{"title":"Fiscal Relations across Government Levels","authors":"I. Joumard, Per Mathis Kongsrud","doi":"10.1787/455513871742","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/455513871742","url":null,"abstract":"Despite its apparent advantages, devolution of fiscal responsibilities has not proceeded evenly over the past two decades. Decentralisation can strengthen the democratic process, allow governments to tailor the supply of public goods to local preferences and introduce some competition across jurisdictions, thus raising public sector efficiency. It can, however, entail efficiency losses and make it difficult to implement redistributive policies. On the spending side, local provision may fail to exploit economies of scale and internalise territorial spillovers – a serious issue since few public goods are purely local by nature. On the revenue side, few tax bases can be exploited by sub-national governments without risking making national objectives difficult to achieve and raising serious distributive concerns. This paper, which is largely based on country experiences in mitigating the potential drawbacks of decentralisation while obtaining most of its benefits, provides a framework for assessing fiscal relations across levels of government...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130893703","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Stephen S. Golub, D. Hájková, D. Mirza, G. Nicoletti, Kwang-Yeol Yoo
{"title":"The Influence of Policies on Trade and Foreign Direct Investment","authors":"Stephen S. Golub, D. Hájková, D. Mirza, G. Nicoletti, Kwang-Yeol Yoo","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART2-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART2-EN","url":null,"abstract":"This paper assesses the importance of border and non-border policies for global economic integration. The focus is on four widely-advocated policies: removing explicit restrictions to trade and FDI; promoting domestic competition; improving the adaptability of labour markets; and ensuring adequate levels of infrastructure capital. The analysis covers FDI and trade in both goods and services, thus aiming to account for the most important channels of globalisation and dealing with most modes of cross-border services supply. The results highlight that, despite extensive liberalisation over the past two decades, there is scope for further reducing policy barriers to integration of OECD markets. Remaining barriers have a significant impact on bilateral trade and FDI, with anticompetitive domestic regulations and restrictive labour market arrangements estimated to curb integration as much as explicit trade and FDI restrictions. Simulating the removal of such barriers suggests that the quantitative effects of further liberalisation of trade, FDI and domestic product and labour markets on global integration could be substantial...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126219486","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Decline in Private Saving Rates in the 1990s in OECD Countries","authors":"Florian Pelgrin, A. Serres","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART4-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART4-EN","url":null,"abstract":"The substantial decline in private-sector saving rates observed in several OECD countries in the late 1990s coincided in several cases with a sharp increase in household financial net worth. This was seen by many observers as evidence that the strong rise in equity and residential property prices during the late 1990s had been treated by households as a permanent increase in wealth, leading to an unsustainable drop in saving and raising fears of an eventual negative wealth effect. Applying estimation techniques for systems of dynamic panel equations, this paper looks at basic determinants of private saving for a sample of 15 OECD countries and finds that the sharp decline in saving observed after 1995 can be largely explained, even in a post-sample fashion, by fundamentals other than financial wealth. Among the determinants, the rise in public-sector saving is found to have contributed the most to the decline in private saving between 1995 and 2000. Based on this investigation, there is little evidence that consumers had gone too far in responding to the stock market boom of the late 1990s, even in countries where private saving rates have fallen to historically low levels. On the other hand, the results suggest that a loosening of fiscal policy may have a limited stimulatory impact on private consumption...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"19 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-12-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123523150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tariff Bindings, Unused Protection and Agricultural Trade Liberalisation","authors":"P. Walkenhorst, N. Dihel","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART6-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART6-EN","url":null,"abstract":"Prior quantitative assessments of the effects of agricultural trade liberalisation have assumed that negotiated reductions in bound tariffs translate into corresponding cuts in applied tariff rates. This approach, however, overestimates the actual reduction in applied tariffs and, hence, the benefits of trade liberalisation, since applied rates are often much lower than the tariffs bound in Uruguay Round schedules. This paper uses data on applied and bound tariffs and the GTAP-CGE model to quantify the magnitude of the resulting bias. The findings suggest that the distortion of estimates is particularly pronounced for modest tariff cuts, as well as for countries where the differences between bound and applied rates are substantial. Hence, quantitative policy analysts who aim to inform decision makers on the likely impacts of negotiated tariff cuts should consider the relationship between bound and applied tariff rates in their assessments in order to avoid mistaken advice...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"100 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-11-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122691151","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Explaining Waiting Times Variations for Elective Surgery Across OECD Countries","authors":"L. Siciliani, J. Hurst","doi":"10.1787/406746186162","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/406746186162","url":null,"abstract":"Waiting times for publicly-funded elective surgery are a major health policy concern in many OECD countries (like Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the United Kingdom), but are not a concern in others (like Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Japan, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and the United States). This paper contains a comparative analysis of these two groups of countries. It is found...