This Round Table examines the basic case for liberalisation of the taxi industry, and reviews experiences with taxi (de-)regulation in OECD and ECMT member countries. There are a number of aspects to regulation of the taxi industry including entry, price and service quality regulation. The discussions of these aspects concluded that little empirical evidence supported the argument that entry restrictions improved capacity utilisation. On the contrary, the case could be made that increased entry and associated economies of density, as well as shorter passenger waiting times, warranted subsidies for entry.
The aim of the OECD (Quantitative) Structure-Activity Relationship ((Q)SAR) Assessment Framework (QAF) is to provide a systematic and harmonised framework for the regulatory assessment of (Q)SAR models, predictions, and results based on multiple predictions. The QAF is meant to be applicable (Q)SARs, irrespective of the modelling technique used to build the model, the predicted endpoint, and the intended regulatory purpose. The primary audience of this document is regulatory authorities and their stakeholders. In addition, any other (Q)SAR user is encouraged to refer to the QAF when using (Q)SARs for regulatory purposes.
Will the next century see the private sector become more involved in decisions regarding the construction and funding of infrastructure? Which technologies will dominate the transport market? Where will new markets emerge? Will transport still have a social role to play? What safeguards will there be for the environment? Will there still be a role even for the authorities?
The list of the questions that transport will pose in the next century is certainly both long and diverse, reflecting as it does the problems now confronting the sector. The aim of the 14th Symposium was to take an initial look at what the future might hold by means of 13 introductory reports -- drafted by rapporteurs from 11 different countries -- and a debate between leading experts in the transport field.
This publication goes over the introductory reports and faithfully reflects the substance of the Symposium discussions. By considering the shape of things to come, this review defines the challenges awaiting all those concerned with transport and the solutions open to them.
The opportunities for individuals and businesses to benefit from globalisation are increased by efficient, cost-effective transport networks. A competitive, responsive, well-organised transport sector facilitates trade, but creating the conditions for this poses policy challenges that must be tackled if transport is to contribute fully to globalisation. This was the main theme of the 17th ITF/OECD Symposium.
These conference proceedings contain summaries of the opening session ceremonies and discussions and the full text of the 16 papers presented as introductory reports for the discussions. The reports cover such fields as data and trends, globalisation and transport sector development, transport policy and regional integration, trade and infrastructure, and international transport and domestic policy.
Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are expected to play a significant part in the global climate response. Following the ratification of the Paris Agreement, the ability of CCS to reduce emissions from fossil fuel use in power generation and industrial processes – including from existing facilities – will be crucial to limiting future temperature increases to “well below 2°C,” as laid out in the Agreement. CCS technology will also be needed to deliver “negative emissions” in the second half of the century if these ambitious goals are to be achieved.
CCS technologies are not new. This year is the 20th year of operation of the Sleipner CCS Project in Norway, which has captured almost 17 million tonnes of CO2 from an offshore natural gas production facility and permanently stored them in a sandstone formation deep under the seabed. Individual applications of CCS have been used in industrial processes for decades, and projects injecting CO2 for enhanced oil recovery (EOR) have been operating in the United States since the early 1970s.
This publication reviews progress with CCS technologies over the past 20 years and examines their role in achieving 2°C and well below 2°C targets. Based on the International Energy Agency’s 2°C scenario, it also considers the implications for climate change if CCS was not a part of the response. And it examines opportunities to accelerate future deployment of CCS to meet the climate goals set in the Paris Agreement.
This publication includes three recent reports of the Committee on Fiscal Affairs that resulted in changes to the OECD Model Tax Convention on Income and Capital (those changes were included in the update adopted by the Council of the OECD on 28 January 2003): "Restricting the Entitlement to Treaty Benefits", "Treaty Characterisation Issues Arising From E-Commerce: Report Adopted by the Committee on Fiscal Affairs", and "Issues Arising Under Article 5 (Permanent Establishment) of the Model Tax Convention".
