Browse by: "2023"

Lung fibrosis is a dysregulated or exaggerated tissue repair process resulting in the thickening or scarring of lung tissue. It involves the presence of sustained or repeated exposure to a stressor and intricate dynamics between several inflammatory and immune response cells, and the microenvironment of the alveolar-capillary region consisting of both immune and non-immune cells, and the lung interstitium. This AOP is applicable to a broad group of stressors of diverse properties e.g. metal dusts, pharmacological products, fibres, microorganisms, chemicals, including novel technology-enabled stressors such as nanomaterials. This AOP is referred to as AOP 173 in the Collaborative Adverse Outcome Pathway Wiki (AOP-Wiki).

Using data on more than 150.000 non-financial companies operating in both manufacturing and services sectors around the world, we analyse the drivers of firm performance throughout the whole COVID cycle (until end 2021). We highlight three key results. First, if anything, larger and older firms did worse than smaller and younger ones in terms of revenues and investment spending, both during COVID-19 and the subsequent recovery. Even in sectors that were under scrutiny from a competition standpoint, such as technology and healthcare, larger firms did not systematically over-perform. Second, ex-ante financial strength attenuated the effects of the shock on revenues during the COVID cycle. Third, there is some evidence of debt overhang: firms that entered the crisis with a higher leverage ratio invested less than others, including on R&D, both in 2020 and in 2021, while firms that became more debt-burdened during the pandemic tended to record weaker investment spending during the recovery. These insights shed light on market power, competition, and more generally on the performance of the corporate sector since the start of COVID-19 pandemic.

Over the past few decades, economies and technologies have shifted in ways that have made people’s economic prospects more uncertain. This Policy Insights highlights the main findings from On Shaky Ground? Income Instability and Economic Insecurity in Europe, the inaugural report of the OECD Observatory on Social Mobility and Equal Opportunity. It utilises novel techniques to identify the economically insecure, those most vulnerable to income fluctuations, in European OECD countries, and explores the link between income fluctuations, social mobility, and income inequality. It also recommends a range of policies aimed at enhancing social protection timeliness to better support those with highly volatile incomes and at building financial buffers for individuals at risk of economic insecurity.

Plastic products present several environmental, health, social and economic challenges that span from the extraction of raw materials to primary and final plastics production, to their distribution and use, and to the collection and sorting of plastic waste. International trade, which has facilitated the development of plastics supply chains, also comes with a range of challenges, such as a surge in demand for plastics ― notably in packaging ― difficulties to monitor plastics embedded in other products, and an increased risk of plastic waste leaking in countries that have less rigorous environmental regulations. Yet trade can also serve as a vehicle to access foreign pollution control technologies or to foster economies of scale for circular economy practices. Indeed, the implementation of circular economy solutions through trade policies is crucial in addressing plastic pollution. Such policies could include reduced tariffs on environmentally-friendly alternatives to plastic products; trade facilitation measures for reverse supply chains; or technical regulations, standards, labelling schemes, and conformity assessment procedures that promote product designs which will minimise pollution throughout the entire plastic lifecycle.

Este Guia fornece um roteiro para governos locais, comunidades e museus sobre como definir em conjunto uma agenda de desenvolvimento local. Cinco dimensões são consideradas: 1. Alavancar o poder dos museus para o desenvolvimento económico local, 2. Desenvolver o papel dos museus para a regeneração urbana e o desenvolvimento comunitário, 3. Catalisar sociedades culturalmente conscientes e criativas, 4. Promover os museus como espaços de inclusão, saúde e bem-estar, 5. Integrar o papel dos museus no desenvolvimento local.

More than 1.3 million people die each year in road crashes, with millions more suffering life-altering injuries. The Safe System approach aims to eliminate deadly crashes through a comprehensive, shared-responsibility framework. This report offers guidelines for establishing Safety Performance Indicators (SPIs) to assess the effectiveness of Safe System policies in reducing road fatalities and serious injuries. It identifies international best practices for constructing and deploying SPIs, focusing on the case of Korea.

The Province of Córdoba in Argentina has adopted the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as a holistic framework to promote social inclusion and well-being, and to address its territorial development challenges in an integrated way. Building on the recommendations from the OECD report on “A Territorial Approach to the SDGs in Córdoba, Argentina” (2021), Córdoba’s policies have focused on the following four strategic axes: (i) gender and employment, (ii) education for employment, (iii) housing and access to essential services, and (iv) bridging the digital divide. This paper provides the Province of Córdoba with a set of recommendations to move these axes forward through a comprehensive approach using the SDG lens, including to bridge the digital divide in the labour market, ensure equitable access to services such as quality education, and create an inclusive and supportive environment that empowers women to fully participate in the workforce.

Ireland is highly centralised and fast growing, creating co-ordination challenges in terms of delivering key investments and in key policy areas like transport, housing and education. Actors across levels of government recognise a need for a more coordinated approach to the delivery of the National Planning Framework, the principal spatial planning strategy of Project Ireland 2040, which includes also the National Development Plan (public investment).The report has three objectives which ultimately aim to support more balanced regional outcomes in Ireland: i) to clarify the gaps in terms of regional attractiveness across and within Ireland’s regions, including in terms of population and investment attraction; ii) to assess the ability for the National Planning Framework – in its current form – to address these gaps, and iii) to consider what multi-level governance reforms and attractiveness policies can be introduced or scaled to generate more territorially-balanced development.

