Reports

This paper examines the determinants of structural adjustment in Japan and identifies several factors that explain the use of certain employment types. Its findings are based on a novel plant-level dataset that provides considerable detail on the types of employees used by Japanese manufacturers between 2001 and 2014. Analysis of this dataset shows that growth in the diffusion of robotics is linked to fewer non-regular employees, which seems to be partially driven by the positive association between robot adoption and the dismissal of certain types of non-regular workers. It also finds that offshoring from Japan to other countries contributes to the use of both regular and non-regular workers, while higher plant productivity is related to the use of more regular workers. Finally, establishments that experienced job dismissals appear to substitute non-regular workers for regular workers.

Revenue Statistics in Asian and Pacific Economies is jointly produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTP) and the OECD Development Centre (DEV) with the co-operation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Pacific Island Tax Administrators Association (PITAA), and the Pacific Community (SPC) and the financial support from the governments of Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This edition includes a special feature on the tax policy and administration responses to COVID-19 in Asian and Pacific Economies. It compiles comparable tax revenue statistics for Australia, Bhutan, People’s Republic of China, Cook Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu ; and comparable non-tax revenue statistics for Bhutan, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nauru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to Asian and Pacific economies enables comparisons about tax levels and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among Asian and Pacific economies and with OECD, Latin American and Caribbean and African averages.

La révolution technologique qui a marqué les dernières décennies du XXe siècle a entraîné une forte augmentation de la demande de facultés de traitement de l’information et d’autres compétences cognitives et interpersonnelles sur le marché du travail. Sur la base des résultats des 33 pays et régions ayant participé aux deux premières vagues de l'Enquête sur les compétences des adultes en 2011-12 et 2014-15, ce rapport décrit les compétences dans trois domaines de traitement de l'information et examine comment les compétences sont liées au marché du travail et aux résultats sociaux. Il décrit notamment les résultats des six pays ayant participé à la troisième vague du premier cycle du PIAAC en 2017-18 (Équateur, États-Unis, Hongrie, Kazakhstan, Mexique et Pérou). L’Évaluation des compétences des adultes, un produit du Programme de l’OCDE pour l’évaluation internationale des compétences des adultes (PIAAC), a été conçue pour montrer dans quelle mesure les individus possèdent certaines de ces facultés et compétences clés et comment ils les utilisent dans le cadre professionnel et dans la vie privée. Cette enquête, la première du genre, évalue directement le niveau de compétence dans trois domaines du traitement de l’information : la littératie, la numératie et la résolution de problèmes.

The design of intergovernmental fiscal relations can help to ensure that tax and spending powers are assigned in a way to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Decentralisation can enable sub-central governments to provide better public services for households and firms, while it can also make intergovernmental frameworks more complex, harming equity. The challenges of fiscal federalism are multi-faceted and involve difficult trade-offs. This synthesis paper consolidates much of the OECD’s work on fiscal federalism over the past 15 years, with a particular focus on OECD Economic Surveys. The paper identifies a range of good practices on the design of country policies and institutions related strengthening fiscal capacity delineating responsibilities across evels of government and improving intergovernmental co-ordination.

The pollution intensity of the Japanese economy, measured as emissions per dollar of GDP, is among the lowest within OECD countries. However, air pollution remains a significant issue. Almost 80% of the Japanese residents were exposed to an annual concentration of PM2.5 above the WHO guideline while the attainment rate of the domestic air quality standard for photochemical oxidants is below 1%. The analysis of the regulatory and enforcement framework for air quality management in Japan identifies best practises and key remaining challenges, including a limited understanding of the generation mechanism of ozone pollution and the need to strengthen cooperation among Prefectures. This paper complements two case studies on air quality policies in China and Korea, and a third case study on international regulatory cooperation on air quality in North America, Europe and North-East Asia.

This paper presents and discusses the general findings and key policy messages of the 2019 OECD Open, Useful and Re-usable data (OURdata) Index, and provides a detailed analysis of the results for each pillar and sub-pillar. Additionally, it assesses the main advancements and challenges related to the design and implementation of open government data (OGD) policies in OECD member and partner countries by comparing the results for 2019 with those of the 2017 edition. This policy paper contributes to the OECD work on the digital transformation of the public sector, including digital government and data-driven public sector and open government data.

This edition of the Reader’s Companion accompanies Skills Matter: Additional Results from the Survey of Adult Skills that reports the results from the 39 countries and regions that participated in the 3 rounds of data collection in the first cycle of PIAAC, with a particular focus on the 6 countries that participated in the third round of the study (Ecuador, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Peru and the United States). It describes the design and methodology of the survey and its relationship to other international assessments of young students and adults. The Survey of Adult Skills, a product of the OECD Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), was designed to provide insights into the availability of some key skills in society and how they are used at work and at home. The first survey of its kind, it directly measures proficiency in several information-processing skills – namely literacy, numeracy and problem solving in technology-rich environments.