Reports

This policy brief discusses recent international policy experiences in developing e-learning and digital business diagnostic tools for entrepreneurs. E-learning tools can develop entrepreneurial knowledge, skills and competences among users and increase their confidence and success in business creation. Business diagnostic tools offer entrepreneurs ways to assess their business management practices against peer companies or good practices, building competence and diffusing good practice. This brief sets out considerations for the successful development and implementation of these tools. It presents eight international cases of tools and discusses the public policy lessons from these international experiences.

This reliable and up-to-date source of OECD quarterly balance of payments and international merchandise trade statistics provides a detailed insight into the most recent trends in trading patterns for OECD countries with the rest of the world. Balance of payments data are presented adjusted for seasonal variations. International trade data are broken down by country. The series shown cover data for the last ten quarters and two years available. This quarterly publication is divided into two parts: I. Balance of payments and international trade II. International merchandise trade by country.

This report, commissioned by France’s Ministry for the Ecological Transition and written jointly by the International Energy Agency and RTE, the French Transmission System Operator, examines the conditions and requirements needed to assess the technical feasibility of scenarios with very high shares of variable renewable energy in France’s power system. The report looks into trends for energy demand and renewable resource availability in the 2020 National Low-Carbon Strategy (Stratégie nationale bas-carbone, or SNBC). Several scenarios of high shares of renewables are examined: mainly based on onshore wind, mainly based on offshore wind expansion and mainly based on distributed PV. Building on these scenarios, the report looks at changes in the system’s flexibility needs and how the range from short-term to long-term flexibility can be satisfied by new technologies such as flexible charging of electrified transport, battery storage, demand-side flexibility and sector coupling. The report then looks to essential questions on electricity security, i.e. addressing the issue of keeping system stability in the context of decreasing system inertia, ensuring adequacy of the system and the sizing available reserves under a scenario of large shares of variable renewables. Finally, the report evaluates the VRE integration capacity of the existing French transmission network, as well as necessary modifications and expansion beyond 2035. The recommendations and findings of this report form the basis for further detailed technical and economic assessments that are to be carried out by RTE in 2021.

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 country policy profile on education in France is part of the Education Policy Outlook series. Building on the first policy profile for France (2014), it offers a concise analysis of where the education system stands today in terms of strengths, challenges and ongoing policy efforts, and how this compares to other systems. The profile brings together over a decade’s worth of policy analysis by the Education Policy Outlook, as well as the latest OECD data, relevant thematic and country-specific work and other international and national evidence. It also offers analysis of the French education system’s initial responses to the COVID-19 crisis and provides insight into approaches to building greater responsiveness and resilience for the future.

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.

It is increasingly understood that entrepreneurship plays a critical role in economic growth and well-being. But which policies can governments develop to release its benefits? This publication offers guidance and inspiration. It identifies the range of entrepreneurship policies being pursued internationally, the problems the policies seek to solve and how they are designed and implemented. The focus is on how to create a broad base of start-ups with the potential for sustainability and growth by building a pipeline of new entrepreneurs, supporting start-ups to overcome barriers in areas such as skills, finance and innovation and stimulating vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystems. The publication examines the rationale for entrepreneurship policy, presents a typology of policy approaches and highlights principles for policy success. The points are illustrated by 16 case studies of inspiring practice policies from 12 OECD countries. These cases span policies for regulations and taxation, entrepreneurship education and training, advice and coaching, access to finance, internationalisation, innovation, and holistic packages for ecosystem building. Helpful summary tables guide readers to the information that will respond to their questions. The publication will give readers an overview of key entrepreneurship policy interventions and tips on entrepreneurship policy success.

The creation of the Compte Personnel de Formation (CPF), an individualised financing scheme for professional training, marked an important step for the French professional training system. Implemented in 2015, it is the only example at the international level of an individual learning account in which training rights are accumulated over time. Born from a compromise between social partners, the CPF has generated significant improvements in training quality. The law of September 5, 2018 'For the freedom to choose one’s professional future' brought significant changes to the account in order to strengthen the role of the individual in the system, to reduce the role of collective actors – in particular sectors – and to increase that of free competition and market forces. After reviewing the design of the CPF before and after the reform, this paper provides evidence on its use in practice, discusses the extent to which it succeeds in reaching groups usually under-represented in training, as well as issues related to the quality of training. It concludes with a discussion of the CPF strengths and weaknesses.

This paper explores the linkages between regional strategies for the social economy and regional development in four EU countries: France, Spain, Sweden and Poland. It provides a comparative perspective of regional strategies for the social economy (Section 1), based on i) the level of recognition of the social economy itself, ii) multi-level governance arrangements, iii) the regional strategic priority given to the social economy and iv) financial resources available for regional strategies. It gives examples of strategies for the social economy in selected regions in the four countries to document the diversity of practice (Section 2). It outlines conclusions and policy orientations (Section 3) to help reinforce the positive impact of regional strategies for the social economy on regional development.