Browse by: "M"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
This Policy Insights presents the main findings from the report Measuring Progress towards Inclusive and Sustainable Growth in Japan, which provides robust metrics to monitor inclusive growth and help assess the distributional impacts of policies in line with the government’s vision for a “New Form of Capitalism”. Underpinned by rigorous statistical analysis at a sufficiently disaggregated level, this work helps to better understand some of the main drivers of well-being and economic success in Japan.
The COVID-19 crisis was a significant stress test for public administrations, challenging - like never before - the capacity of public sector organisations to respond to emergencies while achieving their goals and priorities. It also provided a unique learning opportunity, as public sector organisations adapted to new circumstances and permanently changed the way they interacted, operated, and delivered services.
This policy paper provides a comprehensive analysis of the responses and adaptations of public sector organisations to the COVID-19 crisis, with a focus on 11 EU Member States (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece, Italy, Poland, Portugal, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, and Spain). It assesses the resilience of public sector organisations through the lens of the Common Assessment Framework (CAF) model, a quality management tool used across EU Member States and beyond to self-evaluate organisational operations and performance.
Many factors influence students’ experiences in upper secondary education and beyond, including upper secondary curricula, programme design and support for students. But a good transition from earlier levels of education is the first, essential step in a successful journey through upper secondary education and into further education and/or employment. The design of transition systems can mitigate existing inequities in education, but it can also accentuate them. Transitions can also influence student well-being. They can have either a negative impact, for example through highly competitive systems that can be stressful for students and narrow their development, or a positive impact, for example by helping to construct young people’s sense of agency and ability to make informed decisions about their future. This paper looks at how countries manage students’ transition into upper secondary education and the main policy implications of each transition point and how they can influence student outcomes.
Micro-credentials are increasingly prominent in discussions around education, training and labour market policy. Policymakers, educators and trainers across the world envision micro-credentials to be an innovation with a multitude of potential uses and benefits – a sort of all-purpose solution for the problems confronting education, training and labour market systems – and some have begun to integrate them into existing practice and policy frameworks. However, evidence on the value and impact of micro-credentials remains scarce, limiting commitment on the part of stakeholders. This paper examines what is known about both the potential and limitations of micro-credentials with respect to enhancing learners’ labour market participation and outcomes, widening pathways from upper secondary to higher education, improving completion of higher education, and promoting social inclusion among disadvantaged learners.
Global trade in plastic waste and scrap declined further (2017-2021) in 2021 and preliminary data indicates a continuing trend in the first half of 2022 (January to May). The combined trade surplus of OECD Member Countries (i.e., the difference between exports and imports) continued to decrease. Less plastic waste and scrap is being exported by OECD countries to non-OECD countries, however some countries still export substantial volumes to non-OECD countries. Particularly several non-OECD south-east Asian countries remain large export destinations. At the same time, trade between OECD countries has increased. The value and composition of plastic waste and scrap exports in 2021 suggests that more high value and easy to recycle plastic waste was traded. The trade regime remains dynamic with new export destinations emerging, which deserve further monitoring.
Government support for industrial firms can come in many different forms and through a range of channels, varying in complexity. A particularly challenging form of support is energy inputs offered to industrial producers at below-market prices. To improve understanding about the scope and scale of such support, this report examines an illustrative sample of 33 companies and their subsidiaries operating in energy-intensive industries, namely aluminium smelting, steelmaking, chemicals (including fertilisers), and cement. Most of the energy subsidies identified appear to concern the provision of natural gas and electricity at below-market rates, resulting in an average subsidy of USD 0.4-1.3 per million British thermal units and USD 0.02-0.03 per kWh, respectively, over the period 2010-20. In some cases, estimates indicate that subsidies are a multiple of firms’ energy costs, suggesting a sizable impact on firms’ profits and operating margins. The results have important policy implications for efforts to better discipline industrial subsidies in the WTO and elsewhere, notably in relation to how to ensure policy transparency in a context where large energy providers tend to be majority owned by governments.
Government support to producers of rolling stock is raising concerns about possible market distortions and unfair competition. This report aims to quantify both the scale of government support and to identify the various ways in which governments have been supporting local rolling-stock producers at the expense of foreign competitors. Over the period 2016-20, governments provided about USD 5 billion to the sector, much of it in the form of government grants and income tax concessions. While not quantified, discriminatory practices in government procurement and competition enforcement, forced technology transfers, as well as non-market export credits may have also distorted global competition in the rail-supply industry. Similar to earlier OECD studies of government support in the aluminium and semiconductor value chains, this report helps shed light on the magnitude and ways in which governments subsidise the producers of materials and equipment they view as strategic, with a view to informing efforts to revisit global trade rules.
