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Approval procedures are critical to sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) systems as they uphold countries’ commitments to facilitate safe trade. However, they can create significant costs and act as non-tariff barriers if not properly administered. This report examines the costs and opportunities that are associated with seven of the most pressing issues related to the administration of approval procedures. The analysis reveals that countries have increasingly raised specific trade concerns (STCs) to the WTO about issues related to approval procedures. Furthermore, gravity analysis demonstrates that trading partners dealing with STCs related to approval procedures trade 26% less on average than those not dealing with any STC. An OECD survey specifically designed to evaluate how issues related to approval procedures can be addressed indicates that multiple solutions exist to enhance efficiencies in agro-food trade, such as digitalizing SPS systems, relying on international standards or simplifying SPS measures.
National saving ratios are generally lower now than in the 1960s or 1970s. This paper first reviews developments in national and international saving and investment trends in OECD countries since the 1960s. It then examines sectoral saving trends and considers the links between them. There are seen to be important offsets between government and private sector saving and, within the latter, between the business sector and households, so that national and private saving rates tend to be more stable than their component parts. The paper looks in particular at the reasons lying behind the volatile behaviour of household saving in certain countries in recent years ...
The paper describes the framework used in long-term economic scenarios for the projection of the saving rate, investment, capital stock and current account. The saving rate is determined according to an estimated equation which suggests that demographics, captured by the old-age dependency rate and life expectancy, is a major driver, with additional effects from the fiscal balance, labour productivity growth, the net oil trade balance, the availability of credit and the level of social protection. The evolution of the business sector capital stock depends on the economy’s cyclical position, product market regulation, employment protection legislation and the user cost of capital, and may be constrained by current account deficits depending on the degree of capital account openness. Business sector investment is derived from the capital stock projection via the usual stock-flow identity. The public sector capital stock-to-output ratio is assumed to be constant in the baseline scenario, but a public investment shock can be simulated in alternative scenarios. The current account balance is obtained as the difference between national investment and saving, and in turn determines the evolution of the net international investment position. A global interest rate premium helps to bring global saving and investment into balance.
Saving has attracted increasing attention in recent years. Research has focused on questions about its adequacy, determinants and measurement. This paper considers the latter issue. The main trends in world-wide and OECD-area saving over the last two to three decades are reviewed. Subsequently, the appropriateness of the saving concept used in traditional national accounts is discussed. To examine the size of some of the potential problems, a number of adjustments to traditionally measured saving are made. The concluding section raises some questions about appropriate measurement of saving, saving behaviour and policy responses to perceived lack of saving ...
This report assesses the impact of digitalisation on competition by examining the evolution of mark-ups and multifactor productivity (MFP) across firms of different sizes. It finds that size is positively related to mark-ups and that this relationship has strengthened over time. This trend has been accompanied by an increase in the relative productivity advantage of larger firms and both changes are more pronounced in digital-intensive sectors, suggesting that digitalisation may be an underlying driver. Policy makers may need to consider appropriate responses if digital technologies affect larger and smaller firms in a heterogeneous manner.
This report explores the global landscape of the Green, Social, Sustainability and Sustainability-linked (GSSS) Bond market. Based on research and interviews conducted with experts from public development banks, credit rating agencies, asset managers and industry associations, the report offers analysis of the current state of the GSSS market and international best practices in the issuance of these bonds. The report highlights five key gaps that hinder a greater up-take of the bonds market: the role of public development banks; the importance of tailoring issuance to local contexts; the need for risk mitigation strategies; capacity development to address supply constraints; and promotion of transparency and taxonomies. The report also identifies recommendations for policy makers. The report highlights the potential to scale up the GSSS Bonds market by supporting issuances from sovereign and corporate issuers in developing countries, through both the use of bonds proceeds and sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs), and ultimately to build robust local capital markets.
National development banks (NDBs) and development finance institutions – domestically focused, publicly owned financial institutions with a specific development mandate – are poised to play a role in bridging the investment gap for climate-compatible infrastructure in developing countries. But delivering on the Paris Agreement will require NDBs to transition from their traditional role as ‘financer’ to ‘mobiliser’ of investment for infrastructure, and to be better recognised in the international climate and development finance landscape. This paper highlights the role of NDBs drawing from case studies of the Brazilian Banco Nacional de Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social and the Development Bank of Southern Africa. As such, it provides important impetus to the international discourse on decisive climate action.
A small group of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that grow fast over a short period of time, i.e., scalers, make an outsized contribution to job creation and economic growth. This paper provides a portrait of scalers in the Italian region of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol, and its two autonomous provinces: Trentino and Bolzano-Bozen. The region hosts and attracts a dynamic population of scalers. Around one in nine SMEs in Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol is an employment scaler, and more than one in six is a turnover scaler. However, the contribution of the fastest-growing scalers is lower than in the rest of Centre and North Italy, which is in part due to the sectoral specialisation of scalers in the region.
Active labour market policies (ALMPs) that connect people to jobs will help to ensure an equitable and sustained recovery from the COVID‑19 crisis. Already in 2020, many governments reacted swiftly to the crisis by increasing funding for their public employment services (PES), training programmes and measures to increase labour demand. This has allowed the PES to hire additional staff and expand remote and digital accessibility to ensure service continuity. However, additional resources are needed in 2021 and the years to come to ensure that high-quality employment services and programmes can be effective in fostering a quick reintegration of the many jobseekers into the labour market. This policy brief highlights how OECD and a number of other countries have responded to the crisis in adapting and expanding the provision of employment services.
Infrastructure investment has been low in Brazil over the last decades, leaving significant gaps in all infrastructure sectors. To close these gaps, public investment will need to increase and become more effective, while additional private resources need to be mobilised. Improving strategic planning and effectively translating it into budget allocations over time would increase the quality of infrastructure projects. Promoting foreign participation in public procurement would raise competition and value for public money, while strengthening the governance of SOEs would enhance the quality of infrastructure services. Minimising policy and judicial risks would help to leverage more private infrastructure financing, including at longer maturities, while ensuring an adequate risk sharing between public and private actors.
Four scenarios for the global trading system in the 1990s are outlined and their implications for developing countries considered: (i) further development of a GATT-based trading regime; (ii) development of a world of trading blocs -- where the critical issue is not whether they will emerge (they will) but whether they become "building blocks" for a more integrated global system or "stumbling blocks" that cause the system to fragment; (iii) development of a system of managed trade, where political forces would dominate outcomes and which could evolve out of the friction between Japan and the United States or Europe; and (iv) movement beyond GATT and dealing with international problems "at the borders" toward a system of deeper global harmonisation in such areas as competition policy, standards, regulatory practices and technology policies.
The answer to the question of which of these scenarios will predominate is of growing importance for developing countries, both because of ...
This paper reports on the development and application of a model used to estimate the costs of scholarly communication (i.e. scholarly publishing and related activities) in Australian higher education. A systems perspective was used to frame a review of the literature on the costs involved in the entire scholarly communication value chain and inform the development of a scholarly communication system cost model. This paper presents estimated scholarly communication costs for higher education institutions in Australia, based upon the modelling, local data collections and stakeholder consultation, that may prove useful in the management of institutional budgets and priorities. It represents the first systematic attempt to estimate the costs of scholarly publishing related activities in Australia, and it could be easily applied elsewhere.