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National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012
Germany
Act on the Peaceful Utilisation of Atomic Energy and the Protection against its Hazards (Atomic Energy Act)
Sweden
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority’s regulations concerning clearance of materials, rooms, buildings and land in practices involving ionising radiation
The Swedish Radiation Safety Authority’s general advice on the application of the regulations concerning clearance of materials, rooms, buildings and land in practices involving ionising radiation
European Union
Council Directive 2011/70/EURATOM of 19 July 2011 establishing a Community framework for the responsible and safe management of spent fuel and radioactive waste
India
The Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Act
Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage Rules
Republic of Korea
Act on Establishment and Operation of Nuclear Safety Commission
Russian Federation
Federal Law on the Management of Radioactive Wastes and amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation
Belgium
Act of 29 June 2014 amending the Act of 22 July 1985 on Third-Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy Belgium
Act of 7 December 2016 amending the Act of 22 July 1985 on Third-Party Liability in the Field of Nuclear Energy
In some countries and economies, such as Beijing-Shanghai-Jiangsu-Guangdong (China), Qatar,Thailand, Tunisia and the United Arab Emirates, students spend at least 54 hours per week learning at and outside of school combined, whereas in others, like Finland, Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and Uruguay, students spend less than 40 hours studying.
Students in Australia, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and Switzerland show the best balance between total learning time and academic performance.
In school systems where students spend more time in regular science lessons, average science scores are higher; but when students spend more time studying science after school, average science scores are lower.
The benefits of co-operative behaviours have been broadly documented in various social contexts, including neighbourhoods, hospitals, companies and in education. In education, when students, teachers, parents and the school principal know and trust each other, work together, and share information, ideas and goals, students – particularly disadvantaged students – can benefit. However, co-operation and teamwork come with potential drawbacks too. Tasks might not be divided fairly and efficiently; team members sometimes work on tasks for which they are unsuited or that they dislike; some group members may freeride on their teammates’ efforts; and co-ordinating tasks may be too complex and time-consuming. Evidence also suggests that competition can improve academic performance and speed in learning, if only because competition can be thrilling and enjoyable.
Measuring the quality of governance and regulation in various ways and focusing on energy, transport and telecommunications, this paper shows that both sound governance of infrastructure investment and pro-competitive regulation in network industries are associated with stronger productivity growth in firms operating downstream.
The striking cross-national variation in socio-economic disparities in skills gaps among 15-year-olds, and the evolution of these gaps between the ages of 15 and 27, raises the question of what policies and institutional arrangements may explain such variability. Extensive policy analysis and research has been devoted to the features of education systems which are most strongly associated with such socio-economic gradients (or the lack of them) in literacy and numeracy. However, much less is known about which factors contribute to narrowing or widening socio-economic gaps after the end of compulsory schooling. Results on the widening gap at the bottom end of the performance distribution identify a target group for policy interventions – socio-economically disadvantaged students who are low-achievers at the age of 15. These results also help to formulate hypotheses as to why gaps widen in many countries after schools are no longer able to exert their equalising effect, since this is the group which is less likely to enjoy opportunities for further skill development through education and training.
Parents often establish fruitful relationships with teachers, students and other parents at their child’s school. By doing so, they might gain new friends and help their child’s academic career; but more crucially, they may contribute indirectly to the common good of the school – by reinforcing the norms of behaviour at school, spreading important information, generating trust and/or connecting the school with the wider community.
PISA asked parents from the 18 countries and economies that chose to distribute the parent questionnaire how many of their child’s school friends they know by name and how many of their parents they know.
In schools where parents know their children’s friends and their families, students are more likely to develop their skills, improve their attitudes towards collaboration, and feel happier and safer at school.
Across TALIS 2013 countries and economies, new teachers with a maximum of three years’ work experience comprise, on average, 10% of the total teacher population.
New teachers are more likely to feel prepared in the content of their subject field(s), rather than the pedagogy or classroom practice of their subject field(s). However, the levels of their perceived preparedness were lower than experienced teachers in all three domains. In nearly two-thirds of TALIS 2013 countries and economies, the largest difference in reported preparedness between new and experienced teachers was in classroom practice of the subject field(s) they teach, followed by the pedagogy of the subject field(s) they teach.