Multilateral aid accounts for over a third of total official development aid. The scale at which the multilateral system is used reflects donors’ views of it as an important aid channel. However, a clearer picture of the multilateral system is needed to analyse this channel, and the first ever OECD Development Assistance Committee (DAC) report on multilateral aid aims to address this gap. The report provides a snapshot of the multilateral aid architecture, from the funding of multilateral organisations by DAC members to their own multilateral aid strategies and policies. The report also highlights issues such as fragmentation, multilateral effectiveness, reform processes and partner country views.
This survey report which presents the results from the second, follow-up survey on monitoring the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness, assesses progress in 55 developing countries and helps us understand the challenges in making aid more effective in advancing development. The findings are clear: progress is being made, but not fast enough. Unless they seriously gear up their efforts, developing countries and their external partners will not meet their international commitments and targets for effective aid by 2010. Action is needed now. This report makes three high-level policy recommendations that will help accelerate progress and transform the aid relationship into a full partnership.
The 2013 OECD Recommendation of the Council on Gender Equality in Education, Employment and Entrepreneurship recommends adopting practices that promote gender equality in education, promoting family-friendly policies and working conditions which enable fathers and mothers to balance their working hours and their family responsibilities and facilitate women to participate more in private and public sector employment. It also recommends increasing the representation of women in decision-making position, eliminating the discriminatory gender wage gap, promoting all appropriate measures to end sexual harassment in the workplace, reducing the gender gap in entrepreneurship activity, and paying attention to the special needs of women from disadvantaged minority groups and migrant women.
The 2015 OECD Recommendation of the Council on Gender Equality in Public Life promotes a government-wide strategy for gender equality reform, sound mechanisms to ensure accountability and sustainability of gender initiatives, and tools and evidence to inform inclusive policy decisions. It also promotes a “whole-of-society” approach to reducing gender stereotypes, encouraging women to participate in politics and removing implicit and explicit barriers to gender equality. This Recommendation is unique, as it provides not only governments, but also parliaments and judiciaries, with clear, timely and actionable guidelines for effectively implementing gender equality and gender mainstreaming initiatives, and for improving equal access to public leadership for women and men from diverse backgrounds.
Migration and forced displacement remain priority areas for many G20 countries and beyond. In total there are about 258 million people living outside their country of birth globally, with two-thirds living in G20 countries.
Latest available data indicate a significant increase in overall migration flows to G20 countries in 2019 with about 12.5 million new temporary and permanent immigrants. This represents a 10% increase compared to the previous year. The evolution of migration flows in the first six months of 2020 however shows a dramatic drop in immigration trends.
The outcome of COP21 urged developed countries to scale up their level of financial support, over and above their initial finance pledges, with a concrete roadmap to achieve their USD 100 billion a year commitment by 2020. This note provides analytical support to country preparation of such a roadmap, assessing the scale of future climate finance as well as identifying and discussing some key uncertainties. It sets out the resulting projections for climate finance in 2020 along with the underlying assumptions and methodologies.
Latest available data indicate a significant decrease in overall migration flows to G20 countries in 2020. In total, 7 to 7.5 million new temporary and permanent migrants entered G20 countries in 2020, which represents about a 40% decrease on average compared to 2019.
Better understanding multi-level governance frameworks and the scale of subnational government fiscal space can help countries cope with the different crisis and shocks, including the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia's aggression against Ukraine, but also address megatrends and persistent and long-standing spatial disparities. Increasing the knowledge on multi-level governance and subnational finance is also key to implement and monitor the Sustainable Development Goals.
After two previous editions in 2016 and 2019, the OECD-UCLG World Observatory on Subnational Government Finance and Investment (SNG-WOFI) has become the largest international knowledge repository on subnational government structure and finance ever produced. It provides reliable and comparable information on multi-level governance frameworks, decentralisation and territorial reforms, subnational government responsibilities, fiscal decentralisation, and covers dozens of indicators on subnational expenditure, investment, revenue and debt.
The 2022 synthesis report presents internationally comparable data and analysis for 135 countries and provides insights into ways to strengthen the resilience of subnational public finance. It also offers a specific focus on the impact of the pandemic on subnational governments, the territorial dimension of recovery plans, property taxation systems, innovative subnational budgeting practices, subnational public-private partnerships, and a special chapter dedicated to 31 Least Developed Countries.
