Filter :
THEME:
CONTENT TYPE:
LANGUAGE:
TRANSLATIONS:
PUBLICATION:
Social protection systems use a range of entitlement criteria. First-tier support typically requires contributions or past employment in many countries, while safety net benefits are granted on the basis of need. In a context of volatile and uncertain labour markets, careful and continuous monitoring of the effectiveness of income support is a key input into an evidence-based policy process. This paper proposes a novel empirical method for monitoring the accessibility and levels of safety net benefits. It focusses on minimum-income benefits (MIB) and other non-contributory transfers and relies on data on the amounts of cash support that individuals in need receive in practice. Results show that accessibility and benefit levels differ enormously across countries – for instance, in 2015/16, more than four out of five low-income workless one-person households received MIB in Australia, France and the United Kingdom, compared to only one in five in Greece, Italy and Korea, three countries that have since sought to strengthen aspects of safety-net provisions.
This paper offers an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of innovative start-up firms in Friuli-Venezia Giulia, an autonomous region situated at the extreme North East of the Italian territory, bordering with Austria and Slovenia. This work is part of a series of thematic papers on sub-national start-up landscapes in Italy, produced by the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development. Following the 2018 OECD Evaluation of the Italian Start-up Act, which embraced a national perspective, it represents a first attempt to analyse the impact of this policy at the local level. Friuli-Venezia Giulia hosts a polycentric, mainly urban start-up landscape, with a low prevalence of female and young founders. Its historical sub-regions of Friuli and Venezia Giulia present remarkable differences under several perspectives, including the industrial composition of their start-ups, the spread of emerging technologies among them and their propensity to use national incentives. Firm dynamism, notably high-growth and exit trends, constitutes another major focus of this work, which concludes with a set of evidence-based recommendations for policy-makers.
This paper offers an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of innovative start-up firms in Trentino, a high-income mountainous area in the North East of Italy. This work is part of a series of thematic papers on regional start-up landscapes in Italy, produced by the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development. Following the 2018 OECD Evaluation of the Italian Start-up Act, which embraced a national perspective, it represents a first attempt to analyse the impact of this policy at the local level. Among Italian regions, Trentino boasts the highest density of registered innovative start-ups over all young firms established locally. However, innovative start-ups spread unevenly throughout this territory, concentrating in urban areas. Female and young founders are less prevalent than in Italy at large. Firm dynamism, in particular high-growth and exit trends, the uptake of emerging technologies among local start-ups as well as their propensity to use national incentives are other key areas of this work, which concludes with a set of evidence-based recommendations for policy makers.
The COVID-19 crisis has had a profound impact on SME access to finance. In particular, the sudden drop in revenues created acute liquidity shortages, threatening the survival of many viable businesses. The report documents an increase in demand for bank lending in the first half of 2020, and a steady supply of credit thanks to government interventions. On the other hand, other sources of finance declined, in particular early-stage equity.
This paper, a special edition of Financing SMEs and Entrepreneurs, focuses on the impacts of COVID-19 on SME access to finance, along with government policy responses. It reveals that the pre-crisis financing environment was broadly favourable for SMEs and entrepreneurs, who benefited from low interest rates, loose credit standards and an increasingly diverse offer of financing instruments.
It documents the unprecedented scope and scale of the policy responses undertaken by governments world-wide, and details their key characteristics, and outlines the principal issues and policy challenges for the next phases of the pandemic, such as the over-indebtedness of SMEs and the need to continue to foster a diverse range of financing instruments for SMEs.
The characteristics of innovative start-up firms in South Tyrol, the northernmost province of Italy, entirely mountainous, hosting a high-income population belonging to three main language groups. This work is part of a series of thematic papers on sub-national start-up landscapes in Italy, produced by the OECD Trento Centre for Local Development. It represents a first attempt to analyse the effect of the Italian policy framework for young innovative firms at the local level. South Tyrol is home to a relatively small number of registered innovative start-ups, pointing to the presence of obstacles to policy transfer. Evidence suggests that language barriers may play a critical role. Firm dynamism, in particular high-growth and exit trends, the spread of emerging technologies among local start-ups as well as their propensity to uptake national incentives are other major focuses of this work, which concludes with a set of evidence-based recommendations for policy-makers.