Public procurement accounts for around 12% of global GDP and 63% of expenditures are managed by subnational governments across OECD countries. In Italy, municipalities can impose penalties on contractors for breaches of contract, for example delays in delivery, often leading to contractors suing the municipality in local courts, which can in turn further delay delivery. As such the efficiency of the local judiciary can have a strong bearing on the final delivery of public works. This study assesses the causal effect of those efficiencies on the ultimate delay in the execution of local public contracts. The results show that inefficient courts lead to further delays in the execution of public works that are already long overdue. However, inefficient courts also appear to deter companies to pursue litigation in cases where delays were much lower. Overall, the impact on long-overdue contracts prevails and the aggregate effect is negative: the total delay in the execution of local public contracts in the 25% least efficient courts is more than twice as large as in the 25% most efficient courts.
The global crisis of 2008-09 went hand in hand with sharp fluctuations in capital flows. To some extent, these fluctuations may have been attributable to uncertainty-averse investors indiscriminately selling assets about which they had poor information, including those in geographically distant locations. Using a gravity equation setup, this article shows that the impact of distance increases with investors’ uncertainty aversion. Consistent with a sudden increase in uncertainty, the negative impact of distance on foreign holdings increased during the global financial crisis of 2008-09. Host-country structural policies enhancing the quality of information available to foreign investors, such as strict disclosure requirements and prudential bank regulation, tended to mitigate withdrawals.
This study investigates the capacity of governments to reallocate spending across different functions of the government. It mobilises the COFOG dataset for the period 1996 - 2017, which allows comparing public spending mixes at detailed levels in ways that are consistent across countries and over time.
Three main empirical findings are established. Firstly, countries differ in their propensity to reallocate public spending across functions and countries that reallocate more are also countries with sounder governance and tighter fiscal rules in place. Secondly, obstacles to reallocation are identified, with governments avoiding nominal cuts, especially in health and social expenditures. Thirdly, while the analysis underlines some degree of convergence among OECD countries in terms of public spending allocation, this convergence is not universal. A cluster of Nordic countries persists, and Greece is identified as diverging from the rest of countries included in the sample.
This paper estimates urban and rural poverty rates across five Chinese administrative regions (Shanghai, Liaoning, Guangdong, Henan and Gansu) in 2014 using representative household level data from the China Family Panel Studies survey. The types of government transfer payments that households in poverty received and the ability for such payments to lift households from poverty are also assessed. Consistent with official estimates, the results highlight substantial disparities in poverty rates between administrative regions. Smaller differences exist between urban and rural locations within the same administrative region. In 2014, the most common types of government transfer received by households in poverty were agricultural subsidies or social assistance - principally the dibao. Regarding the latter, the results suggest some improvement in payment targeting in rural areas, but most dibao recipients had income above the poverty line (as defined in this paper) in 2014. Furthermore, across all administrative regions, the vast majority of households living below the defined poverty line did not receive social assistance at that time.
In recent years, more attention has been paid to the way gender interacts with intercultural and global learning opportunities. While evidence shows that schools are shaping a gendered citizenry, the notions of citizenship in this research has been notably local with limited focus on global conceptions of citizenship. PISA 2018 asked students a series of questions about their global and intercultural attitudes and dispositions. Those questions focused on the four dimensions of global competence: students’ ability to examine local and global issues, their capacity to understand and appreciate the perspectives of others, their ability to engage in effective communication across cultures, and their willingness to take action for collective well-being and sustainable development. Findings show some important gender differences discussed in this paper.
This issue of the Adult Skills in Focus series looks at gender differences in reading (literacy) and mathematics (numeracy) skills, and in particular how these differences evolve as people grow up. The analysis use data on three different assessments, administered to children in fourth grade (around 10 year-olds), to 15-year old adolescents, and to young adults aged 26-27.
The data shows that girls have a small advantage in literacy at age 10, which grows larger by age 15. However, at age 26 this advantage disappears, and young adults achieve on average the same scores in the literacy assessment. The picture is very different in the case of numeracy skills. At age 10 the gaps are very small, with a tiny advantage for boys. The gap is larger at age 15 and grows even more by age 26, when young men achieve on average much higher scores. A possible explanation for these results is that men specialise in occupations and fields of study that make higher use of numeracy skills; men are also able to close the gap in literacy skills because reading is a transversal skill that people need to master to be successful in a wider range of occupations.