Organization Of Economic Cooperation And Development Countries Research Articles

Financial development and tax evasion: International evidence from OECD and non-OECD countries

This study investigates the nexus between financial development and tax evasion across 156 countries from 2000 to 2017. In contrast to previous research focusing solely on banks or financial markets’ development, we employ a more comprehensive financial development index introduced by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 2016. This index gauges the progress of financial institutions (FI) and financial markets (FM) in terms of depth, access, and efficiency. Our findings underscore a negative correlation between financial development and tax evasion. Enhanced depth, access, and efficiency in both FI and FM correspond to reduced levels of tax evasion. Nevertheless, disparities emerge between the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and non-OECD countries. While non-OECD countries exhibit negative associations between FI and FM development and tax evasion, in OECD countries, the role of FI assumes greater significance in curtailing tax evasion. Notably, within OECD countries, the depth of FI and FM emerges as the sole influential factor. This contrasts starkly with non-OECD counterparts, where all dimensions − depth, access, and efficiency − negatively influence tax evasion. Our research has noteworthy implications for policymakers in both categories of countries.

Is there any recovery power for economic growth from green finance? Evidence from OECD member countries

This paper investigates the dynamic interactions between green finance, economic growth, and green energy consumption for the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) members. The econometric analysis is conducted on annual data gathered throughout 2010–2020 using different estimation techniques of the Vector Autoregressive model, causality, and co-integration approaches. The main results confirmed a positive bi-directional relationship between GDP and green energy consumption. In addition, there is a two-way relationship between the volume of green bond issuance and the use of green energy in OECD countries. The recommended practical policy recommendations are establishing a unified green bonds market among OECD member states, prioritizing green projects to support the issued green bonds, improving the financial system, and financing rural electrification and electric vehicle transition by green bonds.

Why do people from wealthy countries migrate?

This study estimates the role of governance and institutions in bilateral migration between countries in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) over the period 1996 to 2016. We estimate an extended random utility model of migration using pooled OLS, fixed effects, 2SLS, and PPML estimators. Our findings indicate that institutional quality plays a significant role in bilateral migration between the OECD countries. Political institutions are found to play a more important role compared to economic institutions. We also examine the moderating role of migration policy in fostering the nexus between the quality of institutions and bilateral migration, using three measures: the Migration Policy Index (MPI), and sub-sample analyses using both top OECD to OECD migration destinations and Schengen area countries. The Schengen country specific sub-sample analysis shows that if migration barriers are withdrawn, bilateral institutional quality differences lead to higher migration. However, estimated results based on the MPI and top OECD to OECD migration destinations do not show a significant role for pro-migration policy in strengthening the relationship between institutions and migration. The results are robust to different estimation methods, sub-sample analyses, and alternative specifications of the empirical model.

Work, Health, and COVID-19

Work, Health, and COVID-19

Bayesian inference for unit root in smooth transition autoregressive models and its application to OECD countries

Abstract This paper proposes a Bayesian unit root test for testing a non-stationary random walk of nonlinear exponential smooth transition autoregressive process. It investigates the performance of Bayes estimators and Bayesian unit root test due to its superiority in estimation and power properties than reported in existing literature. The proposed approach is applied to the real effective exchange rates of 10 selected countries of the organization of economic co-operation and development (OECD) and the paper observe some interesting findings which demonstrate the usefulness of the model.

Population Age Structure and Real Exchange Rate in OECD Countries: An Empirical Analysis

This article examines the impact of population age structure on the real exchange rate. Data on a panel of 22 OECD (Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development) countries over 1980–2015 period are used to estimate the empirical model. Using fixed effect model the paper finds that different age cohorts have a significant influence on the real exchange rates in the sample countries. The results are mostly consistent with the theoretical framework discussed in the paper and also with the findings of previous studies in this area. These results have important policy implications given the fact that the population is ageing in almost all the OECD economies these days.

The impact of globalization, natural resources abundance, and human capital on financial development: Evidence from thirty-one OECD countries

Financial development is considered the backbone of a country's economic development. It usually acts as a moderator of the effects of economic variables and impacts economic development accordingly. This study examines the impact of globalization, natural resources, and human capital on financial development by controlling the effect of economic growth and capital in the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. The study covers data from 1990 to 2016 and employs a set of second-generation econometric techniques to control the issues of cross-sectional dependence and heterogeneity in the panel data. The cointegration method's results indicate a long-run relationship between the study's variables. The empirical results of Continuously Updated Fully Modified (Cup-FM) ordinary least squares method suggest a positive and significant impact of globalization, natural resources, and human capital on financial development. Economic growth and gross fixed capital formation also positively impact financial development. The results of a Dumitrescu and Hurlin causality analysis confirm the feedback effects of globalization, economic growth, and gross fixed capital formation on the dependent variable i.e, financial development. Natural resources (Granger-) cause financial development in a positive way, and financial development (Granger-) causes human capital. Policies to avoid protectionism against globalization and human capital movement, development of more financial institutions through a globalized culture, and effective use of natural resources are recommended.

