Spending on public administration itself is relatively low and so are indicators of its performance.

Spending on public administration itself is relatively low and so are indicators of its performance.

A roundup of OECD news & events on regional issues - December 2016

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

Malaysia has followed a comparatively equitable development path, largely eliminating absolute poverty and greatly reduced ethnic inequality.

Malaysia has followed a comparatively equitable development path, largely eliminating absolute poverty and greatly reduced ethnic inequality.

The OECD was part of the multi-stakeholder Advisory Board to help prepare the Global Risks 2017 report.

Malaysia has sustained over four decades of rapid, inclusive growth, reducing its dependence on agriculture and commodity exports to become a more diversified, modern and open economy.

OECD Global Network of Schools of Government provides direct access to OECD governance expertise and enables exchange of schools’ experiences and good practices in ensuring that public sector employees have the skills and competencies to address current and future priorities.

OSINERGMIN, the Supervisory Agency for Investment in Energy and Mining of Peru, advances in transparency and accountability to improve its regulation.

Comments on the draft OECD Best Practice Principles on Stakeholder Engagement in Regulatory Policy are to be sent to regstakeholders@oecd.org by 15 March 2017.

On January 26th and 27th the Ministry of Regional Development of Ukraine and the OECD organised a seminar in Kiyv focusing on recent decentralisation and territorial reforms in Ukraine and in OECD countries.

This paper assesses the effect of international differences in taxes on the choice of patent location by multinational enterprises (MNEs). The analysis is based on a large sample of patents and firms from the OECD-PATSTAT and OECD-ORBIS databases over 2004-10.

This paper assesses how international tax planning affects real business investment by multinationals. Earlier studies have shown that corporate taxes reduce business investment. This paper shows that tax planning multinationals are less sensitive to corporate taxes than other firms in their investment decisions.

This paper exploits firm-level data from the ORBIS database to assess international tax planning by multinational enterprises (MNEs).

This paper describes the main anti-avoidance rules against international tax planning by multinational enterprises in OECD and G20 countries.

Multinational enterprises (MNEs) manipulate the location of their debts to reduce their corporate tax burden. Indeed, by locating debts in higher-tax rate countries, MNEs can deduct interest payments against a higher tax rate. This paper provides evidence of such manipulation of debt location.

This paper investigates if tax planning by large multinationals distorts competition in their favour and allows them to crowd out other firms. The competitive implications of tax planning are frequently mentioned in the tax policy debate, but not yet documented empirically to our knowledge. This paper aims to fill this gap.

This paper assesses the redistribution of foreign direct investments (FDI) and tax revenues among countries due to multinationals’ response to international differences in corporate tax systems.

Blog argues that governments should stop approaching complex challenges through the limitations of their institutions and explore innovative ways of problem solving.

This new report highlights the latest trends in government innovation. The topics identified through this review are not the only trends and examples in government innovation, but they do provide a glimpse of where government innovation stands today and where it may be going tomorrow.

Towards Gender Equality before the Law

Adopted by the OECD Council on 23 February 2017, this Recommendation provides high-level policy guidance for designing a strategy for addressing the financial impacts of disasters on individuals, businesses and sub-national levels of governments, as well as the implication for public finances.

Seminar on Innovations and challenges in the management of a regional policy held in Bratislava, Slovak Republic, 22 February 2017

Forum on competition and regulation: In pursuit of market efficiency

This paper surveys the theoretical and empirical research on the relationship between local taxation, land use regulation and land use patterns.

Behavioural economics incorporates behavioural, social and cognitive dimensions into economic thinking, and its practice has grown as economists strive to improve their models, forecasts and policies. Today it is making a measurable difference in policy effectiveness around the world.

Women’s representation in parliaments remains a global issue. In 2016, women constituted 23% of parliamentarians over both upper and lower houses combined, with the Pacific, Arab States and Asia having the lowest representation (16.4%, 18.2%, and 19.2% respectively).

