Browse by: "P"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
This is the fifth study in a series on the future costs of generating electricity. It reviews cost estimates for power plants using nuclear, coal, gas and renewable energy sources. Experts from fourteen OECD countries and five non-OECD countries provided estimated costs for investment, for operations and maintenance, and for fuel for more than 70 power plants. A uniform, consistent method of analysis produces comparable, levelised costs of electricity (cents/kWh). The study also analyses the effects on generation costs of variations in economic lifetime, plant load, and fossil fuel price escalation. An authoritative reference in the field, this publication will be especially useful to electricity system analysts and experts in electric power economics.
This collection of studies of public attitudes to development co-operation in OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) Member countries demonstrates that the concept of "aid fatigue" is misplaced. A serious lack of adequate knowledge about development co-operation, however, is also revealed. The opinions of policy makers are, therefore, overwhelmingly important and development education efforts should be specifically addressed to them. The book also demonstrates that the role of NGOs is important in general development education. Not only do these organisations mobilise their members in the development field, but their activities create a fund of information within their societies. Remarkable progress by both governments and NGOs has been made during the 1990s in improving co-operation domestically and in operational development activities in the field. Most DAC Member countries have significantly increased the involvement of NGOs in their development efforts, and most NGOs have become increasingly effective in their work. The editors conclude that NGOs and governments both need to work towards more and better public and political-level understanding of development efforts. This will require a wide range of complementary activities, some of which are best undertaken by NGOs, and others by government agencies.
Young people's situation and future prospects are of vital concern to us all. Many of them face high unemployment or joblessness and serious difficulties in getting a firm foothold into the labour market. Many leave school without the requisite skills or competences needed in today’s economy and society. Many are also experiencing falling relative (and sometimes real) wages and considerable uncertainty as to whether or not they will be able to settle into good careers. But at the same time, our ageing societies need, more than ever before, to harness the potential of all of our young people. This publication points the way to future initiatives to improve youth labour market and educational outcomes as identified by policy-makers and experts of OECD countries brought together at the Washington Conference "Preparing Youth for the 21st Century: The Policy Lessons from the Past Two Decades", held on 23-24 February 1999. To give the most comprehensive picture to date, it first puts today's challenges into a historical perspective by taking stock of two decades of policies for youth employment. But more substantially, this book provides insight into experiences and policy issues in the United States, as well as in Europe and Japan, with a stress on the special needs of disadvantaged youth. All of us interested in making sure we give youth a good start in education and in establishing rewarding labour market careers will find this compendium a milestone in youth employment debate.
Following recent disarmament agreements, the Russian Federation and the USA have declared part of their stockpiles of weapons-grade plutonium as a surplus to their national defense needs. This material needs to be disposed of, and one of the suggested means of doing so is burning it in existing reactors and transforming the material into spent fuel. The experience in these two countries with mixed oxide fuel (MOX) is either dated or scarce. Several European countries and Japan, however, have acquired much experience in using MOX fuel in reactors which was shared at this important workshop.
This publication presents the workshop results which reviewed existing technical information from the civil nuclear power programmes that are beneficial to weapons-grade plutonium disposition. It also proposes concrete actions that could help expedite this process in the near future.
En la última década el mundo ha sido testigo de transformaciones significantes del papel que juega el sector privado en el desarrollo de la economía y en la creación de empleos. Debido a que cada vez más países adoptan enfoques basados en mercado a la política económica, ha aumentado la conciencia de la importancia de corporaciones privadas para el bienestar de los individuos.
Un buen régimen de gobierno corporativo ayuda a afirmar que las corporaciones utilizan su capital de manera eficaz. El buen gobierno corporativo ayuda además a asegurar que las corporaciones toman en cuenta los intereses de un amplio rango de componentes, al igual que para comunidades con las que operan, y que sus Juntas de Administración son responsables con la compañía y los accionistas. Ello ayuda a asegurar que las corporaciones operen para el beneficio de la comunidad. Ayuda a mantener la confianza de los inversionistas -trátese de nacionales o extranjeros - y a atraer capitales estables y a largo plazo.
Los "Principios de la OCDE para el gobierno de las sociedades" fueron aprobados por los Ministros en la reunión del Consejo de la OCDE a nivel ministerial del 26-27 de mayo de 1999. Estos Principios responden al mandato dado a la Organización por el Consejo de la OCDE reunido a nivel ministerial del año 1998 a fin de definir normas y directrices de un sistema de gobierno de empresas de calidad.
Integrity is a fundamental pre-condition for governments seeking to provide a trustworthy and effective framework for the economic and social life of their citizens. The cost of corruption to governments is increasingly well known and documented. It is now widely recognised that countering corruption and promoting public integrity are critical for sustained economic development. Corruption, however, is not a cause but a consequence: as much the result of systemic failure as individual dishonesty. Preventing corruption is as complex as the phenomenon of corruption itself and a combination of interrelated mechanisms, including sound ethics management systems, specific prevention techniques and effective law and law enforcement, are needed for success. It is therefore invaluable, in taking action against corruption, to have an understanding of the relevant legal, civil service and management systems employed by a range of countries to counter corruption. This book surveys the measures that 15 OECD countries are currently using to protect their domestic public institutions against corruption. It is a companion to Ethics in the Public Service: Current Issues and Practice, OECD 1996.