The Uncertainty of Academic Rent and Income Inequality: The OECD Panel Evidence

:The article presents an alternative view on the education—income inequality relationship, which calls into question the neoclassical claim that education increases labor productivity and hence contributes to a higher output, wage and consequently more even income distribution. In the context of public policies, education needs to be seen not only as a factor of income mobility, but also as a “positional good,” which benefits graduates at the expense of non-graduates. Education generates “academic rent,” by which we mean uneven remuneration of workers based on academic signs of distinctions that do not necessarily reflect differences in productivity. Using the robust panel model on a sample of OECD (Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development) countries from 1980 to 2015, we show that investments in human capital lead to lower inequality, but overinvestments tends to increase income inequality, which may be related to academic rent. In discussing this result, we consider that uncertainty of academic rent under the condition of a rapid transformation of the workplace caused by the fourth industrial revolution.

A Systematic Review of Cost-Sharing Strategies Used within Publicly-Funded Drug Plans in Member Countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development

BackgroundPublicly-funded drug plans vary in strategies used and policies employed to reduce continually increasing pharmaceutical expenditures. We systematically reviewed the utilization of cost-sharing strategies and physician-directed prescribing regulations in publicly-funded formularies within member nations of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).Methods & FindingsUsing the OECD nations as the sampling frame, a search for cost-sharing strategies and physician-directed prescribing regulations was done using published and grey literature. Collected data was verified by a system expert within the prescription drug insurance plan in each country, to ensure the accuracy of key data elements across plans.Significant variation in the use of cost-sharing mechanisms was seen. Copayments were the most commonly used cost-containment measure, though their use and amount varied for those with certain conditions, most often chronic diseases (in 17 countries), and by socio-economic status (either income or employment status), or with age (in 15 countries). Caps and deductibles were only used by five systems. Drug cost-containment strategies targeting physicians were also identified in 24 countries, including guideline-based prescribing, prescription monitoring and incentive structures.ConclusionsThere was variable use of cost-containment strategies to limit pharmaceutical expenditures in publicly funded formularies within OECD countries. Further research is needed to determine the best approach to constrain costs while maintaining access to pharmaceutical drugs.

Factors driving investment in planted forests: a comparison between OECD and non-OECD countries

SUMMARY The area of planted forests has increased in the past two decades in parallel with forest industry internationalization and shift of industrial capacity to the global south. This study analysed the relationship of planted forest area with macro-economic, institutional, and forest sector factors that were associated with country-level competiveness using panel data from 1990–2010 for 19 countries from the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) region and 20 countries from the non-OECD region. In the OECD countries the most significant determinants of planted forest area were market size, tariffs, and industrial capacity; whereas in non-OECD countries, they were market size, level of corruption, and industrial production capacity. La surface des plantations de forets s'est accrue durant les deux dernieres decennies, parallelement a une internationalisation de l'industrie forestiere et a une avancee de la capacite industrielle vers le sud global. Cette etude a analyse la relation...

Performance evaluation of production of IT capital goods across OECD countries: A stochastic frontier approach to Malmquist index

As integrated supply chains, ubiquitous computing, and mobile applications have become the backbone for conducting business nowadays, the economic significance of information technology (IT) is self-evident. In this paper, we study IT value from an unconventional perspective: the production of IT capital goods. Using the true fixed-effects model of translog stochastic production frontier, we evaluate the performance of IT industries for 19 Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries over the period of 2000 to 2009. We examine the productivity growth of these IT industries based on the Malmquist index and further analyze these productivity patterns through technological change and efficiency change. Overall, these IT industries are found to enjoy greater productivity growth than other industries when compared with previous findings. Our results show that technological progress is the main driver of productivity growth for the IT industry, efficiency change has a negligible effect, and each country's IT industry exhibits a distinctive performance profile. Policy implications are drawn from our results and related issues are identified for future research. We also highlight the advance of research methodology used in the study that can account for measurement errors, random fluctuations, and unobserved heterogeneity commonly encountered in empirical information systems research.