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-10-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116039428","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Measures Of Restrictions on Inward Foreign Direct Investment for OECD Countries","authors":"Stephen S. Golub","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART3-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2003-ART3-EN","url":null,"abstract":"This paper provides new measures of restrictions on inward foreign direct investment (FDI) for OECD countries. Several different types of restrictions are considered: limitations on foreign ownership, screening or notification procedures, and management and operational restrictions. These restrictions are computed for nine sectors and eleven sub-sectors, most of which are in services, and then aggregated into a single measure for the economy as a whole. According to the aggregate indicators, the last two decades, and especially the 1990s, have witnessed dramatic liberalisation in FDI restrictions. OECD countries are now generally open to inward FDI, although there remain substantial differences between countries and across industries. The most open countries are now in Europe, at least as far as statutory restrictions are concerned. The preponderance of remaining restrictions is in services, with almost no overt restrictions in manufacturing...","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"s3-43 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130190049","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Social Protection and Growth","authors":"Román Arjona, Maxime Ladaique, M. Pearson","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART8-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART8-EN","url":null,"abstract":"Public social expenditure accounts for 25 per cent of GDP, or even more in some countries. That expenditure on this scale has some effect on growth seems very likely, but the direction of the effect is disputed by different schools of thought. Using new data sources and panel data econometric techniques, this paper sheds new light on the issue. Evidence is found in favour of the proposition that more social expenditure reduces growth. However, “active” social spending, including active labour market policies, make work pay policies and spending on family services, appears to have the opposite effect and may be growth-enhancing.","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"2002 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129030560","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Production and Use of ICT: A Sectoral Perspective on Productivity Growth in the OECD Area","authors":"D. Pilat, F. Lee, B. Ark","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART9-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART9-EN","url":null,"abstract":"This paper examines the roles of the ICT-producing sector and of key ICT-using industries in overall productivity growth in OECD countries. The ICT manufacturing sector, in particular, has been characterised by very high rates of productivity growth in many countries and provides a large contribution to labour productivity growth in Finland, Ireland and Korea. In a few countries, notably the United States and Australia, certain ICT-using services have also experienced an above-average pick-up in productivity growth in the second half of the 1990s. Further structural reform may be needed before ICT use will also show up in the productivity statistics of other OECD countries. Differences in the measurement of productivity in ICT-producing and -using industries across countries complicate the cross-country analysis.","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"15 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"126025236","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Stock Market, the Housing Market and Consumer Behaviour","authors":"L. Boone, Nathalie Girouard","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART12-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART12-EN","url":null,"abstract":"After the buoyancy of stock markets in the late nineties, share prices have generally trended downwards since 2001. By contrast, house prices have continued to increase, rising more rapidly than the general price level in several countries. These developments have led to renewed interest in the impact of asset prices on consumption and overall demand. This paper analyses the roles of household financial wealth and housing wealth across G7 countries (with the exception of Germany), in determining private consumption. It provides some estimates of the sensitivity of consumption to various forms of wealth and tests whether these sensitivities have changed over time. The impacts of recent financial and housing market developments on consumption are also quantified. The main results are, first, that for all countries, wealth channels are identified, second, that these effects vary significantly across countries, and third that for some countries, their importance has tended to rise markedly over the recent past.","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"48 5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"117338045","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Tax Ratios on Labour and Capital Income and on Consumption","authors":"David P. Carey, Josette Rabesona","doi":"10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART11-EN","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1787/ECO_STUDIES-V2002-ART11-EN","url":null,"abstract":"This paper presents revised tax ratios based on more realistic assumptions than those used in a previous study applying the same approach (based on tax revenue statistics and national accounts data) to measuring the effective tax burden. Although the levels of the revised tax ratios are sometimes quite different from those previously found, the two data sets are generally highly correlated. The paper also presents a sensitivity analysis of relaxing some remaining unrealistic assumptions for countries and periods where that is possible. It is found that this often has a large effect on the tax ratios, especially for capital, and the two data sets are sometimes no longer highly correlated. This highlights the need to use these ratios in conjunction with other indicators, such as average effective tax rates, to corroborate the story they tell.","PeriodicalId":257911,"journal":{"name":"Oecd Economic Studies","volume":"2002 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2003-05-12","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130777358","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}