Nature-based solutions (NbS) aim to maintain, enhance and restore ecosystems to address a variety of social, economic and environmental challenges, including climate change and biodiversity loss. This paper applies the OECD’s framework to provide recommendations for how to encourage the use of NbS by Hungarian municipalities. It illustrates some of the key challenges in the local implementation of NbS in Hungary and provides international examples of how they are tackled in diverse contexts. It also discusses the role of reforms about the enabling environment to mobilise further public and private investment in climate adaptation.

Reforming agricultural support is increasingly considered a viable means to enhance agriculture’s contribution to climate change mitigation, while fulfilling broader food systems policy objectives related to food security and livelihoods. This study uses a new computable general equilibrium model to investigate a set of global policy reform scenarios that reorientate governments’ budgetary transfers to agriculture to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The results suggest that removing budgetary support globally would reduce agricultural emissions by 2.1% with potential negative effects on food supply. Reorienting existing support, instead, could have significantly stronger effects: decoupling payments from production and tying these to suitable agri-environmental practices could raise emission reduction to over 4% without harming food supply. Targeted investments in productivity and abatement technologies could bring additional emission savings in the long term with co-benefits for food security. Overall, combining green decoupling and investment policies in OECD countries would reduce global agricultural emissions by 5% – or by 11% if extended to other regions – while balancing outcomes across the three dimensions of the food systems’ triple challenge.

This journal article presents a set of high-level good budgeting practices in the health sector. The purpose of these good practices is to support countries in assessing their own budgeting arrangements for health, and in designing budgeting reforms. The article builds on 10 years of work by the OECD Joint Network of Senior Budget and Health Officials.

Sweden is among OECD best performers in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, much thanks to a comprehensive policy framework and relatively efficient policies. There is nonetheless room to further improve consistency of targets and policies, notably for transport, agriculture and carbon removals. Sweden’s long record as a climate frontrunner is also threatened by policy changes moving the 2030 reduction target out of reach unless compensated by new ambitious measures. A green industrial revolution is gaining momentum in Sweden’s north, fuelled by an abundant supply of clean electricity. Considerable investments in electricity generation, storage and transmission are needed, but long planning and permitting procedures slow many key projects down. The green revolution depends on people and skills to run industry and complementary public services. This is a challenge for northern regions and municipalities already facing labour shortages.

Financial markets need clear information and credible metrics to inform climate-related investment and financing decisions. This report explores key challenges and opportunities related to the transparency, specificity and integrity of metrics to support the monitoring of financial institutions’ net-zero commitments. It provides an assessment of metrics put forward in five voluntary frameworks, identifies the type of information and metrics proposed, their common themes and gaps, as well as limitations in underlying methodological guidance that may hinder financial institutions’ ability to report and disclose metrics. The report highlights a need both for continued efforts to develop robust metrics and incentivise improved data disclosure, as well as for international co-operation to reduce fragmentation and provide further transparency on the scope of metrics and underlying methodologies.

This case study assesses the strategies of the Museum of Lisbon as well as the related policies of Lisbon City Council to support local development. Through its five branches located across the city and its diverse partnerships with local stakeholders, the Museum of Lisbon has cemented its role as a community anchor institution. This case study focuses on the five dimensions featured in the OECD-ICOM Guide for Local Governments, Communities and Museums, namely the role of museums in: i) economic development, ii) urban regeneration, iii) education and creativity, iv) inclusion, health and well-being, and on iv) ways to mainstream the role of museums in local development.

This report analyses the global trade in used cars and how the transition to electric vehicles may impact it. The analysis explores the quality and age of used vehicles traded globally and maps out how they are traded from developed economies to emerging markets. The report reviews recent importer and exporter policy announcements and uses quantitative analysis, for the first time, to understand how policies may impact the flows of used vehicles between countries. It evaluates potential scenarios of electric vehicle adoption in emerging economies through used vehicle imports.

In the context of the green transition, universities have much to offer in joint green innovation projects with business, government and citizens. As hubs of diverse expertise, universities are uniquely placed to build interdisciplinary teams and bridge gaps between society and industry. Their regional ties also enable them to engage with the local ecosystem. This paper draws from ten international case studies of university partnerships with industry and society in green mobility, green energy and green products, services and processes. The comparative evidence gathered from interviews with representatives from these initiatives examines universities’ practices for green co-creation. Additionally, the paper outlines policy recommendations crucial to supporting these initiatives, essential for the global success of sustainable development efforts.

This paper examines the contribution of international migrants to regional differences in labour productivity in Australia. The study relies on individual-level administrative wage data from 2011 to 2018. It finds that a region with a 10% larger migrant share has, on average, a 1.3% larger regional wage difference, which indicates a positive link between migration and labour productivity. The presence of migrants benefits native workers with different skill levels residing in all types of regions. The positive effects of migrants are even more pronounced for higher-skilled migrants. Concretely, a region with a 10% larger share of higher-skilled migrants has, on average, a 1% higher regional productivity difference. However, these additional benefits mainly accrue to more productive regions and those with higher migrant shares than the median region.

This policy paper provides an analysis of the new the Portuguese Competence Centre for Planning, Policy and Foresight in Public Administration (PlanAPP) and its functions in Portugal, focusing on strategic planning and networking activities. It analyses the role of PlanAPP in aligning and harmonising the strategic planning process and in ensuring evidence-informed, inclusive and co-ordinated strategic planning, particularly through RePLAN, Portugal’s Public Administration Planning and Foresight Services Network. The paper makes recommendations to help Portugal effectively implement the competency centre model, consolidate its strategic planning process, better define and co-ordinate high-level priorities, and set a path to achieve them effectively and coherently.