HEALTH CARE AND SOCIAL SPENDING IN OECD NATIONS

Farley calls for health reform in the United States to pay increased attention to social and behavioral determinants of health, rather than the typical single-minded pursuit of health care system reform.1 He convincingly argues that addressing underlying causes or disruptions of well-being is the most effective strategy for improving population health. Outcomes from nations emphasizing social investments over medical ones strengthen that assertion, and suggest that if better health is the goal, the United States is investing too much in the wrong place. Among nations of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), increased social spending is linked to lower infant mortality and longer life expectancy.2 Compared with fellow OECD countries, the United States spends little on social investments (Table 1) while simultaneously hemorrhaging disproportionately large sums from a health care system that provides below-average results.3 Spending more on health care does not increase health, and increased health care spending does not necessarily correlate with higher social spending (Table 1). TABLE 1 Relative rankings of OECD countries for select expenditures and health outcomes: 2003–2005 Universal access to health care is a worthy goal, but it may do little to improve overall health in the United States. Even the wealthiest Americans who currently enjoy such access, 50 to 74 year-olds earning equal to or greater than $496 000 per year, appear to manifest the effects of neglected social priorities with poorer health than do their European counterparts.4 Furthermore, although Scotland provides universal health care access, social inequities still cause the wealthiest Scots to live an average of 28 years longer than do the poorest.5 As we can see, more of the same health care is not necessarily the answer. Although the tendency for Europeans to be generally healthier than Americans despite spending fewer health care dollars is well established,3,4,6 it should not be assumed that more efficient use and equitable distribution of health care is the principle contributor to their well-being. Those better outcomes are more likely a result of a greater emphasis on social policy. Correspondingly, the assumption that poor population health in the United States is primarily attributable to health care that is wasteful, inefficient, and not available to all citizens deserves reconsideration. Reforms in US health care delivery, access, and funding are certainly needed, and spending the OECD average of 9% of gross domestic product on health care should be sufficient to manage the burden of illness we face. But meaningful improvements in population health may require us to invest as heavily in social programs as the healthiest OECD nations (between 20-30% of gross domestic product; Table 1). Evidence increasingly indicates that social policies that care for people are the best investments for health.

Tax rates and economic growth in the OECD countries

This article proposes refined econometric estimates of effective marginal income tax rates for 23 OECD countries from 1951 to 1990. Panel regressions find such measures negatively correlated with economic growth. These results are consistent with endogenous growth theories and opposite to those of most empirical literature, which relies on measures of effective average tax rates. The negative correlation is also robust to consideration of other growth determinants.

Social Capital Theory and Administrative Reform: Maintaining Ethical Probity in Public Service

Over the past decade or so, major public-sector reforms have been implemented in many western democracies. Most of these changes have been driven by the perceived need to shift from traditional, bureaucratic, rules-oriented approaches to a results-centered model. the United States they have been embodied in the so-called reinventing government movement (Kamensky, 1996), and more widely in the model known as new public management (Hood, 1990, 1991). Both approaches have sought to make the public sector more efficient and accountable. New Zealand, this remodeling has been more radical than in most other countries and has attracted considerable international attention. As Schick (1996, 2) observes, In its emphasis on managerial discretion and accountability, New Zealand's approach resembles reforms introduced in Australia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and several other OECD countries. But the more closely one examines New Zealand's progress, the more it becomes evident that it has ventured far beyond what has been tried elsewhere. These reforms have been one element in a program of wide-ranging social and economic policy changes, driven by a market-liberal political agenda based on the theoretical frameworks of neoclassical economics (Easton, 1997; Kelsey, 1995; Rudd and Roper, 1997). As part of this package changes in the New Zealand state sector were directly informed by ideas drawn from management theory, new institutional economics (namely, agency theory and transactions costs analysis), and from public choice explanations of political and bureaucratic behavior (Boston, Martin, Pallot, and Walsh, 1996; Schick, 1996). These economistic approaches have been designed to make the public sector look more like the business sector. But they have not addressed the dimensions of public service in anything like the rigorous way that they have concentrated on instrumental issues of efficiency and productivity. As Caiden (1994, 128) says in regard to American public administration, the reformers want to show the long-suffering public just how much better government can perform if [it is] allowed to ... [but] ... whatever happened to the virtues of public interest, guardianship, integrity, merit, accountability, responsibility, and truth? Perhaps partly because of reformist tunnel vision a forum held by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as expressed concern about what it perceives to be declining in government: This so-called confidence deficit has been fueled by well publicized scandals, ranging from inappropriate actions on the part of public officials, to full-scale corruption. Few, if any, member countries have escaped the taint, if not the reality of wrongdoing. As a result, ethics or standards in public life have become an important public and political issue (OECD, PUMA, 1997, 1). Although the two types of corruption are interrelated, the present discussion mainly concerns behavior that might be labeled personal as distinct from political corruption. Personal corruption constitutes malfeasance driven by an individual's calculation of personal gain or benefit in ways that offend the rules and regulations binding his or her official work.(1) Political corruption relates to those forms of behavior, such as the surreptitious leaking of official documents, which are commonly understood to constitute unethical behavior on the part of public servants. The term ethical as used here, refers to personal corruption.(2) Not only have the reforms not focused on issues relating to probity, to the extent that they are based largely on the assumption that governmental officials cannot be trusted to act in the public interest, they may also tend to diminish standards of probity in public service, to subvert an ethos of public service as public trust. The New Zealand experience suggests that reinventing government and new public management nostrums need to be balanced by more thought about their impacts on the dimensions of public service. …

Globalization and Inequality, Past and Present

The late nineteenth and late twentieth centuries shared more than globalization and economic convergence. The trend toward globalization in both centuries was accompanied by changes in the distribution of income as inequality rose in rich countries and fell in poor ones. Between one-third and one-half of the rise in inequality since the 1970s in the United States and other member countries of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has been attributed to global economic forces, about the same as a century earlier. It appears that the inequality produced by global economic forces before World War I was responsible in part for the retreat from globalization after the war. What does this retreat imply for the future? Will the world economy once again retreat from globalization as the rich OECD countries come under political pressure to cushion the side effects of rising inequality?