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In 2011, an Expert Group was launched to carry out a feasibility study on the compilation of distributional measures of income, consumption and wealth across household groups consistent with national accounts data. This group developed a methodology on the basis of which first experimental results on income, consumption and savings according to income quintiles were compiled and published in 2013. In 2015, the expert group engaged in a second exercise focusing on a more recent year and taking into account a number of adjustments to the methodology used in the previous exercise. This paper describes the sources, methods and results of this second exercise.

The results of the exercise show that in general all countries are able to comply with the methodology. Furthermore, countries have micro data available for most of the national accounts items and in case of lacking data, imputations lead to comparable results. However, the results also show that in some cases gaps between the micro aggregates and the national accounts totals are quite substantial, possibly affecting the overall distributional results. Furthermore, more information is needed on how countries link data across various data sources. The experimental results show that Mexico records the highest income and consumption disparities, followed by the United States and Portugal, and that Slovenia records the lowest. The paper also shows that breakdowns into other household groups, such as age group and labour market status reveal very interesting information.

The OECD Career Readiness project makes use of quantitative evidence to identify how teenage career-related activities and attitudes are linked with better adult employment outcomes. Review of multiple national longitudinal datasets confirms that teenage experiences of the workplace through part-time working and volunteering are routinely associated with better prospects in work during adulthood. While the evidence base is much weaker, it is also likely that students who undertake workplace placements through their schools can have much to gain. This policy brief draws on evidence from longitudinal studies and beyond to explore the following questions:

Why is it important for secondary school students to have first-hand experience of work?

What difference does workplace experience make?

And how can schools and education systems best optimise its benefits?

Using the Survey of Adult Skills (PIAAC), this paper documents how the returns to education and skill change with experience for a sample of 22 OECD countries. It does this within the framework of the Altonji and Pierret (2001) employer learning model, and therefore also tests the relevance of this theory in a wide range of countries using comparable data and a consistent methodology. Significant heterogeneity is found in the experience profiles of the returns to education and skill across countries, and convincing evidence in support of the employer learning theory is only found in a sub-set of the countries analysed. While these countries vary significantly from one another in terms of their labour market institutions and educational systems, the analysis does seem to suggest that employer learning is most common in those countries where employment protection legislation on temporary contracts is weak. This is consistent with a model in which temporary contracts allow employers to test and learn about young workers, and give them the flexibility to adjust wages in line with observed productivity.

JEL codes: J24, J32, D83
Keywords: Employer learning, returns to education, returns to skill

This policy brief is the second in a series of thematic policy briefs in the OECD's Resourcing Higher Education Project. This project provides a shared knowledge base for OECD member and partner countries on effective policies for higher education resourcing through system-specific and comparative policy analysis. To meet the skill needs of the Finnish economy, its government has set policy targets with respect to educational attainment and globally mobile learners, and backed those targets with additional resources to aid higher education institutions in accomplishing them. At the same time, Finnish policymakers are engaged in an assessment of their higher education landscape, examining whether the distribution of responsibilities among its higher education institutions is effectively coordinated and adapted to national innovation needs. This policy brief assesses the progress of initiatives to expand the capacity of the higher education system and increase its attractiveness to globally mobile learners, and takes stock of Finland’s institutional landscape in light of international experience.

The access to formal financial services in Mexico is particularly low. Access is also significantly unequal across income levels, gender, between rural and urban areas and across regions. SMEs access to bank credit is low, hampering firms’ ability to grow and innovate. The use of cash and informal credit is still widespread, especially in rural areas, where financial infrastructure is underdeveloped. The diffusion of digital financial services is slowly advancing but remains low, hindered by a relatively low level of financial literacy and a digital divide. Expanding access to finance would enable Mexican households to invest in education and health, and better manage income shocks and smooth consumption. It would also enable Mexican firms to invest more, increase productivity and create formal jobs. Low-income households, small firms and more disadvantaged regions would particularly benefit, as it would unlock new economic opportunities for them. Boosting competition in the banking sector would facilitate SMEs access to credit by lowering interest rate margins. Upgrading the regulatory framework of the financial system would help increase competition and quality of financial services. The potential of the fintech sector is yet to be materialised, which would further increase competition and bring financial services to wider segments of the population. Strengthening financial education and digital literacy would facilitate a larger and better use of traditional and digital financial services.