Ce rapport est une édition spéciale du Tableau de bord de l’OCDE sur le financement des PME et des entrepreneurs, publication phare de l’OCDE. Il examine en détail les conséquences du COVID-19 sur l’accès des PME au financement, ainsi que les mesures prises en conséquence par les pouvoirs publics. Il apparaît qu’avant la crise, les conditions de financement étaient globalement favorables pour les PME et les entrepreneurs, qui bénéficiaient de faibles taux d’intérêt, de critères accommodants d’octroi des crédits et d’une offre de plus en plus diversifiée d’instruments de financement. Mais la crise du COVID‑19 a profondément bouleversé l’accès des PME au financement. Plus particulièrement, l’effondrement brutal du chiffre d’affaires des entreprises a provoqué de graves pénuries de liquidités qui ont mis en danger la survie de bon nombre d’entreprises viables. Ce rapport fait état d’une augmentation de la demande de prêts bancaires au cours du premier semestre de 2020, et d’une stabilité de l’offre de crédit grâce à l’action des pouvoirs publics. Parallèlement, on a observé un recul d’autres sources de financement, en particulier l’apport de fonds propres au stade du démarrage. Le rapport réunit des données sur le périmètre et l’ampleur des mesures prises par les gouvernements dans le monde, et en précise les principales caractéristiques. Il décrit les principaux enjeux stratégiques du financement des PME qui se poseront au cours des prochaines phases de la pandémie ; il s’agira en effet d’éviter le surendettement des PME, de promouvoir une gamme diversifiée d’instruments de financement, de stimuler la création d’entreprises et de renforcer la résilience des PME par des mesures structurelles.
This report investigates the development of the blockchain ecosystem in Italy, against the background of the SME and entrepreneurship structure and trends in the country. The report analyses in particular the characteristics and trends of companies introducing blockchain-based services in the Italian market, opportunities and challenges to their business development, sectors and firms being targeted, and relevance for enhancing digitalisation and productivity in the SME population at large. The report also illustrates recent trends in regulation and policy, and provides policy recommendations.
This policy brief was developed by the Secretariat of the OECD Network of Economic Regulators (NER) and is based on examples of practice submitted by members of the NER. It reviews emergency measures taken by economic regulators during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure continuity of services in network sectors, as well as to adjust regulatory practices and adapt governance arrangements. It identifies long-term questions and implications of the crisis with regard to market structure, infrastructure investment and the role of regulators.
The note provides a preliminary inventory of the policy responses adopted by the Italian regions to support small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Chapter 1 focuses on the repercussions on the Italian economy. Chapter 2 provides an overview of national policy responses. Chapter 3 explains the role regions play within Italy’s institutional setting regarding economic development, particularly SME policy. Chapter 4 provides a regional deep dive on the measures put in place by the regions to support SMEs during the pandemic. Chapter 5 provides a summary of the main findings.
This working document will be periodically updated and enriched with further analytical insights in the coming weeks.
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.
This paper presents and discusses the general findings and key policy messages of the 2019 OECD Open, Useful and Re-usable data (OURdata) Index, and provides a detailed analysis of the results for each pillar and sub-pillar. Additionally, it assesses the main advancements and challenges related to the design and implementation of open government data (OGD) policies in OECD member and partner countries by comparing the results for 2019 with those of the 2017 edition. This policy paper contributes to the OECD work on the digital transformation of the public sector, including digital government and data-driven public sector and open government data.
This paper assesses Italy’s 2019 tax and benefit reforms, analyses hypothetical reforms and proposes a reform package that balances goals of reducing poverty, encouraging employment and fiscal sustainability. Using the OECD’s Tax-Benefit and the EUROMOD microsimulation models, it shows that the new guaranteed minimum income scheme introduced in 2019 significantly strengthens Italy’s low income protection system but can also financially discourage recipients from working. The debated flattening of personal income tax rates would do little to improve work incentives, but would drastically cut tax revenues and increase inequality, by reducing the progressivity of the personal tax system. A proposed reform package that maintains progressive personal income tax rates, gradually withdraws low-income support and provides additional benefits for low-wage earners would make inroads into poverty and inequality while encouraging formal work. This paper accompanies and extends the results of the in-depth chapter of the OECD 2019 Economic Survey of Italy (2019[1]) on social and regional disparities.
This paper investigates the causal effect of public administration efficiency on firm-level productivity. To this purpose, we combine newly available data from Italy on public administration efficiency of subnational governments with geo-localised firm-level data for the years 2004-2014. Italy provides a relevant setting to examine the relationship between public administration efficiency and firm productivity because of large and persistent spatial disparities in economic performance and local administrative capacity. The identification strategy exploits discontinuities that occur in local public-administration efficiency across provincial borders. The results suggest that local public administration efficiency has a large effect on firms’ productivity growth. Increasing local public administration efficiency from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile would raise the firm-level labour productivity in Italy by 2.4 percentage points.
This report considers the role of the MUSE network of museums for local development in the Autonomous Province of Trento, Italy. It considers the five dimensions of local development featured in the OECD-ICOM Guide for Local Governments, Communities and Museums: Economic development; Urban regeneration; Education and creativity; Inclusion, health and well-being; and Mainstreaming the role of museums in local development.
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of congestion pricing on the demand for clean transport modes. To this end, it draws on an empirical analysis of the effect of Milan’s congestion charge on the use of bike sharing. The analysis indicates that congestion pricing increases daily bike-sharing use by at least 5% in the short term. Extending the schedule of the congestion charge in the early evening increases bike-sharing use in the affected time window by 12%. The impact of the policy on bike-sharing use mainly occurs through the reduction of road traffic congestion, which makes cycling safer and more pleasant. The findings of the study indicate that policies aiming to reduce car use also have positive repercussions on the uptake of green mobility options. Relying solely on direct incentives for cycling, which often involve infrastructure projects, is likely insufficient to remove barriers to bike use.
