Reports

Online personalised pricing is a form of price discrimination that involves charging different prices to different consumers, often based on a consumer’s personal data. Policymakers are currently discussing ways to protect consumers from potential adverse effects of personalised pricing. One option involves displaying disclosures on the websites of retailers that use personalised pricing, in order for consumers to make informed purchase decisions. This paper summarizes findings from a laboratory experiment on the effects that online disclosures about personalised pricing have on consumers. Results from the experiment suggest that online disclosures have only limited effects on consumers’ ability to identify and comprehend online personalised pricing, and cannot confirm a significant effect on participants’ purchasing behaviour. Results from a questionnaire distributed to participants reveal that on average personalised pricing is considered an unfair practice that should be prohibited.

Ireland is undertaking a review of their senior cycle (upper secondary education) led by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (NCCA). It aims at collecting the views of all relevant stakeholders to identify the strengths and challenges of senior cycle in its current form, and identify priority issues and actions to move forward. As part of OECD’s implementing education policies project, an OECD team was invited to support the review of Ireland’s senior cycle. The team has carried out the assessment presented here and provided strategic advice based on four analytical aspects: smart policy design, inclusive stakeholder engagement, conducive context and a coherent implementation strategy. Each one of these dimensions matters to ensure that the review of senior cycle can move forward based on evidence and with strong support from stakeholders.

This country policy profile on education in Ireland is part of the Education Policy Outlook series. Building on the first policy profile for Ireland (2013), it offers a concise analysis of where the education system stands today in terms of strengths, challenges and ongoing policy efforts, and how this compares to other systems. The profile brings together over a decade’s worth of policy analysis by the Education Policy Outlook, as well as the latest OECD data, relevant thematic and country-specific work and other international and national evidence. It also offers analysis of the Irish education system’s initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis and provides insight into approaches to building greater responsiveness and resilience for the future.

The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity. This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments. It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.

Technological change is transforming Ireland’s economic structures, leading to new jobs and innovative products that benefit consumers. Adoption of new technologies by businesses has been high relative to many other OECD economies, but it has been uneven across industries and the impact on productivity growth in most firms has been modest so far.

In 2017, the 'Sláintecare Report' proposed a comprehensive overhaul of the Irish health system including a reform proposal to phase out private practice in public hospitals to end the unequal treatment of public and private patients – private patients typically have quicker access to care – and reduce waiting times for public patients. This paper summarises the arguments for and against this practice that were put forward to help inform the subsequent policy debate. The paper compares how private practice is regulated and organised in Ireland with the situation in four other OECD countries – Australia, France, Israel and the United Kingdom - and discusses the costs and benefits of private practice in public hospitals, and highlights potential consequences of a ban on this practice. It also describes the information required when making a decision whether to ban this practice or not. Finally, the paper discusses some alternative policy approaches that could replace or complement a ban of private practice to discontinue the unequal treatment of public and private patients.

The OECD's Development Assistance Committee (DAC) conducts periodic reviews of the individual development co-operation efforts of DAC members. The policies and programmes of each DAC member are critically examined once every five to six years. DAC peer reviews assess the performance of a given member, not just that of its development co-operation agency, and examine both policy and implementation. They take an integrated, system-wide perspective on the development co-operation activities of the member under review and its approach to fragility, crisis and humanitarian assistance. Ireland is a strong voice for sustainable development. Quality partnerships with civil society, staunch support for multilateralism and good humanitarian donorship are hallmarks of its development co-operation. The vision and ambition of its 2019 international development policy, A Better World, requires Ireland to increase its official development assistance as planned, develop guidance and a new results management approach, and undertake strategic workforce planning.

Environmental regulators strive to protect the environment and public health from pollution from economic activity. This report uses the OECD Performance Assessment Framework for Economic Regulators (PAFER) to assess both the internal and external governance of Ireland’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). It looks at the EPA’s role and objectives, its financial and human resources, processes for internal management and decision making, and systems for performance assessment. The review acknowledges the EPA’s achievements and good practices, analyses the key drivers of its performance, and identifies a number of challenges and opportunities for improvement to help the regulator prepare for the future.