Browse by: "2017"

This report is the third and final output of a ten-year international research project studying the costs and viability of long-life road pavement surfacings. It describes the results of tests conducted with epoxy asphalt and high performance cementitious materials (HPCM) on real road sections in France, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. The project was initiated to address a growing problem for road administrations and road users: frequent closures of roadways for repairs and repaving as a result of surface pavements that have improved but still barely kept up with increased loads and traffic density.

Cette publication, issue du Programme d’indicateurs de l’entrepreneuriat OCDE-Eurostat, présente une collection originale d’indicateurs pour mesurer l’état de l’entrepreneuriat et ses déterminants. L’édition 2016 présente les données d’une nouvelle enquête en ligne sur les petites et moyennes entreprises conçue par Facebook en collaboration avec l’OCDE et la Banque Mondiale. Elle contient aussi un chapitre spécial sur la productivité des PME, et des indicateurs permettant de suivre les différences hommes-femmes en matière d’entrepreneuriat.

Going for Growth is the OECD’s regular report on structural reforms in policy areas that have been identified as priorities to boost incomes in OECD and selected non-OECD countries (Argentina, Brazil, the People's Republic of China, Colombia, Costa Rica, India, Indonesia, Lithuania, the Russian Federation and South Africa). Policy priorities are updated every two years and presented in a full report, which includes individual country notes with detailed policy recommendations to address the priorities, as well as a follow-up on actions taken. The selection of priorities and the monitoring of reform actions are supported by internationally comparable indicators that enable countries to assess their economic performance and structural policies in a wide range of areas.

In addition to the new set of policy priorities and country notes, the 2017 report also includes a special chapter discussing how the Going for Growth framework has been extended to identify reform packages that boost growth while ensuring that the benefits are widely shared.

Economic regulators are responsible for ensuring that infrastructure services are delivered efficiently, where competition on its own is unable to achieve this outcome. Based on a survey of 34 economic regulators covering 77 sectors and subsectors including energy, transport, communications and water, this report explores how economic regulators carry out this task, and suggests how this experience can be usefully applied in the governance of infrastructure more broadly.

Recent years have witnessed a constant rise in the spread of ICT (information and communication technologies) infrastructure and a growing demand for ICT goods. The production of these goods is knowledge intensive and the industry relies extensively on intellectual property (IP) rights. This strong and growing demand for ICT goods, and their IP dependence, makes them an attractive target for counterfeiters. This study looks at the trade in counterfeit ICT goods, including the size of the trade, the main sources of fake goods, and the countries whose companies are most affected.

Costa Rica’s successful economic performance and social achievements realised over the last three decades are widely acknowledged. GDP per capita has steadily increased at higher rates than in most Latin American countries as the economy has evolved along its development path from a rural and agriculture-based to a more diversified economy integrated in global value chains. But Costa Rica faces challenges and must enhance and broaden the basis for productivity growth by strengthening its innovation system and enhancing the role of science, technology and innovation in addressing its national development goals.

Ces dernières années ont été marquées par un phénomène de rejet de la mondialisation. Jamais les coûts d’une ouverture et d’une connectivité accrues – y compris les conséquences de la libéralisation des échanges et de l’investissement – n'ont été autant mis en balance avec leurs avantages, bien des voix se faisant entendre pour plaider en faveur d’une pause, voire d’une inversion, du mouvement mondial d’intégration qui a été la marque des trois dernières décennies. Si ce rejet s’explique par de multiples raisons économiques, sociales et politiques, on dispose d'éléments en nombre suffisant montrant que les oubliés de la mondialisation sont nombreux, en particulier dans la moitié inférieure de l’échelle de distribution des revenus, notamment dans les pays avancés. Ce rejet montre que nous devons agir rapidement pour remettre la mondialisation sur les rails et nous assurer que ses avantages seront plus équitablement partagés. Les conséquences d’une possible inversion de l’intégration mondiale pourraient être graves : un regain de protectionnisme pourrait se traduire par une perte nette de richesse et d’opportunités, et l’adoption de politiques de repli national mettrait en péril nombre des avancées acquises au fil des dernières décennies.

