Browse by: "F"
Index
Title Index
Year Index
In most OECD countries, farm household incomes figure prominently among the wide and growing range of concerns described as motivating policy interventions in agriculture. The first part of this report provides an overview of the income situation of farm households and examines the influence of agricultural and of tax and social security policies on them. The second part investigates more specifically how efficient some of the most commonly used policy interventions are at transferring income to farm households.
This manual has been developed to help compliance officers in Croatian and Serbian State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to introduce or strengthen their company’s anti-corruption programmes. It is designed as a practical, easy-to-reference tool offering a variety of practices that an SOE could consider implementing.
High levels of corruption and lack of transparency are key constraints to economic growth in many countries worldwide. This Country Profile for Croatia aims to map existing legal and institutional frameworks in the policy areas of anti-corruption, competition, and state-owned enterprises to identify policy challenges to a level playing eld. It also provides actionable policy recommendations which draw on a broad set of OECD analysis, guidelines, legal instruments and good practices as well as on additional data collected for the report. This Country Pro le, along those for Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia, is one output of the three year OECD project to promote fair market conditions for competitiveness in the Adriatic region, which is supported by the Siemens Integrity Initiative. Through Collective Action, government officials from the region as well as business leaders, anti-corruption experts and practitioners, civil society representatives and academics have engaged to jointly enhance integrity and transparency. These efforts are part of the engagement of the OECD South East Europe Regional Programme, which collaborates with the region since 2000 to advance private sector development, improve the investment climate and raise living standards for an inclusive and sustainable future for the people of South East Europe.
Rapid economic growth in Southeast Asia since the turn of the century has led to remarkably improved socio-economic conditions, with expanded and enhanced employment opportunities, gradually rising wages and better living standards. Yet, the dividends of this strong and multifaceted dynamism have not, so far, been evenly shared between men and women. Whereas economic growth and better targeted social policies have contributed to shrinking gender gaps in educational attainment, significant disparities remain in women’s labour force participation, job quality and earnings in the region. This report – developed jointly by the OECD, ASEAN and national stakeholders – seeks to better understand the causes behind these persistent gaps and advances policy solutions to help close them.
Sometimes - and particularly in times of economic crisis - stakeholders in governments request competition agencies to provide evidence on the links between competition, competition policy, and macroeconomic outcomes, such as productivity, growth, innovation, employment and inequality. Showing these links can be a challenging exercise and this factsheet has been elaborated to help competition agencies achieve this task. The factsheet summarises the existing evidence on the wider economic effects of competition and competition policy, and provides suggestions and references to help agencies advocate their work. This document is a literature review – it does not contain any new research but compiles important existing material.
Rising disinformation has far-reaching consequences in many policy areas ranging from public health to national security. It can cast doubt on factual evidence, jeopardise the implementation of public policies and undermine people's trust in the integrity of democratic institutions. This report explores how to respond to these challenges and reinforce democracy. It presents an analytical framework to guide countries in the design of policies, looking at three complementary dimensions: implementing policies to enhance the transparency, accountability, and plurality of information sources; fostering societal resilience to disinformation; and upgrading governance measures and public institutions to uphold the integrity of the information space.
NGOs have moved out of the "amateur" world in which they were once confined into, in many cases, highly professional activities. This statistical analysis demonstrates that there are thousands of development NGOs in European countries with as much as $7.3 billion at their disposal. Supported by a large number of tables and graphs, as well as detailed, individual country surveys, the author provides the first-ever such study of what has become a late-twentieth, early twenty-first century phenomenon. When the results of the study are extrapolated to OECD Development Assistance Committee members as a whole, they suggest that the total income of NGOs would amount to almost $16 billion, a figure three times that estimated by organisations such as the World Bank. Depending on the country, up to half of this income comes from official sources, implying that NGOs have become major partners for governments in the development field.
