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Las autoridades de defensa de la competencia han desarrollado varias herramientas para detectar cárteles y motivar la apertura de investigaciones. Las investigaciones ex officio, esto es, iniciadas por las propias autoridades de competencia, se derivan de la aplicación de herramientas de detección que exigen un mayor grado de proactividad de las autoridades de competencia, tales como la supervisión de la industria y el cribado o screening de cárteles. Las nuevas tecnologías, como la inteligencia artificial, también proporcionan a las autoridades de competencia mayores oportunidades de mejorar sus esfuerzos de detección. Este documento presenta las herramientas de detección que permiten iniciar investigaciones de cárteles ex officio y, en particular, las tendencias y experiencias actuales de América Latina y el Caribe. Concluye subrayando la necesidad de que las autoridades de competencia pongan en práctica distintos enfoques que se complementen entre sí y que propicien la detección de cárteles.

This paper develops a taxonomy of 151 industries, mainly defined at the 3-digit level, indicating at which geographical level competition takes place. It classifies 40 industries as competing at the domestic level, 85 at the European level, and 26 at the global level. First, this paper creates a novel dataset that combines production and international trade data for both goods and services industries, defined at a detailed level of industry aggregation for 15 European countries (based on data availability). Then, by comparing domestic sales with international trade flows, and their source/destination, it identifies the geographic level of competition of each industry. The proposed classification can be used in numerous applications, from the design of trade policies to the assessment of competition by antitrust authorities. The paper shows that the taxonomy is broadly consistent with external data sources that provide alternative ways of inferring the degree of internationalisation of each industry.

An extensive literature explains recession risks using a variety of financial and business cycle variables. The problem of selecting a parsimonious set of explanatory variables, which can differ between countries and prediction horizons, is naturally suited to machine-learning methods. The current paper compares models selected by conventional machine-learning methods with a customised algorithm, ‘Doombot’, which uses ‘brute force’ to test combinations of variables and imposes restrictions so that predictions are consistent with a coherent economic narrative. The same algorithms are applied to 20 OECD countries with an emphasis on out-of-sample testing using a rolling origin, including a window for the Global Financial Crisis. Despite the imposition of additional restrictions, Doombot is found to the best performing algorithm. Further testing confirms the imposition of judgmental constraints tends to improve rather than hinder out-of-sample performance. Moreover, these constraints provide a more coherent economic narrative and so mitigate the common ‘black box’ criticism of machine-learning methods.

Competition authorities have developed various tools to detect cartels and substantiate the basis for opening investigations. Ex officio investigations, meaning investigations initiated by the authorities themselves, are derived from detection tools that require a higher level of proactivity from the agency, for instance, industry monitoring and cartel screenings. New technologies such as artificial intelligence also provide competition authorities with greater opportunities to improve their detection tools. This paper provides an overview of detection tools to launch ex officio cartel investigations, including recent trends and experiences from Latin America and the Caribbean. It concludes by highlighting the need for competition authorities to implement a variety of approaches to complement one another and enhance cartel detection.

This report reviews the literature on the distributional consequences of climate change and mitigation and transition pathways. The heterogeneous levels of exposure and vulnerability to climate change across countries, regions, households, and workers hint at the significant distributional costs of inaction. Climate policies will likely trigger a reallocation from “high-polluting” sectors to “green” sectors, disproportionately affecting certain regions and low-skilled workers. Price-based policies, such as carbon taxation, show varied effects across countries: they tend to be more regressive in developed countries and more progressive in developing countries where energy affordability and energy poverty are major concerns. Non-market-based policies are often regressive and can result in equity issues. Effective climate action requires balancing distributional outcomes, ensuring political acceptability, and understanding the link between policy perceptions and support.

The contribution of services in the United Kingdom (UK) to exports, value added, and employment is one of the highest amongst OECD countries. UK employment also depends strongly on exports of digital services: in 2019 the jobs of around 3.2 million domestic workers in digital services sectors were embodied in UK exports. Median wages in these services are considerable higher than wages in other sectors of the UK economy. Econometric analysis shows that strong growth of employment in digital services generates multiplier effects benefitting local economies in the United Kingdom, with each additional digital services job creating around 0.3 jobs in the local non-tradable sector. Continued support for plurilateral and multilateral initiatives to dismantle barriers to services trade, including via the WTO Joint Initiative on Services Domestic Regulation, can help to enable more UK firms to take advantage of the potential for further growth in digital services trade. Improving the availability of training programmes and aligning curricula with the rapidly evolving needs of exporters of digital services is crucial to enable for workers to shift into sectors with growing labour demand.

This working paper provides an in-depth review of the opportunities and challenges surrounding water investment in Africa. It also presents the state of play in the use of ultimate sources of funding (the “3Ts”: tariffs, taxes, and transfers) and financing for water on the continent, showing that these sources are not currently being used to their full potential and in the most efficient and equitable way. In this context, there is a wide range of options to scale up and improve water finance in Africa and to achieve SDG 6 - and, by extension, all the Sustainable Development Goals - on the continent. This paper follows the lifecycle of a project, paying particular attention to equity and affordability. It presents concrete proposals to strengthen water policy investment frameworks, build well-prepared and investment-ready water projects, scale up risk mitigation instruments for water, and diversify financing instruments and sources.