The report provides an independent and comprehensive evaluation of the economic and social impact of the Italian policy framework for innovative start-ups, also known as the “Start-up Act”, first introduced by the Decree-law 179 in 2012. The policy aims at creating a more favourable environment for small innovative start-ups through a number of complementary instruments, including “fast-track” and zero cost incorporation, simplified insolvency procedures, tax incentives for equity investments, and a public guarantee scheme for bank credit. While the report focuses only on Italy, the “Start-up Act” can be seen as a very useful “laboratory” to inform policies for innovative entrepreneurship across OECD member countries. The evaluation highlights that the impact of the policy on beneficiary firms has been positive overall, but that complementary policy actions in other areas are required in order to further realise the full potential of Italian innovative start-ups.
Il presente rapporto fornisce una valutazione indipendente e approfondita dell’impatto economico e sociale del quadro d’intervento italiano per le imprese startup innovative, noto anche come “Startup Act”, introdotto inizialmente dal Decreto-legge 179 del 2012. La policy mira a creare un ambiente più favorevole alle piccole startup innovative attraverso una serie di strumenti complementari, tra cui figurano una modalità di costituzione rapida e gratuita, una procedura di fallimento semplificata, incentivi fiscali per gli investimenti in equity e un sistema pubblico di garanzia per l’accesso al credito bancario. Sebbene il rapporto si concentri unicamente sull’Italia, lo “Startup Act” può essere considerato come un “laboratorio” di grande utilità per l’elaborazione di policy a sostegno dell’imprenditorialità innovativa in tutti i Paesi membri dell’OCSE. La valutazione sottolinea che l’impatto dello “Startup Act” sulle imprese beneficiarie è stato complessivamente positivo, ma che sono necessarie azioni complementari in altre aree di policy per realizzare appieno il potenziale delle startup innovative italiane.
In the aftermath of the financial and economic crisis, large shares of working-age individuals in Italy either did not work or only to a limited extent. As the employment rate bottomed out in 2013, 32% were without employment during the entire year, and a further 7% had weak labour-market attachment, working only a fraction of the year, or on restricted working hours. This paper applies a novel method for measuring and visualising employment barriers of individuals with no or weak labour-market attachment, using household micro-data. It first develops indicators to quantify employment obstacles under three broad headings: (i) work-related capabilities, (ii) incentives, and (iii) employment opportunities. It then uses these indicators in conjunction with a statistical clustering approach to identify unobserved (“latent”) groups of individuals facing similar combinations of barriers. The resulting typology of labour-market difficulties provides insights on the most pressing policy priorities in supporting different groups into employment. A detailed policy discussion illustrates the use of these empirical results to inform people-centred assessments of existing labour-market integration measures and of key challenges across different policy areas and institutions. The most common employment obstacles in Italy were limited work experience, low education and skill levels, and scarce job opportunities. Although financial disincentives, health limitations and care responsibilities were less widespread overall, they remained important barriers for some groups. A striking finding is that more than half of jobless or low-intensity workers face three or more simultaneous barriers, highlighting the limits of narrow policy approaches that focus on subsets of these employment obstacles in isolation.
The various deficiencies of the labour market and the educational system have resulted in high unemployment, low labour force participation, low skills levels and high skill mismatch. Job creation is key to tackling the high unemployment rates, especially for the young and long-term unemployed. Promoting jobs without paying attention to their quality and to the skills required by employers may have adverse impact on welfare and productivity. The Jobs Act and Good School (“Buona Scuola”), two major reforms of the labour market and the educational system, are good steps in the right direction. The Jobs Act and the temporary social security contribution exemptions have contributed to raise employment. By strengthening job search and training policies, the Jobs Act can enhance jobseekers’ employability. Increasing the effectiveness of public employment services, given the low spending level, remains a challenge. The Good School reform has the potential to improve school outcomes and provide more aligned skills to the job market. Increasing employability by upgrading skills that match employer needs remains a priority. Business involvement in education and training institutions at all educational levels will be paramount to ensure the provision of relevant skills, the availability of traineeship and apprenticeship places and provide on-the-job training. The adaptability of skills could be encouraged by lowering barriers to labour mobility and boosting work-based learning.
This Working Paper relates to the 2017 OECD Economic Survey of Italy (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-italy.htm).
Boosting investment is key to supporting the nascent recovery and reviving stagnant productivity. Aggregate investment has declined markedly since the start of the global financial crisis, especially in services. Italy’s investment is so low that the capital stock is now declining, hurting potential output growth. Raising investment will hinge on improving insolvency procedures, enhancing business dynamism, strengthening the innovation system and targeting incentives toward start-ups and innovative SMEs, overcoming problems in the banking sector and restarting lending to firms in addition to diversifying sources of firms’ finance.