This document contains a set of 15 fact cards on major groups of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs). The fact cards aim to provide non-expert stakeholders a quick initial glance into these groups of PFASs with some basic information on: (1) chemical identities, synthesis and inherent properties such as bioaccumulation and transformation, (2) historical and ongoing industrial practices and commercial uses of some major commercial products, (3) regulatory status, (4) examples of reported occurrences in the environment and humans, and (5) major knowledge gaps in terms of previous sections. The fact cards also provide references where interested readers may find additional information; note that due to the fast-moving nature of the science and knowledge on PFASs, the listed references are by no means complete. For information and practical guidance on the use of terminology in regard to PFASs, readers are referred to the OECD PFAS Terminology report.
Korea faces an extraordinary ageing challenge. Korea will age much faster than other OECD countries: in 2000, about 7% of Korea’s population were over 65; in 2050, senior citizens will constitute about 37% of Korea’s population. Population ageing will unfold at high speed, firstly because of the dramatic increase in life expectancy from just over 52 years in 1960 to over 77 years in 2004. a major cause of this was the spectacular decrease in infant mortality rates from 45 infants per 1000 live births in 1970 to 5.3 in 2002. The second cause of population ageing is the sharp decline in birth rates from close to 3 children per woman in 1975 to less than 1.2 in 2004. Reduced child mortality rates and increased life expectancy are indicators of the success of the Korean economy and society. However, the decline in fertility rates in Korea is evidence of strains in society which will damage prosperity in the future.
Population ageing on this scale will inevitably lead to a huge increase in spending on old-age income support and health care, and will also require the development of a public family policy which supports the reconciliation of work and care commitments of workers. To successfully meet the ageing challenge, the OECD believes that three policy objectives must be targeted. First, the decline in the working-age population needs to be slowed. Second, working opportunities need to be extended. Third, affordable and sustainable pension and health care policies must be implemented. This volume looks at existing Korean family, health and pension policies from an international perspective, considers them in view of the emerging policy challenges, and outlines some of the policy options that are available to policy makers in Korea.
Illicit financial flows (IFFs) have a cross-cutting nature and involve a diversity of crimes and offences transcending tax evasion, such as money laundering, terrorism financing and corruption. It is thus highly important for jurisdictions to adopt a whole-of-government approach to addressing them, notably through the sharing of information from tax to nontax authorities, which can include information exchanged under international tax agreements. This latter process is also known as the “wider use of treaty-exchanged information”. Wider use is envisaged by various international tax agreements, bilateral and multilateral, provided that certain conditions are met, usually where a similar use for non-tax purposes is allowed at the domestic level in both collaborating jurisdictions and where prior authorisation is granted by the jurisdiction providing the information. While several jurisdictions are interested in developing this form of co-operation as part of their whole-of-government approach to fighting IFFs, in practice they face operational challenges in implementing wider use, in particular with respect to the need to obtain consent from the jurisdiction providing the information.
This study assesses the use of economic instruments for water resources management in Georgia and considers options for reform following the 2014 signature of an Association Agreement with the EU committing to alignment with the EU’s Water Framework Directive. This includes the systematic use of economic instruments, including water pricing, to recover the cost of water services provided to households, industry and farmers, among other measures.
Three main economic instruments are recommended in this study: 1) the introduction of a licensing regime and charges for both surface water and groundwater abstraction, 2) the restoration of a licencing and charging regime for all forms of water pollution, and 3) more rigorous enforcement of these measures, including more active monitoring and higher fines for offenders. Implementing these measures will be greatly facilitated by the enactment of the new Water Law now being examined by the government of Georgia.
To support Mexico’s supreme audit institution, the ASF (Auditoría Superior de la Federación), in fulfilling its mandate, this report analyses good practices in OECD countries for incorporating governance issues into public works audits. It provides examples and assesses different strategic considerations for ASF’s infrastructure audit organisation and practices, including objectives and resources. Finally, it analyses infrastructure auditing practices in the context of emergencies.
