Reports

The International Energy Agency (IEA) regularly conducts in-depth peer reviews of the energy policies of its member countries. This process supports energy policy development and encourages the exchange of international best practices and experiences. Fossil fuels, notably coal, still dominate the energy and electricity generation mix of the Czech Republic, but new climate targets at the European level will make coal less and less competitive. Therefore, the question is no longer if, but when, coal will exit the country’s energy mix. To boost investor confidence and ensure adequate electricity generation up to 2030 and beyond, the government will need to establish a firm pathway for phasing out coal. The phase-out of coal use and mining also poses important economic and social challenges, which the government is currently addressing by providing support for the economic restructuring and fair transformation of mining areas. Although the Czech Republic has decoupled economic growth from energy consumption since 2009, the country’s energy intensity remains above the IEA average. This highlights the need to make energy efficiency the 'first principle' of energy policy making. This report includes a series of recommendations to support the Czech Republic’s efforts to tackle these challenges and to meet its energy and climate goals.

This report offers an initial overview of the available information regarding the circumstances, nature and outcomes of the education of schoolchildren during the first wave of COVID-19 lockdowns of March-April 2020. Its purpose is primarily descriptive: it presents information from high quality quantitative studies on the experience of learning during this period in order to ground the examination and discussion of these issues in empirical examples. Information is presented on three interrelated topics: the nature of the educational experience during the period of lockdowns and school closures; the home environment in which education took place for the vast majority of schoolchildren; the effects on the mental health and learning outcomes for children during this period. The data come primarily from 5 countries (France, Germany, Ireland, the United Kingdom and the United States) with additional information on some aspects for 6 additional countries (Australia, Belgium (Flanders), Canada, Finland, Italy and the Netherlands). This report will be of interest to policy makers, academics, education stakeholders and anyone interested in a first international empirical analysis of the effects of the pandemic on the lives and education of schoolchildren.

Increasing productivity at farm level is a key policy objective across most countries and fundamental to the overall performance of agricultural and food systems. This paper applies dynamic statistical methods to farm level data in order to identify the determinants of farm performance over time, in terms of productivity and measures of local sustainability. The analysis sheds light on the effects of policies on productivity, and the links between productivity and sustainability outcomes. It draws on key findings from seven case studies: crop farms in Australia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (England and Wales); and dairy farms in the Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway, with different sample periods, from the most recent three decades to the last five years. A key finding is that policy changes increasing the degree of decoupling of payments have a positive impact on productivity. Furthermore, with the right incentives, productivity growth can be more locally sustainable insofar as farms can produce more output with less inputs that harm the environment. The detailed background work on the seven samples of crops and dairy farms in the above countries is available in OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Paper N°165.

This paper provides detailed farm level data evidence on the dynamics of farm performance from case studies covering crop farms in Australia, France, Italy and the United Kingdom (England and Wales), and dairy farms in the Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway, with different recent sample periods of five to thirty years. An increase in productivity over time is common to all countries and most crop farm classes, but productivity dynamics vary significantly. In Australia, strong productivity growth among the most productive crop farms has led to an increase in the gap between the highest and lowest performing farms; whereas in France, Italy and the United Kingdom, productivity growth was weak among the most productive crop farms and the lowest performing farms closed the productivity gap. Productivity also increased among dairy farms, with an increasing gap between the most and the least productive farm classes in the three sample countries. The impact of policy changes on performance dynamics is analysed for decoupled payments in France and England, and dairy payments in the Czech Republic. The main findings across countries and policy implications are discussed in OECD Food, Agriculture and Fisheries Paper N°164.

While the full effects of the COVID-19 crisis on housing affordability in cities in the Czech Republic remain to be seen, the pandemic has reinforced the urgency of tackling pre-existing challenges, such as a consistent shortage of housing supply in cities and structural obstacles for urban households to access affordable housing. While the Czech national government has taken a number of emergency measures to help people keep their homes during the COVID-19 crisis, this report recommends that Czech national and local governments need to implement both direct and indirect policy instruments more effectively to shape a more sustainable and inclusive urban paradigm. Direct policy instruments consist in targeting housing affordability specifically, for example by providing more social housing to households most in need. Indirect instruments such as local land-use planning can help increase the supply of affordable housing. This report also contains the results from an innovative survey that the OECD and the Ministry of Regional Development conducted on more than 1 800 municipalities to collect data on the housing market and housing policies at the municipal level.

The past decades have witnessed unprecedented growth in global consumption of raw materials, which also lead to increased environmental pressures. As a response to these challenges, countries across the world have made the transition to a circular economy one of their policy priorities. This report develops a set of key elements of a strategic framework for the circular economy in the Czech Republic, which the government is developing (Circular Czechia 2040). It discusses the rationale for transitioning to a circular economy in the Czech Republic and provides an in-depth analysis of four priority areas: consumption and consumers, waste management, economic instruments, as well as research innovation and digitalisation. The report also suggests 40 concrete policy measures to help implement the strategic framework, along with a monitoring framework to measure the progress made. This report was co-funded by the European Union via the Structural Reform Support Programme.

This paper assesses the design of the air pollution tax in conjunction with a stringency analysis of the emission concentration limits in the Czech Republic. The analysis draws upon a detailed database containing environmental reporting by industrial stationary sources. The assessment of the emission concentration limits focuses on analysing the shift of the statutory limits between 2013 and 2017 and the corresponding real-life measured concentration on individual source basis. It provides an assessment of stringency of the air protection instrument and also of the vintage differentiation applied in the form of transitional schemes. The stringency analysis of the emission concentration limits stringency is related to the air pollution tax relief provision.