The cost of mistrust
Trust is at the heart of today’s complex global economy. But, paradoxically, trust is also in increasingly short supply in many of our societies, especially in our attitudes towards big business, parliaments and governments. This decline threatens our capacity to tackle some of today’s key challenges.
Failing to close the stable door
The recent scandal over the use of horsemeat in readymade meals that has shaken the entire European continent has revealed not only the complexity and opacity of our food supply chain, but also–and above all–the shortcomings of European food law.
Trust in leaders
Apparently, the United States enjoys a surplus of deficits. President Obama’s first State of the Union address warned that we are weakened and endangered not only by our financial deficit, but also by a deficit in trust.
The value of trade
The emergence of global value chains in manufacturing and services has revolutionised the way the world trades. It has also provided a valuable entry point for many developing economies into the global economy.
Fixing finance
There are good reasons why the public has lost confidence in banking and finance. Two issues in particular must be addressed before it can be restored– moral hazard and conflict of interest. Reforms should ensure that banks and bankers–not taxpayers–pay the price of failure and are held fully accountable for their actions.
Making labour markets inclusive
In this time of chronic unemployment, it is all too easy to lose sight of the single greatest trend underlying the long-term labour market: the demographic time bomb in the developed world. Indeed, the defining employment challenge of the future will be not the surplus, but the shortage, of appropriate labour.
Return from the dead?
Old ways of thinking won’t bring developed countries back to economic life. Weighed down by the legacy of the crisis, they also face deep challenges like a faltering labour supply and slowing innovation.
Russia's human capital challenge
To pursue economic growth, Russia must develop its human capital, which requires structural reforms in education, healthcare and pensions.
Investing in a sustainable future
Investment strategies almost never consider external costs to the environment when calculating potential returns. But incorporating environmental risk and sustainability into investor mindsets is possible– and urgent.
Solving the food crisis
Eliminating hunger and malnutrition, and achieving wider global food security are among the most intractable problems humanity faces. While many once-poor countries are now developing rapidly, the world as a whole is unlikely to meet the first Millennium Development Goal target of halving, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of the world’s population who suffer from hunger.
A recipe for trust
Have the policy errors that contributed to the global economic crisis been rectified? Sharan Burrow shares her vision for building trust and restoring confidence in the countries still suffering from the crisis.
Boardrooms in transition
Recent years have brought a flood of stories about dubious standards in business. In the past, many of these might not have impinged on the public’s consciousness. But in today’s interconnected world, consumers and stakeholders are raising the bar for what’s acceptable in corporate behaviour.
Trust comes from within
Russians are becoming increasingly active in the country’s social arena. While activists remain a small but growing and visible minority of citizens looking for changes in governance, many more are becoming involved in the day-to-day affairs of their communities.
©Guri Dahl/Scanpix–Office of the Prime Minister
Meeting our challenges
How can we increase employment and strengthen social cohesion? The prime minister of Norway argues that we need urgent action to ensure that an entire generation of young people remains connected to the labour market. We must also address the issue of income distribution to protect the vulnerable and guarantee greater equality of opportunity across our societies.
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©Vanderlei Almeida/AFP
Growth is not enough
Brazil’s labour leaders have long argued against pursuing economic growth for its own sake. What matters most, they believe, is not the size of the economic pie but how it’s carved up. In recent years, calls for social justice have increasingly informed policy in Brazil, bringing about a veritable “revolution” in the economy.
©Reuters/Lucas Jackson
Fixing finance
There are good reasons why the public has lost confidence in banking and finance. Two issues in particular must be addressed before it can be restored– moral hazard and conflict of interest. Reforms should ensure that banks and bankers–not taxpayers–pay the price of failure and are held fully accountable for their actions.
©Mario Tama/Getty Images/AFP
Give youth a chance
Young people are being excluded from economic life by a combination of joblessness and barriers to the creation of start-ups. Unleashing the energy, entrepreneurial spirit and technological genius of the young is not just a moral imperative, but an economic necessity.
