Publications & Documents

This report looks at the fiscal, environmental and social impacts of energy subsidy reform in Moldova with a particular focus on energy affordability. Reduced value added tax (VAT) rate on natural gas consumption and a VAT exemption on electricity and heat consumption by domestic users represent the largest fossil-fuel consumer subsidies in Moldova. Reforming these will imply an increase of the VAT rate, which will lead to an increase of gas, electricity and heat tariffs for households, and will in turn affect household consumption levels, related expenditures and energy affordability. If reform measures are to work, they will need to be accompanied by a carefully-designed social policy to protect poor households.

Of the requests for asylum in France made in 2016, more than 10 000 applications were made by people in Paris and were made in the context of a rising number of refugees and asylum seekers since 2015. This increase has stirred a debate in France around its 'universal' migrant integration model, which aspires to equal treatment for all and for which the main tool has been 'Integration Contract' for migrants. At all levels of government, measures are now being designed for 'reinforced' support for migrants, helping them to better integrate socially and to better access the  job market; these measures are tailored for all persons with a residency permit, in particular for refugees. This case study examines the City of Paris and its ambitions to successfully integrate its new inhabitants. The municipality sets aside dedicated resources for this and actively involves French citizens in implementing activities to foster social cohesion. The city is still attracting new migrants while socio-economic disparities and segregation remain marked in Paris and its region, in a context of limited emergency accommodation facilities for migrants and a tight housing market. More can be done to improve coherence across levels of government and among partners, in order to prevent fragmented service delivery and to improve how the impact of integration programmes is measured.

This report looks at a range of key labour market, economic and social indicators related to Canada’s growing Indigenous population, which comprises First Nations, Inuit and Métis. In 2016, there were over 1.6 million Indigenous People in Canada, accounting for 4.9% of the total population, which is a significant increase from 3.8% in 2006. The report looks at the implementation of the federal government’s Indigenous Skills and Employment Training Strategy through in-depth analysis across four case study areas, including 1) the Centre for Aboriginal Human Resources and Development in Winnipeg, Manitoba; 2) Community Futures Treaty Seven in Calgary, Alberta; 3) MAWIW Council in Fredericton, New Brunswick; and 4) Kiikenomaga Kikenjigewen Employment and Training Services (KKETS) in Thunder Bay, Ontario. The report highlights critical success factors to better link Indigenous People to high quality jobs while also providing recommendations regarding future labour market and skills programming for Indigenous People in Canada.

Ce rapport sur L’articulation entre productivité et inclusivité rassemble les toutes dernières évidences empiriques sur les principaux facteurs du ralentissement des gains de productivité et des fortes inégalités ; il suggère de possibles liens et fondements communs à ces deux tendances ; il dégage de premières conclusions sur les ensembles de mesures à mettre en œuvre et sur les implications qui en découlent pour l’élaboration des politiques ; en outre il propose des domaines précis qui pourraient faire l’objet de recherches plus approfondies.Le principal message de ce rapport est un appel aux responsables de l’action publique afin qu’ils adoptent une approche plus globale et plus inclusive de la croissance de la productivité visant à développer tous les actifs productifs d’une économie en développant les compétences, en mettant en place un environnement où toutes les entreprises peuvent prospérer et en investissant dans les régions à la traîne. L’objectif premier de cette approche est d’élargir la base productive de l’économie de façon à générer à terme des gains de productivité solides et durables auxquels chacun soit en mesure de contribuer tout en s’assurant par ailleurs que chacun, dans la société, puisse en bénéficier et voir s’améliorer son niveau de vie et ses perspectives. Pour ce faire, il faudra établir un cadre d’action complet qui tienne compte de l’ensemble des interactions entre inégalités et productivité, et du jeu de ces interactions au sein des pays, et entre les régions, les entreprises et les individus. Un tel cadre peut aider les responsables de l’action publique à mettre en place des mesures ex ante et ex post visant à promouvoir les synergies, et à gérer les situations dans lesquelles les politiques à l’appui de la productivité ont un impact sur les inégalités.

Berlin has long been a diverse, multicultural city and today about 1 million – or 30% – of its inhabitants have a migration background, meaning that they – or at least one of their parents – were born without German nationality. Berlin’s authorities perceive diversity as generally accepted in Berlin’s society. This case study takes a close look at the city’s migrant integration programmes and services, examining how all levels of government participate in these programmes, as well as the growing role played by third-sector agencies. It considers how Berlin’s administration reacted to the sharp rise in asylum applications in 2015-16, rapidly updating existing integration measures as well as developing emergency ones. The integration of these newcomers needs to be monitored in order to demonstrate policy impact and to help establish whether such policies can be expanded to help other migrant groups that still experience wide socio-economic gaps compared to native population.

While Finland’s foreign-born population remains small by international standards, growth has been amongst the fastest in the OECD. Finland’s foreign-born population have lower employment rates than native-born Finns, and women, in particular, are struggling to integrate and face incentives to stay in the home. Indeed, the employment gap among those arriving from outside the European Union is among the largest in the OECD. This risks long-term implications for the integration of their children, many of whom are struggling to thrive in the Finnish school system. Large inflows of asylum seekers in 2015 put integration squarely on the agenda, and Finland developed a number of innovative integration policies in response. Yet, numbers have since fallen dramatically, raising questions of how to respond to the needs of a large cohort without scaling up the integration system on a permanent basis. This review, the second in a series on the skills and labour market integration of immigrants and their children, provides an assessment of these and other challenges. It includes a holistic assessment of Finland’s integration services – such as the new modular integration training, and the Social Impact Bond – as well as challenges related to settlement, early labour market contact and workplace segregation. An earlier review in the series looked at integration policies in Sweden (2016).

This report is part of the OECD Tax Policy Reviews. The Reviews are intended to provide independent, comprehensive and comparative assessments of OECD member and non-member countries’ tax systems as well as concrete recommendations for tax policy reform. By identifying tailored tax policy reform options, the objective of the Reviews is to enhance the design of existing tax policies and to support the adoption of new reforms.This report provides a comprehensive tax policy assessment of the taxes paid by individuals in Slovenia as well as tax reform recommendations. The report is divided into six chapters, with a summary of the main findings upfront, followed by more detailed recommendations at the end of chapters 3 to 6.  Chapter 1 sets the scene for tax reform in Slovenia. Chapter 2 focuses on the labour market, social policy and tax policy related challenges. The ensuing chapters assess the financing of the social security system (Chapter 3), identify strategies to strengthen the design of personal income tax (Chapter 4), indirect taxes (Chapter 5), and the taxation of capital income at the individual level (Chapter 6).