türkiye, the United Kingdom, the United States, and BIAC, as well as an aide-memoire of the discussion.
This paper revisits barriers to exit, explores their different definitions in the literature and identifies what these have in common. It then analyses the different ways in which such barriers to exit can affect allocative efficiency and competition while assessing their impacts by looking at the effects of barriers to exit on market structure; competitive distortions; and type of entry. Finally, it considers how competition authorities assess barriers to exit in their enforcement and advocacy work to identify differences (or commonalities) of approaches and areas that may warrant further research and discussion. It was prepared as a background note for a discussion held at the OECD in December 2019 on barriers to exit.
This paper explores the nature of exit barriers in the steel industry, their social and economic implications, and policy approaches to deal with exits and steel industry restructuring. Barriers to exit in the steel industry require attention due to their negative impacts on excess capacity. Such barriers mainly stem from government interventions that hinder the closure of inefficient or unviable steel plants, though cost factors specific to the steel industry are important barriers, as well. Exits may also entail important costs associated with redundancy payments to workers, environmental clean-up and operations to dismantle mills. The paper concludes with specific policy recommendations to promote adjustment, including removing subsidies and other government support measures that maintain unviable plants, assisting displaced steel workers into other activities, and other measures to limit the social costs of steel plant closures.
This paper was prepared for the OECD-IEA Climate Change Expert Group (formerly called the Annex I Expert Group) for the purpose of providing useful and timely input on specific topics relevant to international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The papers do not represent the views of the OECD, the IEA, or their member countries, rather they are Secretariat information papers intended to help inform countries as well as the UNFCCC audience on key technical issues in the international climate change negotiations.
This paper was prepared for the OECD-IEA Climate Change Expert Group (formerly called the Annex I Expert Group) for the purpose of providing useful and timely input on specific topics relevant to international negotiations under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The papers do not represent the views of the OECD, the IEA, or their member countries, rather they are Secretariat information papers intended to help inform countries as well as the UNFCCC audience on key technical issues in the international climate change negotiations.
Digital transformation has enabled easier tradability of traditional services across borders and the emergence of new services that create value from data. But the benefits derived from digitalisation risk being derailed by existing and emerging trade barriers. The OECD Digital Services Trade Restrictiveness Index (Digital STRI) is a new tool that identifies, catalogues, and quantifies cross-cutting barriers between 2014 and 2018 that affect trade in digitally-enabled services across all G20 countries. This index is comprised of a regulatory database of existing trade barriers based on publicly available laws and regulations, as well as composite indices that measure the trade restrictiveness of these policies. The Digital STRI shows that the regulatory environment is complex and diverse across G20 countries, and that there is scope to reduce trade barriers, particularly with respect to communications infrastructure and burdensome measures that affect cross-border data transfers. The Digital STRI can also map regulatory heterogeneity across the G20, and help monitor regulatory convergence, e.g. from regulatory cooperation in trade agreements.
The combination of different working-age benefits, childcare costs and income taxation creates complexity, reduces work incentives and holds back employment. This paper compares Finland’s benefit system with two benefit reform scenarios: a uniform benefit for all (“basic income”) and a universal tapering rule (“universal credit”). The scenarios are modelled in the OECD TaxBen model and the TUJA microsimulation model. We find that replacing current benefits with a basic income would improve incentives for many, but with a drastic redistribution of income and likely increasing poverty as a result. Merging working-age benefits with similar aims and coordinating their tapering against earnings would on the other hand consistently improve work incentives and transparency, while preserving or improving social protection.
The G20/OECD Task Force on Financial Consumer Protection has highlighted that "regulators and supervisors can use the insights gained through behavioural economics research to inform their approach to potential remedies to help consumers".
This paper, prepared under the aegis of the G20/OECD Task Force, first provides some historical context for the development of the field of behavioural economics and its increased application to policy. It then looks more specifically at the application of behavioural economics in the area of financial consumer protection. Common biases that individuals demonstrate in the context of making financial decisions are identified, and an overview of how numerous governments are testing and implementing the application of behavioural economics for policies promoting financial consumer protection is provided. The paper concludes by highlighting the opportunity for behavioural economics to help provide cost-efficient ways of making policy more effective at promoting positive outcomes for consumers, and stressing the need to continue an open dialogue with policy makers, regulators and supervisors to exchange experiences and good practices.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit many countries at a time when their education systems were facing multiple challenges. Economic, public-health and social impacts from the pandemic have exacerbated many of these challenges. The aim of this paper is to explore the way in which the behavioural sciences can help support the policy response to the COVID-induced education crisis, and to serve as a learning experience for other future crises. The paper involves an empirical exploration of the factors associated with a range of outcomes using large nationally representative datasets, and interpreting these relationships in the context of a detailed literature review. By using data that it is generally representative of the populations of interest, and is available for many dozens of countries with different histories, languages, cultures, and socioeconomic outcomes, this paper highlights how identifying behavioural biases can direct education systems towards more effective targeted policy interventions.
Governments are created and run by humans, who can experience the same behavioural biases and barriers as individuals in society. Therefore, it makes sense to explore how behavioural insights (BI) can be applied to the governance of regulatory policy making, and not just to the design of regulations themselves. Applying BI can help improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the decision-making process, which can, in turn, help improve regulatory decisions. This paper maps the ways in which barriers and biases can affect the institutions, processes and tools of regulatory governance, with a focus on regulatory oversight bodies and regulatory management tools. It concludes with practical ways governments can translate these findings into research and reforms that can help future-proof regulatory policy making and ensure it is agile, responsive and fit for tackling important and complex policy challenges.
This working paper explores the use of behavioural science for promoting environmentally sustainable tourism. It looks at how to use behavioural science to encourage sustainable behaviour, targeting both the consumers and suppliers of tourism activities and services. It concludes with recommendations for planning and implementing a tourism recovery strategy that prioritises both economic and environmental sustainability.
The efficient and safe management of spent fuel produced during the operation of commercial nuclear power plants is an important issue. In this context, partitioning and transmutation (P&T) of minor actinides and long-lived fission products can play an important role, significantly reducing the burden on geological repositories of nuclear waste and allowing their more effective use. Various systems, including existing reactors, fast reactors and advanced systems have been considered to optimise the transmutation scheme. Recently, many countries have shown interest in accelerator-driven systems (ADS) due to their potential for transmutation of minor actinides. Much R&D work is still required in order to demonstrate their desired capability as a whole system, and the current analysis methods and nuclear data for minor actinide burners are not as well established as those for conventionally-fuelled systems...
This report presents a new urban accessibility framework. It identifies which destinations can be reached on foot, by bicycle, public transport or car within a certain time (accessibility). It then measures how many destinations are close by (proximity). The comparison between accessible destinations and nearby destinations shows how well each transport mode performs (transport performance). These three indicators are calculated for destinations such as schools, hospitals, food shops, restaurants, people, recreational opportunities and green spaces in 121 cities in 30 European countries.