This report reflects on the implications of the evolving international tax policy landscape for international tax co-operation, and provides an update on a report published in May 2022, “Tax Co-operation for the 21st Century”. It analyses how the principles set out in the 2022 Report are being incorporated by the members of the OECD/G20 Inclusive Framework on BEPS into the design of the Two-Pillar Solution to Address the Tax Challenges Arising from the Digitalisation of the Economy, focusing on Amount A and the GloBE Rules. In addition, it shows that the principles of the 2022 Report beyond corporate income tax are being translated into action, such as with technology-based solutions for effectively collecting and using information for personal income tax purposes. Finally, it notes some of the recent developments in capacity building, as called for by the 2022 Report, and identifies some of the work that remains to be done to ensure that there are lasting outcomes that can assist in meeting the Sustainable Development Goals. The report provides potential areas of consideration and next steps to continue efforts to enhance international co-operation in the context of increasingly co-ordinated international rules.
This report was prepared by the OECD to inform the discussions at the May 2023 meeting of G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, at the request of the G7 Japanese Presidency.
This report reflects on the implications of the evolving international tax policy landscape for international tax co-operation, and provides an update on the 2022 Report “Tax Co-operation for the 21st Century” and the 2023 Progress Report. The principles of tax co-operation set out in those reports have become even more important in light of the implementation of the Global Minimum Tax, which took effect from the beginning of this year. This report sets out the advances being made in implementing the vision for co-operation amongst tax administrations with a specific focus on the Global Minimum Tax. It also sets out areas of tax co-operation beyond the corporate tax system looking at recent developments in the exchange of information between tax administration as well as other transparency initiatives with respect to taxation of individuals. Finally, it addresses the implications of these developments in the international tax system for developing countries with respect to both direct and indirect taxes as well as the digitalisation of tax administration. This report was prepared by the OECD to inform the discussions at the May 2024 meeting of G7 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, at the request of the G7 Italian Presidency.
Drawing on material presented at the OECD Programme on Educational Building's conference in London on "Creating 21st Century Learning Environments," this richly illustrated book presents the latest in innovative design for schools and analyses needs for the future. It does this through a series of thematic analyses, presentations, and school visits. The conclusions summarize planning and construction issues and make suggestions for the construction industry.
The next few decades hold the prospect of remarkable progress in a wide range of pervasive technologies that are likely to have a profound effect on how we live, work, and spend our leisure time. These technologies are set to revolutionise the worlds of medicine, agriculture, travel, retailing...so much that is familiar in our daily lives. Used wisely, they could be of huge benefit to mankind. Used wrongly, they could mean lost opportunities and unnecessary risks.
The challenge for society is immense. What would be the cost of failure to embrace dynamic change? What kind of ethical dilemmas will arise from further breakthroughs in genetic engineering? Will the spread of new technologies create new social divisions? What sort of societies will prove most adept at harnessing the vast technological potential? How can countries best co-operate to maximise the benefits of spillovers?
This book reviews the extraordinary promise of technological advances over the next twenty years or so, and assesses some of the key issues -- economic, social, environmental, ethical -- that decision-makers in government, business and society will face in the decades ahead.
Literacy in the 21st century is about constructing and validating knowledge. Digital technologies have enabled the spread of all kinds of information, displacing traditional formats of usually more carefully curated information such as encyclopaedias and newspapers. The massive information flow of the digital era demands that readers be able to distinguish between fact and opinion. Readers must learn strategies to detect biased information and malicious content like fake news and phishing emails. What the PISA 21st-century readers report reveals is that students’ access to digital technologies and training on how to use them greatly vary between countries and students’ socio-economic profiles. This report explores how 15-year-old students are developing reading skills to navigate the technology-rich 21st century. It sheds light on potential ways to strengthen students’ capacity to navigate the new world of information. It highlights how countries need to redouble their efforts to combat emerging digital divides. It also explores what teachers can do to help students navigate ambiguity and manage complexity.