A rapidly changing world requires development co-operation providers to continuously adjust their institutional arrangements, policies, systems and processes. Yet, until today, existing tools for public policy reform had not been adapted for the sector. To fulfil this ambition, this paper draws from existing literature and interviews with stakeholders from countries that underwent a reform process during the last decade. It considers what a reform mindset entails for development co-operation providers, explores drivers for change and suggests questions decision makers might ask themselves as they work through the particular challenges at each stage of reform in their own context.
This paper provides an overview of the work of the Expert Group on the Joint Distribution of Income, Consumption and Wealth at Micro Level (EG ICW) set up by Eurostat and the OECD. It discusses the challenges of producing joint income, consumption and wealth estimates, assesses their quality, and presents selected experimental results. Although the analysis reveals large differences between countries, a number of general patterns emerge. First, income, consumption and wealth are partially correlated, with the association being stronger in the tails of the joint distribution than around its middle. Second, risk of poverty goes beyond income, with asset and consumption risk of poverty being widespread, especially among some population groups. Third, a large share of households spend more than they earn. This is corroborated by negative median saving rates for households in the bottom income quintile. Fourth, inequalities are significantly higher when using a comprehensive measure of material living standards than a distributional analysis of disposable income would suggest. Looking ahead, this paper calls for further efforts to improve the robustness of the results.
This paper aims at quantifying the macroeconomic and distributional impacts of product market reforms and additional public investment using a DSGE model. The model reflects specific features of the South African economy. Tradable and non-tradable product markets are modelled separately, and a segmented labour market is designed to reproduce the labour market duality in South Africa between skilled and unskilled workers. The role of public investment on total factor productivity and its financing modality are taken into allowing the quantification of the net benefits of reforms.
Our results show that enhancing competition in the non-tradable sector has a short run recessionary impact while deregulating the tradable sector is expansionary. Overall, the latter has a bigger impact on GDP. From a distributional perspective, a product market reform in both sectors benefits all income deciles. Finally, additional public infrastructure investment, either financed by raising VAT or capital income tax, increases GDP in the short-term less than product market reform in the tradable sector but is more expansionary in the long run, so a combination of both reforms would boost living standards.
This paper presents new simulation results for the UK combining macroeconomic simulations in ThreeME, a computable general equilibrium model, with household-level micro-simulations with the aim to provide consistent estimates of macroeconomic and distributional consequences of policy action to curb greenhouse gas emissions. One main and overarching result is that if an economy-wide and significant carbon price is introduced it leads to large emission reductions. Macroeconomic and distributional consequences are very limited in comparison. Redistributing 30% of total tax revenue as a lump-sum transfer to households would ensure that a majority of income deciles in most regions increase their disposable income, with gains notably in the lower part of the income distribution.
Despite the widespread effort to increase and improve the use of evidence in policy making and practice, practical efforts to enhance research-policy-practice engagement in the education sector often fall short of their ambition. Little is known about how such knowledge mobilisation initiatives can be characterised and how their impact can be understood and measured. This paper reviews theoretical and empirical literature on knowledge mobilisation focusing on the above research gaps. It conceptualises knowledge mobilisation actors and initiatives, discusses the shortcomings of the current literature, and proposes a set of frameworks that captures their objectives, functions and impact. It is hoped that these frameworks will support future empirical research efforts.
Data have become a key input into the production of many goods and services. But just how important? What is the value of data – their contribution to economic growth and well-being? This report discusses different approaches to data valuation, their advantages and shortcomings and their applicability in different contexts. It argues that the value of data depends to a large extent on the data governance framework determining how they can be created, shared and used. In addition, the report provides estimates of the value of data and data flows. Its focus is on the monetary valuation of data produced by private economic actors and their recording in economic statistics. Finally, the report puts forward a draft measurement agenda for the future.
