Publications & Documents

This report presents developments of the work of the Inclusive Forum on Carbon Mitigation Approaches (IFCMA) to the G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors, and reflect on the IFCMA’s achievements one year on from its launch in February 2023.

Despite the ambitious carbon reduction targets set by policy makers worldwide, current investments fall well short of the net-zero emissions scenario. This paper analyses the factors holding back corporate green investment, with a particular focus on the role of firm capacity – specifically financing constraints and weak green management practices – and its interaction with environmental policy. Combining a variety of econometric techniques, including panel data models, difference-in-differences settings and instrumental variable approaches, our cross-country analysis on large listed companies shows that: i) both financing constraints and a lack of green managerial capacity reduce firms’ probability of investing in green technologies, leading to higher emission intensity; ii) well-designed environmental policies can mitigate these impacts. A case study using more granular data on Portuguese firms further shows that: iii) green investment is more elastic to financing conditions than other types of investment; iv) investment in integrated technologies is more sensitive to financing conditions and to managerial capacity compared to end-of-pipe solutions. Lastly, the paper discusses a wide range of policy options that may be considered to foster the green transition through upgrading firms’ capacity.

The OECD and the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD) have developed jointly the new Multinational Enterprise Information Platform (MEIP). MEIP is built on past OECD and UN efforts to compile statistics on the scale and scope of the international activities of Multinational Enterprises (MNEs). The new platform uses publicly available data to gather information on the world’s 500 largest MNEs in a timely manner, facilitating a comprehensive view of their physical and digital presence. It also includes a monitoring tool for large events such as Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A). The platform also provides a valuable benchmark for National Statistical Offices (NSOs) and researchers, allowing them to compare the national presence of an individual MNE to the global presence. Information on MNEs and their global network can also be visualised in a user-friendly dashboard.

Infrastructure investment has been low in Brazil over the last decades, leaving significant gaps in all infrastructure sectors. To close these gaps, public investment will need to increase and become more effective, while additional private resources need to be mobilised. Improving strategic planning and effectively translating it into budget allocations over time would increase the quality of infrastructure projects. Promoting foreign participation in public procurement would raise competition and value for public money, while strengthening the governance of SOEs would enhance the quality of infrastructure services. Minimising policy and judicial risks would help to leverage more private infrastructure financing, including at longer maturities, while ensuring an adequate risk sharing between public and private actors.

The paper reviews the diverse experience of OECD countries in establishing and running independent fiscal institutions, offering insights that could be useful for Latin American countries seeking to set-up and strengthen those institutions in the region. Through cluster analysis, we identify different types of OECD independent fiscal institutions and draw practical lessons from cases studies. We also identify key features that could serve as a road map for Latin American countries in their efforts to establish or enhance independent fiscal institutions.

This publication presents guidance for the compilation of distributional results on household income, consumption and saving consistent with national accounts totals. These results are a key input for evidence-based policies targeting inequality and fostering inclusive growth, providing insights into key dimensions of material well-being across household groups. The results complement existing inequality measures by including elements that are often lacking from micro statistics and by providing inequality measures consistent with macroeconomic aggregates, broadening the scope for analyses, while also capturing households and transactions that are typically underrepresented in micro data. Moreover, while the estimates do require a number of statistical choices and assumptions, they have a high degree of international comparability because of the common methodology and their alignment to national accounts results. The handbook provides an overview of the conceptual framework underlying the distributional results and discusses various aspects in relation to the compilation and presentation of the distributional results. It aims to assist compilers in deriving high-quality distributional results and to provide users with more insights into the main benefits of these results as well as into the way that the results have been derived.

Reaching climate neutrality requires economic transformations of unprecedented scale and speed. Immediate action from the business community can avoid unnecessary costs, create wellbeing co-benefits and prepare local businesses with a better competitive position in the future climate neutral economy. This report shows what reaching climate neutrality by 2040 means for Hamburg businesses and identifies key actions they need to undertake. It provides insights where the Hamburg economy and its businesses stand on the way to climate neutrality and on their needs to advance, drawing on a business survey. The study also shares insights from action plans of selected comparison cities. It points to cross-sector as well as to sector-specific challenges and opportunities for Hamburg businesses. This includes making better use of low-cost renewables, addressing energy efficiency in buildings as well as challenges and opportunities in activities in and around the port and in industry. It highlights Hamburg's potential as a hydrogen hub as well as the need to adopt circular economy practices. It illustrates that a regional and business perspective are necessary to achieve climate neutrality in prosperity, requiring individual and collective business action.