Two of the most significant success stories of post-war trade diplomacy and multilateral trade negotiations that have occurred under the auspices of the GATT (now the WTO) have been the massive reductions in tariffs, and the establishment of non-discriminatory tariffs as the principal means of trade protection.
When leaders from around the world gather in Seattle, Washington at the end of November 1999, a fresh opportunity to continue dismantling tariff barriers will present itself. This book provides trade negotiators with an indispensable tool that will help them formulate their negotiating objectives and strategies in the area of tariffs; it also provides policy analysts with key data that are necessary to define negotiating scenarios and to impute the corresponding impact on trade, employment and growth.
Finally, students of international trade will no longer need to labour over obtaining comprehensive, detailed, and comparable tariff-line data and could proceed to apply these to policy issues and options.
Between 1960 and 2020, the population of West Africa will have increased fivefold, even with the most optimistic assumptions of increased contraceptive use. This unprecedented demographic explosion is accompanied by another major change: Exposure to the world economy, that began after World War II and became particularly significant after independence.
These two shocks will have far-reaching effects on all aspects of the region's economies and societies. Moreover, West Africa's population distribution will be radically altered with urban populations increasing by a factor of twenty over the same period. Population growth, migration and changing settlement patterns greatly influence economic, political, social, and institutional forms of organisation. In this context, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the people of West Africa are actively producing, consuming, trading and accumulating capital in a way that is significantly underestimated by national accounts. This study attemps to glean a more accurate understanding of the real economy of the West Africa region, an economy which provides the basis for many livelihoods.
The Study was carried on with the assistance of the European Commission, the African Development Bank, the World Bank, Belgium, Canada, France, the Netherlands and the United States.
Hacia donde está orientada la política de inversión en América Latina en el presente entorno financiero? Cuáles son las perspectivas para desarrollar un marco multilateral para las reglas de inversión y como se involucraría el continente Latinoamericano en este esfuerzo? Cómo formular una adecuada política y un entorno regulador apropiado para la atracción de la inversión extranjera directa en América Latina? Estos fueron los principales temas de discusión del taller celebrado en Lima, Perú: “Política y Promoción de la Inversión Extranjera Directa en América Latina” organizado en diciembre, 1988 por la OCDE y la Comisión de la Unión Europea con la cooperación del Gobierno Peruano. Esta copilación de los principales textos del taller constituye un trabajo de referencia en política de inversión extranjera para expertos del sector público y representantes del sector privado y académico; tanto de los países emergentes como de los países miembros de la OCDE
The purchasing power parities and real expenditures contained in this publication cover all 29 OECD Member countries, except Korea, and four non-member countries: Israel, Slovenia, the Slovak Republic and the Russian Federation. They are based on price and expenditure data for 1996 and have been calculated using the EKS aggregation method. International comparisons of price levels and real GDP can be made using the price and volume measures presented in this publication. Countries covered: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Portugal, the Russian Federation, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States.
Over the past decade, privatisation has increasingly taken place in the public utility sector. Technological advances and policy shifts have diminished the perception that public utilities are natural monopolies requiring state ownership. However, the privatisation of such state-owned monopolies raises important regulatory issues. In particular, there should be an adequate regulatory framework to promote competition and, especially if rigorous market competition is lacking, to protect the interests of consumers. Therefore, privatisation needs to be pursued in tandem with competition-enhancing policy and the design of an adequate post-privatisation regulatory framework. This volume brings together a number of papers discussing the interrelationship among privatisation, competition and regulation. The papers make reference to the experience of different countries with privatisation in a wide range of infrastructure sectors.
Competition for foreign direct investment has been neglected as a subject of research. Yet many claim that such competition is having deleterious effects, such as lowering governments’ standards of protection of the environment and workers’ rights.
This book looks at the evidence and assesses the impact of competition among governments to attract FDI. It finds little evidence directly to support fears of a "global race to the bottom" in labour and environmental standards. The widespread use of investment incentives, however, in OECD and developing countries alike, tends to be bad for government transparency and accountability. This is highly detrimental both to economic policy making and to the construction of democratic institutions in developing countries.
The author proposes a shift away from incentive-based policies for attracting FDI towards a rules-based approach on both a national and international level.
Pension systems are changing the world over. Both OECD and non-OECD countries are coming to face the consequences of demographic changes, and some have already embarked on innovative processes of pension reform. In this new environment, employer and personal pension arrangements are expected to gain much prominence. This new OECD series is devoted to improving our understanding of private pension systems worldwide. It will provide an invaluable tool for academics, policy makers and actors in the private sector who will find in it a reference work on the main issues involved in the design, functioning, and regulation of private pension plans. This first volume provides an overview of recent developments in the private pension systems of four OECD countries (Hungary, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States) as well as an analysis of institutional investors in Latin America. It also addresses policy issues such as the design of private pension systems and actuarial, solvency and bankruptcy issues.
