Progress report

Tracking progress and well-being and looking beyond GDP? Wikiprogress, another OECD initiative, is a place where progress and well-being data and research articles can be loaded, visualised, analysed and shared. The 2012 Wikiprogress annual report is now out.

Transport blues

Transport is a great leading indicator of economic performance. Once this writer asked two Texan oil merchants how they forecast the economy: they had someone sit on the coast and click a counter as the tankers went by. If traffic increased, the economy was pointing up. There were no erratic movements, just smooth trends up, then down. According to the latest trends in the International Transport Forum bulletin, those Texans are probably not that happy right now.

Mexican informality

In recent years the informal sector has been rising in many Mexican states, though to varying degrees, meaning more people working without declared income for tax or social protection. Informal employment can dampen productivity and economic growth while fuelling inequality. This paper by Sean Dougherty and Octavio Escobar looks at some of the causes driving the trend in Mexico.

Tackling development

Remember the Millennium Development Goals? These were devised at the turn of the century in a concerted global effort to reach ambitious targets, such as halving poverty and boosting education among girls, with the timeline of 2015 now  fast approaching. It’s clear that most of the goals have not been achieved, and that another tack may now be needed to address development issues. What might a post-2015 agenda look like? OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría outlined some ideas at the recent Global Forum on Development

Adolescent puzzle

Could discrimination against girls be connected with the impact of discriminating social norms on boys? This is one of the questions raised in this online discussion on how adolescent girls can play a role in bolstering development initiatives, organised by the OECD’s Wikigender project in partnership with several other bodies, including the Health Behaviour in School-aged Children Research Network (HBSC) and Plan (UK).

Employment climate

How does climate change affect employment? The answer could be  more positive than you think, this study finds. Skills are in important part of the answer too.

Digital skills

Skills also matter to OECD education expert, Andreas Schleicher, who argues in this post that the skills that are easiest to teach and test are also the skills that are easiest to digitise, automate and outsource.

The Friday fish #18 ©OECD Observer, 19 April 2013

What's your personal data worth?

Big data and mining personal data are all the rage for advertisers and social media, which suggests that much of the value of, say, Facebook is not Facebook itself but data that’s on it. This report takes an initial look at methodologies to measure and estimate the monetary value of personal data and looks at the challenges involved. Worth mining.

More IT skills please

It might seem odd to report that across the OECD the supply of higher education graduates from IT-related study fields has stagnated or even declined, especially as the Manpower Talent Shortage Survey 2012 puts IT positions at number 5 on the global list of top 10 jobs that employers are having difficulty filling. Yet shortages there are. See this blogpost from OECD Education Today.

Food innovation

Could innovation be the way forward in meeting rising demand for food and the effects of the likes of climate change? Ken Ash, the OECD’s director for Trade and Agriculture, says innovation does play a role. He outlines the issues in this short podcast.

Giving hope to France’s jobless youth

Unemployment among French youth has been around 16% or above for some three decades. Job opportunities are thin on the ground, and pessimism is rife. Typically, after several (often unpaid) internships, many young people, including highly qualified ones, simply quit the country to bring their talents to bear in the job markets of the UK, Ireland, the US and more, countries which are also in economic difficulty. What can be done in France to improve prospects for young people at home? This economic working paper suggests a few ways.

Germany could bring in more immigrant workers

Meanwhile, employers in Germany can recruit from abroad for any job requiring university-level qualifications, but many don’t do so because of insistence on German-language skills. There are also worries about reliablity. Efforts are being made to change this, but more could be done. This paper explains how.

The Friday fish ©OECD Observer, 12 April 2013

This week’s haul from behind the headlines at OECD.org, No 16

Together we stand

The gap between rich and poor in OECD countries is at its highest in 30 years, with average incomes of the richest 10% of the population being about nine times greater than those of the poorest 10%. Inequality and poverty are rife throughout the world. What can be done? Read the speech by OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurría, and see this short video.

Spain’s jobless youth

Unemployment among young people in Spain is among the highest in the OECD area, at around half the youth working age population. How can their job prospects be improved? This clear and thorough working paper suggests a few key solutions, including in education.

Banking in a tough environment

The current crisis has weakened confidence in our banks, and the many banking sector problems it has unearthed, including on-going cases of financial fraud and corruption scandals, have not helped. Flaws in the way banks work have to be tackled, and this may require new approaches, argues the OECD’s Gert Wehinger in this thorough paper.

Green partnerships

 Green growth is a business as well as a policy concern, so it should be no surprise that the private sector is working in partnerships with the public sector on building green global value chains. In fact, quite a stock of experience and knowledge has been built up, such as by the Dutch Sustainable Growth Coalition. This group brings together major firms such as Philips and Shell, and has clocked up five years of intensive work on green supply chains, and exploring how markets might be restructured to generate welfare for the businesses and workers, while safeguarding natural resources. Read these papers submitted to the Green Growth Knowledge Platform hosted at the OECD in April.

Healthier numbers

Good healthcare depends on having good data, but many countries still lag when it comes to monitoring healthcare inputs and outcomes and managing patient histories over time and on different databases. How can they tackle this and improve people’s healthcare? This policy briefs suggests some answers.

Trusty tractors

Several new technologies were key to Europe’s economic recovery after the second world war, and the trusty farm tractor was no exception. But tractors can be very dangerous, for instance if they roll over on uneven terrain, and polluting. Codes and tests help to reduce these risks, and the OECD has been overseeing and updating for half a century. The OECD stamp helps accelerate passage through customs too, which is good for trade. Here’s a short video to explain.

The Friday fish ©OECD Observer, 5 April 2013