Education for all
Young people from poorer families are badly underrepresented in higher education. That risks exposing them to a lifetime of reduced earnings and undermines the foundations of wider economic growth. What can be done? Economically disadvantaged students benefit from a mix of grants and loans in third-level education, but they also need better support from the earliest years of their school careers.
©DR
A recipe for trust
Have the policy errors that contributed to the global economic crisis been rectified? Sharan Burrow, who heads the International Trade Union Confederation, shares her vision for building trust and restoring confidence in the countries still suffering from the crisis.
©OECD Yearbook 2013
Time for an energy [r]evolution
We can’t use terms like “inclusive” and “green” as window dressing for the pursuit of economic growth as an end in itself. According to Greenpeace International’s chief, Kumi Naidoo, a real and profound change in how we think about growth is needed–one that doesn’t let special interests get in the way of creating a just, fair and sustainable economy with clean energy for all.
©Reuters/Jason Lee
Asia’s Challenges
The forces driving Asia’s rapid growth–new technology, globalisation, and market-oriented reform–are also fuelling rising inequality. Some income divergence is inevitable in times of fast economic development, but that shouldn’t make for complacency, especially in the face of rising inequality in people’s opportunities to develop their human capital and income-earning capacity.
© OCDE
How to get it right
Austerity programmes to restore order to public finances can add to the woes of already struggling economies, leading to more job losses and social hardship. But there are ways for governments to put their fiscal houses in order, while supporting growth and reducing income inequality at the same time.
©Reuters/Charles Platiau
Interns are workers, too
Everyone loses from unpaid internships – young people, society, even businesses. Companies that expect young people to work without pay are excluding graduates and school-leavers whose parents can’t afford to support them. They’re also shrinking the size of their potential talent pool and failing to develop a potentially valuable recruitment tool.
©Reuters/Danish Siddiqui
The cost of mistrust
Trust is at the heart of today’s complex global economy. But, paradoxically, trust is also in increasingly short supply in many of our societies, especially in our attitudes towards big business, parliaments and governments. This decline threatens our capacity to tackle some of today’s key challenges.
What the BEPS are we talking about?
Bloomberg’s “The Great Corporate Tax Dodge”, The New York Times’ “But Nobody Pays That” and the Guardian’s “Tax Gap”: these are some examples of the wide media attention given to global tax issues in recent weeks. The public is understandably becoming alarmed, since what is at issue is how profit shifting by multinationals is eroding their national tax bases. OECD initiatives on tax policy can help.
©DR
The new performance frontier
By helping emphasise the importance of a “better life” as a key component of societal progress, the OECD has made considerable efforts in recent years to help promote a school of thought that places people’s well-being at the heart of economic growth. After examining the issue of growth and productivity gains, and recognising the question of the environmental cost of our economic activity, the time has come to turn our attention to another area that is equally crucial: fostering a more human economy.
©DR
Climate change won't wait
The European Union may be facing some difficult economic challenges, but that's no excuse for not acting now to create an economy based on resource efficiency and low-carbon development. The benefits are potentially enormous, including lower greenhouse gas emissions, more efficient use of energy and resources, and rising growth and innovation.
©DR
Trusting in crowds
“Crowdsourcing” pools the strength of the many to perform complex tasks–everything from funding a film to sequencing DNA. At its heart is trust–not a blanket belief in great institutions, but rather the confidence among individuals that each will do the right thing. Its power is being increasingly felt today, even in the world of international development.
©Charlotte Moreau
Homo Economicus: An uncertain guide
As humans, we face a constant internal conflict between immediate gratification and more prudent living. This conflict is also apparent in society. How can we ensure that the homo economicus within us takes the decisions that best affect our lives, and economies?
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©OCDE
Knowledge is growth
The growing awareness that knowledge-based capital (KBC) is driving economic growth is prevalent in today’s global marketplace. KBC includes a broad range of intangible assets, like research, data, software and design skills, which capture or express human ingenuity. The creation and application of knowledge is especially critical to the ability of firms and organisations to develop in a competitive global economy and to create high-wage employment.
Do you trust your government?