Recent years have seen a remarkable backlash against globalisation. The costs of increased openness and connectivity – including the consequences of trade and investment liberalisation – are weighted as never before against the benefits, with many voices advocating a slowdown or even a reversal of the global integration that has characterised the past three decades. While there are many economic, social and political reasons for this backlash, there is sufficient evidence showing that globalisation is leaving many people behind, particularly in the lower half of the income distribution, and especially in advanced countries. This backlash suggests that we need to act quickly to fix globalisation and make sure that its benefits are more equally shared. The consequences of a potential reversal of global integration could be dramatic: increased protectionism resulting in a net loss of wealth and opportunities and dangerous inward-looking policies that would put at risk many of the benefits achieved in the past decades.

This publication examines the opportunities and challenges, for business and government, associated with technologies bringing about the “next production revolution”. These include a variety of digital technologies (e.g. the Internet of Things and advanced robotics), industrial biotechnology, 3D printing, new materials and nanotechnology. Some of these technologies are already used in production, while others will be available in the near future. All are developing rapidly. As these technologies transform the production and the distribution of goods and services, they will have far-reaching consequences for productivity, skills, income distribution, well-being and the environment. The more that governments and firms understand how production could develop in the near future, the better placed they will be to address the risks and reap the benefits.

This 2016 edition of OECD Research and Development Expenditure in Industry provides statistical data on R&D expenditure broken down by industrial and service sectors. Data are presented in current and constant USD PPP values. Coverage is provided for 31 OECD countries and four non-member economies. The coverage of ANBERD includes multiple sectors, with extended coverage of service sectors according to ISIC Revision 4 classification. This publication is a unique source of detailed internationally-comparable business R&D data, making it an invaluable tool for economic research and analysis.

This Review focuses on improving access to quality and timely services for citizens as a means to facilitate inclusive growth in the Dominican Republic. Despite its macroeconomic performance in the last decade, poverty and levels of inequalities remain high in the Dominican Republic. At the same time, citizens report limited satisfaction with the quality and access to services in the country, often reflected in less than optimal outcomes in areas such as health, transport or education. The review's focus on service delivery offers the opportunity to apply the concepts and tools of public governance at an operational level and with immediate implications for the government-citizen relationship. The inclusion of multidisciplinary good practices, collected through OECD work on public sector management, digital government, innovation or administrative simplification, allows a comprehensive but integrated assessment of the use of public policy levers for optimizing service design and delivery. By covering aspects relating both to the competence of government – in terms of the quality, timeliness and effectiveness of public services – and to the principles governing the provision of services – including engagement, accountability or inclusiveness, this review identifies policy recommendations to improve access, coverage and quality of public services, regardless of income levels, location and other social and economic factors – as a key lever to achieve more inclusive growth. 
 

Este informe se enfoca en mejorar el acceso a servicios oportunos y de calidad para los ciudadanos como un medio para facilitar el crecimiento inclusivo en la República Dominicana. A pesar de su buen desempeño macroeconómico en la última década, la pobreza y los niveles de desigualdad en el país siguen siendo altos. Al mismo tiempo, los ciudadanos manifiestan una satisfacción limitada con la calidad y el acceso a los servicios en el país, que a menudo se refleja en resultados menos que óptimos en áreas como la salud, el transporte o la educación. El enfoque del informe en la prestación de servicios ofrece la oportunidad de aplicar los conceptos y herramientas de la gobernanza pública a nivel operacional y con implicaciones inmediatas para la relación gobierno-ciudadano. La inclusión de buenas prácticas multidisciplinarias, recogidas a través de los trabajos de la OCDE sobre gestión del sector público, gobierno digital, innovación o simplificación administrativa, permite una evaluación completa e integrada del uso de las herramientas de políticas públicas para optimizar el diseño y la prestación de servicios. Esta revisión, que abarca aspectos relativos tanto a la competencia del gobierno -en términos de calidad, oportunidad y eficacia de los servicios públicos- como a los principios que rigen la prestación de servicios -incluyendo la participación, la rendición de cuentas o la inclusión- identifica recomendaciones de política pública para mejorar el acceso, la cobertura y la calidad de los servicios públicos, independientemente de los niveles de ingresos, ubicación y otros factores sociales y económicos, como una herramienta clave para lograr un crecimiento más inclusivo.

