Publications & Documents

This report contains the 2020 Peer Review Report on the Exchange of Information on Request of Korea.

This report evaluates the costs and benefits of replacing postal delivery motorcycles with electric vehicles in eight Korean cities. It compares operating costs, safety performance, and environmental impacts based on data collected from a field trial with both vehicle types. In addition to the economic analysis, qualitative aspects are also discussed based on the findings of a focus group study. The results from the pilot programme provide an evidence base for policy initiatives in the delivery sector in Korea and beyond.

To reduce the incidence of very long working hours, Korea is gradually implementing a major working-time reform, which lowers the statutory limit on total weekly working hours from 68 to 52 between 2018-2021. This paper provides a preliminary assessment of the reform with three key insights. First, the ongoing reform will bring Korea’s working time regulation in line with the dominant OECD practice. Second, the implementation of the 52-hour limit among large firms reduced the incidence of working more than 52 hours by 5 percentage points or about a fifth of its pre-reform level among employees working overtime. While these results are encouraging, they also suggest that working very long hours remains common, even among large firms that are subject to the new 52-hour limit. Third, two in five workers will remain exempt from the 52-hour limit once it is fully implemented in 2021. The main conclusion is that the reform represents an important step in the right direction, but that further efforts are needed to effectively change Korea’s long working-hour culture.

This paper documents joblessness in OECD countries, provides a detailed diagnosis of structural employment barriers in Belgium, Korea and Norway by applying the OECD Faces of Joblessness methodology to the situation just before the COVID-19 crisis and discusses the policy implications. It shows that individuals experiencing major employment difficulties often face a combination of barriers related to work availability, readiness and incentives. It suggests a number of avenues for enhancing the effectiveness of public support: i) make greater use of statistical profiling tools to adapt programmes to the needs of the jobless and target resources to those at the highest risk of long-term joblessness; ii) better coordinate support provided by employment, health and education services; iii) place a greater emphasis on preventive policies (equal opportunities, life-long learning).

Revenue Statistics in Asian and Pacific Economies is jointly produced by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)’s Centre for Tax Policy and Administration (CTP) and the OECD Development Centre (DEV) with the co-operation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), the Pacific Island Tax Administrators Association (PITAA), and the Pacific Community (SPC) and the financial support from the governments of Ireland, Japan, Luxembourg, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom. This edition includes a special feature on the tax policy and administration responses to COVID-19 in Asian and Pacific Economies. It compiles comparable tax revenue statistics for Australia, Bhutan, People’s Republic of China, Cook Islands, Fiji, Indonesia, Japan, Kazakhstan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nauru, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Samoa, Singapore, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu ; and comparable non-tax revenue statistics for Bhutan, the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Nauru, Philippines, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Thailand, Tokelau and Vanuatu. The model is the OECD Revenue Statistics database which is a fundamental reference, backed by a well-established methodology, for OECD member countries. Extending the OECD methodology to Asian and Pacific economies enables comparisons about tax levels and tax structures on a consistent basis, both among Asian and Pacific economies and with OECD, Latin American and Caribbean and African averages.

La révolution technologique qui a marqué les dernières décennies du XXe siècle a entraîné une forte augmentation de la demande de facultés de traitement de l’information et d’autres compétences cognitives et interpersonnelles sur le marché du travail. Sur la base des résultats des 33 pays et régions ayant participé aux deux premières vagues de l'Enquête sur les compétences des adultes en 2011-12 et 2014-15, ce rapport décrit les compétences dans trois domaines de traitement de l'information et examine comment les compétences sont liées au marché du travail et aux résultats sociaux. Il décrit notamment les résultats des six pays ayant participé à la troisième vague du premier cycle du PIAAC en 2017-18 (Équateur, États-Unis, Hongrie, Kazakhstan, Mexique et Pérou). L’Évaluation des compétences des adultes, un produit du Programme de l’OCDE pour l’évaluation internationale des compétences des adultes (PIAAC), a été conçue pour montrer dans quelle mesure les individus possèdent certaines de ces facultés et compétences clés et comment ils les utilisent dans le cadre professionnel et dans la vie privée. Cette enquête, la première du genre, évalue directement le niveau de compétence dans trois domaines du traitement de l’information : la littératie, la numératie et la résolution de problèmes.

This report assesses whether training workers in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Korea is adequate, relevant, and aligned to skills needs. It analyses policy options to expand access to training for SMEs, remove the barriers to training participation/provision, and ensure that training provided by SMEs supports their growth and encourages innovation, particularly in the context of the 4th industrial revolution. Based on this analysis, this report provides actionable policy recommendations as well as good practice examples from OECD countries.

The design of intergovernmental fiscal relations can help to ensure that tax and spending powers are assigned in a way to promote sustainable and inclusive economic growth. Decentralisation can enable sub-central governments to provide better public services for households and firms, while it can also make intergovernmental frameworks more complex, harming equity. The challenges of fiscal federalism are multi-faceted and involve difficult trade-offs. This synthesis paper consolidates much of the OECD’s work on fiscal federalism over the past 15 years, with a particular focus on OECD Economic Surveys. The paper identifies a range of good practices on the design of country policies and institutions related strengthening fiscal capacity delineating responsibilities across evels of government and improving intergovernmental co-ordination.