This toolkit provides governments with policy guidance across three areas – regulatory tools, financial tools, and information tools – to help SMEs in the ASEAN Member States enhance their environmental performance and economic competitiveness. In each of these three areas, approaches are highlighted that focus on supporting cost-effective measures that enhance competiveness. Chapter 3 of this report also provides a series of quick and digestible messages about the benefits of greener practices for both SMEs and for policy makers, and their respective roles in this process. This toolkit aims to distil the lessons learned through the OECD’s work on greening SMEs in other regions, notably the six countries of the Eastern Partnership region, while drawing upon the experiences of other OECD member states and ongoing actions taking place in ASEAN Member States.
The WTO plays an important role in supporting efforts to achieve international regulatory cooperation (IRC) and to facilitate trade. First, the WTO provides a multilateral framework for trade among its 164 members, with a view to ensuring that trade flows as smoothly, predictably and freely as possible. Second, the WTO’s Agreements provide important legal disciplines, helping to promote good regulatory practice and IRC at the domestic level as a means of reducing unnecessary barriers to trade.
This publication highlights how the WTO’s Agreements on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) and on the Application of Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and the work of their related Committees promote opportunities for regulatory cooperation among governments and ease trade frictions. It demonstrates how members’ notification of draft measures, harmonisation of measures with international standards, discussion of specific trade concerns and other practices help to facilitate global trade in goods. The study also makes recommendations on how to benefit further from the transparency and cooperation opportunities provided by the TBT and SPS Agreements.
This Profile Analysis Note (PAN) for Portugal assesses the characteristics and employment barriers of working-age individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment. It is one of six such country notes in a joint EC-OECD project covering Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain. The objective of this project is to provide a novel perspective on employment difficulties, and to aid in the identification of policy approaches to overcome them.
This Profile Analysis Note (PAN) for Lithuania assesses the characteristics and employment barriers of working-age individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment. It is one of six such country notes in a joint EC-OECD project covering Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain. The objective of this project is to provide a novel perspective on employment difficulties, and to aid in the identification of policy approaches to overcome them.
This Profile Analysis Note (PAN) for Italy assesses the characteristics and employment barriers of working-age individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment. It is one of six such country notes in a joint EC-OECD project covering Estonia, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Portugal and Spain. The objective of this project is to provide a novel perspective on employment difficulties, and to aid in the identification of policy approaches to overcome them.
This book illustrates Korea's experience with outward foreign direct investment (FDI) and shows that the ancillary benefits of such investment -- knowledge and management transfer, market acquisition and skills enhancement -- can be substantial for individual firms. Moreover, the resulting increased robustness of these enterprises contributes to the strength and stability of the economy as a whole. While it is true that inward FDI carries similar benefits, outward FDI -- driven by the prerogatives of the domestic company -- is integrated into existing business plans and strategies, and therefore constitutes a more active policy.
No experience is directly transferable, but the Korean case shows that there is a large potential for other emerging economies to gain from FDI flows and that the initial costs from lost internal investment are largely outweighed by the medium-term benefits.
This report assesses how foreign direct investment (FDI) contributes to Tunisia’s sustainable development. It uses a wealth of national and international data sources to examine the contribution of FDI to productivity, innovation, job quality and skills development. The report also provides initial policy considerations to improve the impact of FDI on sustainable development in Tunisia.
Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) provides an important source of financing in Jordan but its reform momentum needs to be sustained and deepened so that the benefits of investment can be shared more widely across society. This report examines how FDI can help Jordan meet Sustainable Development Goals in areas of productivity and innovation, job quality and skills, gender equality and decarbonisation. It provides an overview of the country’s institutional framework for investment and sustainable development and analyses arrangements to ensure policy coordination, stakeholder consultation and evaluation of policy impacts. It also examines the mix of government policies that are currently in place to attract the investment that contributes to sustainable development, noting areas for priority policy reforms.