As we embark on a new century, some 33 million people are out of work in the OECD area. Policies to increase employment have topped most countries' domestic political agendas in the past decade. And employment and unemployment are likely to remain major economic and social challenges for many countries in the years to come. This book presents the proceedings of a conference on labour markets which was organised by the Ministries of Labour and Finance of Finland, with the support of the OECD and the European Commission. It advances thinking on new policy measures, such as active labour market policies and measures to "make work pay" and focuses on specific experiences in a few individual countries, namely the United States, Japan, Finland and Denmark. It includes papers from politicians, high level officials from the European Commission and the OECD Secretariat, social partners and prominent representatives from the academic community. Proceedings of the Helsinki Conference, January 2000.
Die jährlichen ODA-Gesamtauszahlungen Österreichs unterliegen in der Regel Schwankungen, was sich z.T. daraus erklärt, dass Österreich nicht über ein globales EZA-Budget verfügt. Die Verwaltung des EZA-Programms ist weiterhin zwischen einer Reihe von Bundesministerien und Gemeindeverwaltungen aufgesplittert. Ein Problem ist das Fehlen einer Globalstrategie, die alle von Österreich den ODA-Leistungen zugerechneten Ausgaben mit einem klar festgelegten Katalog von Entwicklungszielen verknüpft. Derzeit werden von Österreich drei Komponenten – geförderte Exportkredite, Flüchtlingshilfe in Österreich und indirekte Studienplatzkosten –, die nicht primär Entwicklungszielen dienen, als ODA-Leistungen verbucht.
This books explores the international aspects of pension reform, private savings and volatile capital markets and clarifies how they relate to each other. Building the case for the pension-improving benefits of global asset diversification, analysing the implications of financial reform for stimulating savings, and exploring both the benefits and risks of global capital flows to emerging markets, Pensions, Savings and Capital Flows will inform policy and academic debates on financial globalisation.
At the end of 1997, Korea was hit by a major financial and economic crisis, which resulted, among other things, in a huge rise in unemployment. The event caught the country’s labour and social institutions unprepared, so that many workers and their families were hit hard.
The economy has now turned the corner. This book shows that government labour and social policies, together with improved basic workers’ rights, have helped minimise the costs of the crisis while also contributing to overcome it. However, this book also highlights the need for further actions in these areas in order to pave the way for a healthy, socially-sustainable economic performance and argues the case that the momentum of reform should not be slowed.
The definition of the chemical and isotopic composition of the groundwater present in argillaceous formations, which are considered as potential host rocks for radioactive waste disposal, is crucial for establishing their barrier properties. Therefore, a critical review of the relevant literature on the current methods applied to extract water and solutes and on the various approaches to the interpretation of their results was commissioned to the Laboratoire d’hydrologie et de géochimie isotopique (Université de Paris-Sud, France). The present document provides a synthesis of available extraction methods, assesses their respective advantages and limitations, identifies key processes that may influence the composition of the extracted water, describes modelling approaches that are used to determine in situ porewater composition, and highlights, wherever possible, some of the unresolved issues and recommendations on ways to address them.
The industrial treatment of spent nuclear fuel is presently performed using different wet chemical processes. Alternative dry processes, using pyrochemical methods, have received some attention due to their potential advantages in terms of plant design and criticality safety, as well as radiation dose.
Recent progress in the transmutation of long-lived fission products and minor actinides has brought renewed interest in pyrochemical methods, as effective transmutation will be based on multi-recycling of the fuel with very high burn-up and short cooling times, conditions under which pyrochemical methods offer various advantages over wet processes.
Studies of pyrochemical processes have so far been carried out at laboratory level. Considerable R&D work is still required in order to upgrade these processes to the current level of industrial aqueous processing.
This book sets out a potential response to two major challenges facing OECD countries: the "youth problem", or the need to ensure that young people can play a full role in society, and the need to foster entrepreneurship for job creation, innovation and economic adaptability. The "new economy" will be built on a culture of entrepreneurship and this must include youth as well as adults. In publishing this book, the OECD therefore wishes to stimulate policy debate on the factors that encourage youth entrepreneurship, the obstacles that stand in its way and the policy measures that can support it.
A picture is painted of youth entrepreneurship programmes operating at national, regional and local levels across the OECD in a wide variety of settings and with various different approaches and delivery mechanisms. The result is the first international review of "best practices" in this new and emerging area. Examples are given of programmes for education and training, help with capital, ideas and operational matters, counselling and mentoring, networking and intergenerational transfers of businesses. The range of players and activities involved are set out and suggestions are made for where gaps might be filled. The main message is that young people can indeed found new businesses and succeed, but new policies will be needed if they are to be fully encouraged.