Demographic pressure and the youth bulge in the developing world pose a major employment challenge. This situation is exacerbated by insufficient job creation, scarce formal wage employment opportunities and vulnerability in the workplace. For these reasons, fostering youth entrepreneurship has gained importance in the global and national development policy agenda. This report aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on the role of youth entrepreneurship in generating employment in developing countries. It is based on the analysis of mixed labour force and enterprise surveys conducted in Côte d’Ivoire, Madagascar, Peru and Viet Nam, as well as evidence on the impact of entrepreneurship programmes. This report’s findings add to the global debate on youth entrepreneurship in three important ways. First, it constitutes an unprecedented effort to capture the real situations and multiple faces of young entrepreneurs in selected developing countries. Second, it provides new empirical evidence on the determinants of youth entrepreneurial performance. Third, it proposes a policy roadmap based on lessons learned from recent meta-analyses of the effectiveness of entrepreneurship programmes.

Although Finland achieved a widely acclaimed transformation to become a leading knowledge-based economy in the late 20th century, the 2009 recession and disruptive change contributing to a deep restructuring of the information and communication technology (ICT) industry and the downsizing of traditional sectors have weighed on the economy, productivity growth and international competitiveness. Numerous policy reforms have since been undertaken, and public and private investment, especially in applied R&D, has been cut back. Strengthening and lifting Finland’s innovation system out of a period of uncertainty requires a coherent and unified new vision for science, technology and innovation (STI), renewed investment and policy instruments. This vision should be oriented towards renewal tackling societal challenges and developing new knowledge-based competitive advantages at global scale. Success calls for better co-ordination and co-operation among policy actors and national and regional-levels, and further internationalisation.

Following a remarkable transformation in the past century in research and innovation, in particular through the development of new technologies and processes in sectors such as oil and gas, shipbuilding and also fisheries and aquaculture, Norway is today increasingly facing a “triple transition imperative” in which it needs, first, to shift toward a more diversified and robust economy; second, to move to a more competitive, effective and efficient innovation system; and third, to support research and innovation activities that can confront an array of societal challenges (climate change, food security, aging, health and so on). The Long-Term Plan for Research and Higher Education 2015-2024 (LTP) launched by the Norwegian government has set the base to enhance the capacity of the research and higher education system to cope with these transition challenges. This report proposes recommendations to take advantage of the revision of this comprehensive strategic plan in 2018 to improve the horizontal coordination and add more concrete structural policy initiatives, without changing the plan’s general orientation nor giving up the sectorial and the consensus principles that form the basis of Norwegian policy making.

Kazakhstan is aware of the importance of innovation for its socio-economic development, including the diversification of its resource-based economy. Since the start of the millennium, Kazakhstan has put in place key components of a modern research and innovation system. This has helped  improve scientific output and resulted in some successes in technology commercialisation. Further commitment and effort will be needed to strengthen innovation capabilities and make the most of Kazakhstan‘s advantages. This requires further reforms in order, notably, to strengthen the funding model of universities, intensify and broaden knowledge transfer, improve the governance of the research and innovation system, and increase the effectiveness of innovation incentives and policies, with a focus on implementation and evaluation.

Brazil’s Federal Court of Accounts, the Tribunal de Contas da União (TCU), is seeking to go beyond its traditional oversight role and help improve policy formulation, implementation and evaluation. This report identifies ways TCU can achieve this by applying principles of good governance to areas such policy coherence, strategic and long-term budgeting, internal control and risk management, and monitoring and evaluation. It suggests concrete steps TCU can take to adapt its own strategies, approaches and audit programming to provide valuable insight and foresight to policy makers in the centre of government. In this way, it can help ensure that policies and programmes are forward looking and based on evidence.