Offshoring of business process services (BPS) and information technology services (ITS) – whether through international insourcing or international outsourcing – is transforming the way many companies do business. This paper looks at the expansion of international supply chains and the rise of China, the Czech Republic, India and the Philippines as exporters of BPS and ITS. It also analyses the nature of and factors behind this trade and identifies major business- and trade-related challenges arising. In this context it presents some of the labour market implications resulting from increasing trade between OECD and non-OECD economies. The analysis shows that the BPS and ITS sectors in the four emerging economies are very differently structured: Chinese and Czech companies are predominantly supplying their domestic markets while Indian and Philippine companies are focused mainly on supplying foreign markets. In terms of exports, they also supply different geographies: China is mainly exporting to Japan; the Czech Republic to the European Union; the Philippines to the United States; and India to the United States and UK. Several of the larger home-grown companies in the four countries are establishing significant presence in foreign markets, in particular in other emerging markets, to build capacity and leverage local comparative advantage. This highlights the fact that different geographies have different strengths and BPS and ITS-related FDI between emerging economies is likely to expand rapidly in the future. All four countries are facing supply side constraints. The low supply of senior personnel with industry-relevant experience in China, the Czech Republic and the Philippines acts as a break on growth. Many companies are also struggling to manage high levels of staff attrition and salary inflation. Regulatory restrictions are relatively few but still affect some companies. In the ITS sector, temporary movement of personnel can pose a significant challenge for home-grown exporters. The issue is most relevant for the Indian ITS sector that is dependent on sending professionals for longer visits to client premises. Slow and unpredictable procedures for issuing business visas and work permits, and quota limitations for work permits, give rise to operational challenges. In the BPS sector, and to a lesser extent in the ITS sector, data privacy and security legislation can have a negative effect on international outsourcing. But new regulations have also created entirely new business opportunities, including the medical transcription sector.

This report expands the quantitative assessment of airline responses to expansion at Gatwick and Heathrow. For this assessment the same methodology was used as in the second study and again the results are been broken down into impacts on scarcity rents, competition and connectivity.

Expanding airport capacity is difficult in large urban areas. Expansion of existing airports is usually constrained by community agreements on noise and local air pollution and by a shortage of land. Finding sufficient land, at feasible prices, to develop or relocate major airports on green-field sites within a reasonable distance of city centres is often very difficult. Creating land for airports in locations less sensitive to noise and land-use conflicts, for example through offshore or estuarine land reclamation, is expensive and most new sites will require extensive investments in surface transport links to city centres. Furthermore, moving an airport imposes costs on airlines and their users as well as on activities located close to and dependent on proximity to the existing one. In multi-airport regions, options for expansion at one airport will impact the others and airlines, operating in increasingly competitive markets, may respond differently to alternative ways in which the region’s airport capacity might be increased.

Expanding airports is a topic which can easily make it to the first page of the national press. But this is highly unlikely as “bad news” is “good news” and most often failures and scandals make it to the front page. Berlin airport or the on-going failure to open up a nearly-complete new airport has been the front runner in this regard and gained so much international attention that the association of engineers fears that the world wide renowned reputation of German engineering might be seriously damaged.

The Airports Commission was set up by the Government of the United Kingdom in 2012 to take an independent look at the UK’s future airport capacity needs. It has been tasked with setting out the nature, scale, and timing of steps needed to maintain the UK’s status as an international hub for aviation, alongside recommendations for making better use of the UK’s existing runway capacity by the end of 2013; and setting out recommendations on how to meet any need for additional airport capacity in the longer-term by the summer of 2015.

In December 2013 the Commission published its Interim Report, which included a short-list of three options for increasing the UK’s aviation capacity in the long-term: two at Heathrow and one at Gatwick. To determine which alternative would provide the largest benefits to passengers, freight businesses and the UK economy overall it is important to understand how airlines are likely to respond to increased runway capacity.

This report examines the likely responses from airlines in all segments of the market: the local hub carrier, BA, other network airlines, short and long haul low-cost carriers and charter airlines. It identifies the main drivers of airline behaviour and considers the possible influence of changes to existing business models and the introduction of new types of aircraft, such as the Boeing Dreamliner and Airbus A350. The report develops six sets of responses, three following expansion of Gatwick and three following expansion of Heathrow, to test the likely evolution of the market. As the future of the highly dynamic aviation market is uncertain, it checks the resilience of each across five different scenarios of how the global aviation sector may develop in the future. The analysis maps the implications for connectivity and potential benefits to the consumer through airline competition and relieving congestion at airports and reducing the associated economic rents.

This report is part of the International Transport Forum’s Country-Specific Policy Analysis (CSPA) series. These are topical studies on specific transport policy issues of concern to a country carried out by ITF on request.

This paper presents an overview of the evolution of exchange-rate regimes in Africa and then attempts to assess empirically the impact of exchange-rate policy on manufactured export performance on a panel of major Sub-Saharan Africa countries over the 1970-92 period. We examine the impact of three exchange-rate policy indicators: real effective exchangerate changes, real exchange-rate volatility, and (model-based measures of) real exchange-rate misalignment. Export supply functions are estimated for three manufacturing industries (textile, chemicals, and metals) and two exchange-rate regimes: a fixed rates regime including six CFA Franc countries, and a more flexible regime represented by five non-CFA countries. Our findings show that exchange-rate management matters for export performance. This is evidenced both by the significant impact of changes in the real effective exchange rate and by the negative influence exerted independently by real exchange-rate misalignment. On the ...

The bivariate relationship between real exchange rates and the real long-term interest rate differential has been investigated in a number of recent studies. By exchange-rate-equation standards, this specification does a relatively good job of tracking the historical movements in the dollar-Deutschemark and the dollar-yen bilateral exchange rates, and the dollar effective exchange rate; but does a poor job for the dollar-sterling rate. This paper extends the analysis to 18 OECD countries, in bilateral as well as effective terms. Results from earlier studies are confirmed, but in general the estimation results are sufficiently mixed to suggest that the absence of any risk premia variables may be an important omission ...