Data are shown to generate efficiency gains but to have been unevenly shared across firms and households, and the subpar economic performance of most advanced economies (prior to the pandemic) has been attributed to increased market power originating, at least in part, from the increased use of data. To sharpen our understanding of these divergent perceptions of the modern digital age, this paper puts the recent increase in use of digitised information, i.e., data, into an economic framework amenable to measurement and analysis. Data are conceptualised as an intangible asset: a storable factor input that is only partially captured in existing macroeconomic and financial statistics. Our proposed framework treats data as an intangible asset that contributes to final production in an economy. This paper provides the conceptual groundwork that is needed for defining and measuring data investments. We also provide a review of methods that are used to measure data, and we offer an experimental implementation of our framework. We also develop preliminary estimates of data assets intended to fully encompass the “intelligence” or “knowledge” generated by the use of data that are coherent with national accounts data at the industry-level of analysis as well as with measures of intangibles developed by EUKLEMS-INTANProd.
Budgetary frameworks and instruments are increasingly being used to support and accelerate progress towards climate and environmental goals. This paper provides an overview of how OECD countries are implementing green budgeting and potential roles for independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) in monitoring these initiatives or in providing climate-related analysis as part of their existing mandates. It concludes with some key questions for the path ahead.
Artificial intelligence (AI) systems can use massive computational resources, raising sustainability concerns. This report aims to improve understanding of the environmental impacts of AI, and help measure and decrease AI’s negative effects while enabling it to accelerate action for the good of the planet. It distinguishes between the direct environmental impacts of developing, using and disposing of AI systems and related equipment, and the indirect costs and benefits of using AI applications. It recommends the establishment of measurement standards, expanding data collection, identifying AI-specific impacts, looking beyond operational energy use and emissions, and improving transparency and equity to help policy makers make AI part of the solution to sustainability challenges.
This report tracks the progress in reducing the number of road traffic fatalities and serious injuries in cities between 2010 and 2020. It presents traffic safety data collected in 32 cities participating in the ITF Safer City Streets network and compares trends in urban and national road safety. It provides indicators for the risk of traffic death for different road user groups that permits benchmarking of road safety outcomes.
Driven by a joint objective to better understand and reduce the spread of misinformation with insights and tools from behavioural science, the OECD, in partnership with behavioural science experts from the Canadian Privy Council's Office's Impact Canada (IIU) and from the French Direction interministérielle de la transformation publique (DITP), launched a first-of-its-kind international collaboration. This study tested the impact of two behaviourally-informed interventions on intentions to share true and false news headlines about COVID-19 on social media: an attention accuracy prompt and a set of digital media literacy tips. The policy paper outlines key behavioural insights gained to help improve policy responses and stop the spread of mis- and dis-information.
This paper supports countries in understanding the potential impact of climate-related natural hazards by assessing the exposure of people and assets to these hazards. It develops indicators of climate-related hazards and exposures for seven hazard types (extreme temperature, extreme precipitation, drought, wildfire, wind threats, river flooding and coastal flooding) and four exposure variables (cropland, forests, urban areas and population density). The paper presents the associated methodologies and discusses the global geospatial datasets used to construct the indicators. It shows that it is possible to develop exposure indicators for climate-related hazards with a global geographic coverage at the national and subnational levels. The results, presented for 52 IPAC countries, suggest that all countries are exposed to one or more climate-related natural hazards, but with significant differences in the occurrence and intensity of such hazards. The empirical evidence presented here points to the urgency to take strong climate change mitigation measures. It also highlights the need to accelerate efforts towards the global goal on adaptation to strengthen resilience and reduce vulnerability to climate change in the context of the Paris Agreement.
Muchos países han considerado extender su jornada escolar para mejorar los resultados de los alumnos, promover la equidad o apoyar a los padres a combinar la vida laboral y familiar. Dado el efecto de tales reformas, es importante identificar las condiciones para su implementación exitosa. Este documento de trabajo revisa la evidencia disponible y sintetiza lecciones comunes de seis países europeos y latinoamericanos que ampliaron y reorganizaron sus días escolares. Cada estudio de caso describe el contexto y objetivos de la reforma, diseño e implementación, y la implicación en materia de recursos. El documento resalta que, dependiendo de los objetivos de las políticas y las alternativas, extender la jornada escolar puede ser una estrategia eficiente para algunas escuelas y sistemas, pero no para otras. Para aprovechar cualquier beneficio potencial, las reformas necesitan considerar la calidad y articulación de las actividades que tienen lugar y los ajustes correspondientes a los recursos escolares. Como lo sugiere el documento, extender el día escolar proporciona una oportunidad para repensar las escuelas como sitios no solo para el aprendizaje, sino para el desarrollo integral de los alumnos, su compromiso y su apoyo.