As part of efforts to deepen co-operation between the OECD and Argentina and contribute to the country’s public policy and reform agenda, Argentina’s Finance Minister Nicolás Dujovne has presented an Action Plan to OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría.

This seminar was held in Mykolaiv on 5 March, 2017. Ukrainian sub-national officials, policy makers and other stakeholders shared their experience in decentralisation reform and its impact with respect to administrative capacity, investment capacity and service delivery capacity, particularly at the local level.

OECD promotes the exchange of experiences and good practices for the improvement of regulation among Latin American countries

This event looked at good practices in key areas for making infrastructure deliver; such as infrastructure policy and planning, stakeholder participation, integrity, procurement, and institutional arrangements for multi-level investment projects.

Nearly one in five mobile phones and one in four video game consoles shipped internationally is fake, as a growing trade in counterfeit IT and communications hardware weighs on consumers, manufacturers and public finances, according to a new OECD report.

The 2017 OECD Global Anti-Corruption and Integrity Forum will tackle issues related to fair competition and economic growth, the inequality gap, a level playing field for business, the public interest in policy making and trust in government and politics

OECD blog on the current dwindling levels of trust and what governments can do to help rebuild public trust.

In 1998 Indonesia embarked on an ambitious course of decentralisation. Over a period of a few years, facilitated by financial transfers from the central government, responsibility for many public services and administrative tasks were devolved to local authorities.

Indonesia's fiscal position is generally sound and policy making prudent. However, the country still faces important challenges in terms of economic and social development.

The third version of the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) Reference Guide provides the most relevant examples, references and resources to help readers inform themselves on key PPP topics.

A Job for Life? The old notion of a safe job in the civil service is profoundly changing - OECD Insights blog by Bill Below.

The Second International Conference on National Urban Policy was held in Paris France on 15-16 May 2017. The conference was a joint initiative of the OECD, UN Habitat and Cities Alliance.

This may come as a surprise to most serious policymakers, but here’s a fact: not all that is “news” is fact-checked information. Worse, non-facts are frequently introduced into stories and passed off as facts. Welcome to the new information world. It is unsettling, and hardly augurs well for robust policymaking. So what can be done about it?

Information is in no short supply these days. Indeed, as comedian Joey Novick has pointedly remarked: “The information in the world doubles every day. What they don’t tell us is that our wisdom is cut in half at the same time.”

This web page presents the 10 dimensions of the framework for the governance of public infrastructure. The dimensions relate to how governments prioritise, plan, budget, deliver, regulate and evaluate infrastructure investment. Each area covers the principal objective of policy in each area, followed by key questions decision makers need to address and indicators identifying the enabling factors.

It doesn’t feel like a great time to be an expert. Experts rely on facts, evidence and careful analysis to make assessments of the past, present, and future. All those categories—expertise, evidence and logical analysis—seem under attack. Equally importantly, public trust in the institutions that house experts has ebbed at an alarming rate over the last 40 years.

This OECD review underlines the success of Chile’s infrastructure policies which have served as a backbone for it's rapid economic development and social welfare reforms - but also highlights the need to update public investment processes to reflect a more integrated approach to long-term development.

Independent fiscal institutions (IFIs) serve to promote sound fiscal policy and sustainable public finances. This report outlines good practices for their effective design and operation.

Democracy is a living organism; it is made by and for the people. And encouraging more people to participate surely strengthens democracy.

This Experts Meeting took place in Reykjavik, Iceland on 18-19 May 2017. Delegates from OECD countries shared practical experiences – successes and challenges – in implementing Gender Budgeting.

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNISDR) coordinates global disaster risk reduction efforts among United Nations agencies and international organisations. The OECD is hosting an event to see how governments and stakeholders can best work together to strengthen economic and social resilience through improve risk governance.

It is hardly surprising that rising inequality has translated into growing political disaffection, anti-market sentiment and disenchantment with globalisation. In such a context, we desperately need to take action to promote inclusive growth and restore public confidence in the power of policymakers to improve people’s lives.