Promoting health and well-being at the workplace is a valuable investment for employees, employers, governments, and society. Healthy employees are less likely to be absent or have reduced productivity. Employers benefit from improved work outputs, and health systems see reduced treatment costs. Digital tools and innovative technologies can enhance the effectiveness of health promotion programs. The market for these tools is growing globally, with employers keen to improve health and productivity. This working paper, through four case studies, underscores how wearables, mobile applications for female health, AI-driven lifestyle management applications, and health insurance engagement platforms can be utilized to promote health at the workplace. These technologies present avenues for enhancing the efficacy, efficiency, and customization of health promotion interventions. Nevertheless, they also pose challenges such as privacy issues, the requirement for digital proficiency, the necessity for conducive organisational practices for healthier work environments, and the assurance of safety and clinical suitability of the proliferating health applications and tools in the market.

The paper presents novel indicators to measure financial sector digitalisation that cover 21 OECD countries over the 1995-2018 period, showing a significant increase in digital penetration though at different speeds and intensities across countries. The indicators are used to study the impact of financial sector digitalisation on economic activity, highlighting significant positive effects on the productivity of downstream industries. A 10% increase in financial sector digitalisation is associated with a 0.1 percentage point increase in productivity growth for the average industry, with a stronger impact in intangible-intensive industries. Digitalisation in finance is also associated with an easing of credit constraints, particularly benefiting intangible-intensive industries and SMEs, via an improvement in credit allocation and market conditions. Results suggest that policy actions aimed at supporting digital infrastructure, promoting competition in communications, fostering finance innovation, and encouraging high-level skill formation (especially in STEM fields) could sustain and enhance productivity growth through financial sector digitalisation.

Romania’s clean energy transition needs to accelerate for the country to decarbonise its economy by mid-century. Following an impressive decline from the early 1990s, emissions of greenhouse gases have stopped falling in recent years. Fossil fuel dependence, an increasing and ageing vehicle fleet and poorly insulated buildings increase energy use and carbon intensity. Moving away from fossil fuels in Romania calls primarily for more renewables; shifting to electricity in transport and buildings; substantial energy savings; and improved transport systems. This paper identifies policies that would help bring about these changes cost effectively, while minimising the socio-economic impact of the transition and contributing to improving people’s quality of life. The policy package should include institutional reforms and public investment, regulatory changes, financial support and consistent price signals to encourage private abatement actions. Measures to alleviate the impact of the net-zero transition on vulnerable communities and to adapt to climate change are also required.

The consumption of products, services and transportation has significant environmental consequences and account for the majority of global greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, demand-side policy measures have the potential to reduce the environmental footprint of these activities by up to 40-70%. This Policy Paper draws on the OECD’s recent household survey on environmental policy and behavioural change to provide insights and policy recommendations for specific measures that can encourage more sustainable household consumption of energy, transport and food as well as more sustainable waste practices. The report was prepared in support of Japan’s 2023 G7 presidency.

This report addresses the importance of dividend policies for jurisdictions with profitable or potentially profitable state-owned enterprises (SOEs), against the background of current challenges in public finances and increasing pressures on SOEs to contribute revenues to the public purse. It explores how, and subject to what criteria, state-owners decide how much profit to distribute versus retain for future investments in commercially oriented SOEs where the state is a major shareholder. The report further attempts to establish good practices for dividend policies, and offers guidance to support state ownership entities in setting such policies.

As AI use grows, so do its benefits and risks. These risks can lead to actual harms ("AI incidents") or potential dangers ("AI hazards"). Clear definitions are essential for managing and preventing these risks. This report proposes definitions for AI incidents and related terms. These definitions aim to foster international interoperability while providing flexibility for jurisdictions to determine the scope of AI incidents and hazards they wish to address.

Waste crimes create social and economic issues. Offenders commit crime due to either a lack of awareness of waste law or the belief that there is a low risk of being caught and punished. OECD countries are using digital tools to improve their use of resources with the aim to promote compliance and detect violation of waste law. This paper reviews the types of waste crimes, their motivations, and opportunities for governments to use digital tools for their enforcement efforts. It finds that governments have thus far mainly focused on digitalising their data collection and their exchange of information with the public and partners. Further application of digital tools can improve the connection of these tools and test predictive analytical tools such as artificial intelligence systems.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented global economic downturn, affecting productivity, business dynamics, and digital technology adoption. Using a comprehensive commercial database from Spiceworks Ziff Davis, this study analyses the firm-level drivers of digitalisation during the pandemic across 20 European countries. The findings show that a considerable share of firms introduced new digital technologies during the COVID-19 crisis. Notably, firms that were larger, more digitalised, and more productive before the pandemic were more likely to introduce new digital technologies in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, firms with pre-existing complementary technologies had a higher likelihood of adopting digital applications that gained momentum during the pandemic (such as digital commerce, collaborative software, cloud, and analytics). These patterns may increase polarisation among the best-performing firms and the rest of the business population. Public policy can play a key role in fostering an inclusive digital transformation in the post-pandemic era.

This paper reviews the digital tools developed by the insurance industry to improve the health and wellness of policyholders. These tools are said to offer a win-win: better health for policyholders and reduced claims for insurers. Many tools apply lessons from behavioural economics by seeking to influence policyholder behaviour and overcome short-term barriers to change. This paper identifies issues and challenges, such as data privacy and security, safety risks, data quality, overall effectiveness, and relevant policy and regulatory frameworks.

This paper explores the opportunities and challenges linked to a possible use of deliberative democracy processes in Lebanon. It looks at the viability and feasibility of such initiatives, which are not prevalent in the country, by identifying the main impediments to their initiation and implementation, the different formats they could take, and the expected impact. It discusses how deliberative democracy could complement and diversify the democratic tools available to Lebanese actors and thus strengthen citizens’ ability to participate in public life. The aim of the paper is to encourage an initial discussion on this topic, raise awareness about its potential to contribute to democratic governance and respond to the demand of Lebanese actors interested in pursuing deliberative democracy efforts.