Latest Documents

Employment has recovered strongly from the COVID-19 pandemic despite large structural changes in labour markets, such as the widespread adoption of digital business models and remote work. We analyse whether the pandemic has been associated with labour reallocation across occupations and triggered mismatches between occupational labour demand and supply using novel data on employers’ job postings and jobseekers’ clicks across 19 countries from the online job site Indeed. Findings indicate that, on average across countries, the pandemic triggered large and persistent reallocation of postings and clicks across occupations. Occupational mismatch initially increased but was back to pre-pandemic levels at the end of 2022 as employers and workers adjusted to structural changes. The adjustment was substantially slower in countries that resorted to short-time work schemes to preserve employment during the pandemic.

The 2019 Egyptian National Artificial Intelligence (AI) Strategy is a key catalyst for digital transformation in Egypt and supports the country’s sustainable development agenda. As North Africa’s biggest economy, Egypt faces a challenging economic and demographic context, including high inflation and a high youth unemployment rate. As the first Arab and African country to adhere to the OECD Recommendation on Artificial Intelligence in 2021, Egypt has made progress in implementing the OECD AI Principles. This country review explores the state of implementation of the OECD AI Principles in Egypt by providing a mapping of Egypt’s AI governance and policy implementation through gap analysis, comparative analysis, and benchmarking. It highlights key findings and recommendations to strengthen Egypt’s AI ecosystem and facilitate the development of inclusive, responsible, and human-centric AI policies and practices that support Egypt’s development agenda and stand the test of time.

This paper details the methodology used to nowcast the growth rate of the information and communication technology (ICT) sector in the 'The growth outlook of the ICT sector' chapter of the OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024, Volume 1. In an era of rapid digital transformation, innovative data sources for economic measurement are crucial. Internet search data have gained prominence for tracking real-time economic activity. This paper details a nowcasting model that leverages Google Trends data to provide policymakers with timely, up-to-date and comparable data on the economic growth of the ICT sector. Having timely data on ICT sector performance is essential to evaluating the effectiveness of sector-related policies. By addressing data challenges and employing a data-driven approach, this paper advances economic measurement of the digitalisation of the economy and provides insights into ICT sector growth dynamics.

The OECD Digital Economy Outlook 2024, Volume 1: Embracing the Technology Frontier provides new insights on key technologies that underpin the digital technology ecosystem and their impacts. Using big data and machine-learning techniques, Volume 1 provides new estimates of the growth rate of the ecosystem’s core – the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. It then looks toward the technology frontier with perspectives on the future of artificial intelligence (AI) and how it can be shaped into a positive force. Volume 1 also analyses how people, firms and governments are adopting digital technologies, offering insights into the scale and scope of digital divides and how to boost equal opportunity and inclusion. To that end, it looks at the critical need for next generation wireless networks to provide unlimited connectivity everywhere. Moving beyond the hype of immersive technologies, Volume 1 examines the proven ability of virtual reality (VR) to scale, while identifying its opportunities and risks. Finally, it shines a spotlight on mental health in digital environments, including those most at risk.

As AI use grows, so do its benefits and risks. These risks can lead to actual harms ('AI incidents') or potential dangers ('AI hazards'). Clear definitions are essential for managing and preventing these risks. This report proposes definitions for AI incidents and related terms. These definitions aim to foster international interoperability while providing flexibility for jurisdictions to determine the scope of AI incidents and hazards they wish to address.

Large volumes of marine data – much of it collected through observing systems and research projects and made publicly available for reuse by anybody through specialised repositories – are required for science, ocean economic activity and effective management of marine space. This report summarises the results of an OECD survey of the users of Flanders-based public marine data repositories and details how societal value is generated through their data reuses. Responses to the OECD survey reveal how Flanders’ repositories enable the reuse of marine data across a range of sectors, contribute to improved decision making, and generate benefits for wider society. Stylised value chains of public marine data are constructed and visualised from the responses, revealing information that is otherwise not collected by repositories so that they can keep access to the data as open as possible. This work is part of the OECD Value Chains of Public Marine Data project and relates to broader efforts to improve understanding of the economics of open data.

The COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented global economic downturn, affecting productivity, business dynamics, and digital technology adoption. Using a comprehensive commercial database from Spiceworks Ziff Davis, this study analyses the firm-level drivers of digitalisation during the pandemic across 20 European countries. The findings show that a considerable share of firms introduced new digital technologies during the COVID-19 crisis. Notably, firms that were larger, more digitalised, and more productive before the pandemic were more likely to introduce new digital technologies in 2020 and 2021. Additionally, firms with pre-existing complementary technologies had a higher likelihood of adopting digital applications that gained momentum during the pandemic (such as digital commerce, collaborative software, cloud, and analytics). These patterns may increase polarisation among the best-performing firms and the rest of the business population. Public policy can play a key role in fostering an inclusive digital transformation in the post-pandemic era.

Multiple crises are triggering turbulence, instability and insecurity in contemporary societies, with impacts on economies, the environment, politics, and global affairs. An effective response will require governments to be more ambitious and act with greater urgency in their science, technology and innovation (STI) policies to meet global challenges. Sustained investments and greater directionality in research and innovation activities are needed, and these should coincide with a reappraisal of STI systems and STI policies to ensure they are 'fit-for-purpose' to contribute to transformative change agendas. This policy paper provides a framework to support governments in making these assessments. It identifies six STI policy orientations for transformative change that should guide these assessments. It applies these orientations across multiple areas of STI policy, including R&D funding, the research and innovation workforce, and international R&D co-operation, and outlines a series of concrete policy actions STI policymakers can take to accelerate transformative change.

Emerging technologies can contribute to unprecedented gains in health, energy, climate, food systems, and biodiversity. However, these technologies and their convergence sometimes carry risks to privacy, security, equity and human rights. This dual-edged nature of emerging technology requires policies that better anticipate disruptions and enable technology development for economic prosperity, resilience, security and sustainable development. Drawing on prior OECD work and legal instruments, this framework equips governments, other innovation actors and societies to anticipate and get ahead of governance challenges, and build longer-term capacities to shape innovation more effectively. Its 'anticipatory technology governance' approach consists of five interdependent elements and associated governance tools: (1) embeding values throughout the innovation process; (2) enhancing foresight and technology assessment; (3) engaging stakeholders and society; (4) building regulation that is agile and adaptive; and (5) reinforcing international cooperation in science and norm-making. The emerging technology context determines how each of these elements is applied.