Special FOCUS help get down to ever finer detail about those wants and concerns.
Cyberspace is where the big questions are being debated, but whether it is the harbinger of better outcomes remains to be seen. Nor is continued public trust a given. The ability of information technology (IT) to hoover up minute personal details is causing consternation, and the OECD is looking closely at the implications of comprehensive data collection, particularly about consumers’ online activities. In fact, privacy and security are issues the OECD has been addressing for 30 years, with its guidelines on privacy and security of information systems now being standards among stakeholders and policymakers everywhere. Still, fighting abuse is a moving target for any organisation. As Rick McDonell, who heads the Financial Action Task Force, which combats money laundering and illicit financing, suggests in this edition, the glare of public attention is not always an asset. IT has brought undoubted benefits, but the risks posed by new technologies must be recognised. Twitter, Facebook, and even SMS texts can cause embarrassment, with politicians getting into trouble as discreet (and indiscreet) tweets end up as headline news. Everyone feels compelled to react in real time, which sometimes catches policymakers and markets in a cat 14
Trading in facts Ken Ash, Director, OECD Trade and Agriculture Directorate
©Charles Platiau/Reuters
In a 2012 magazine interview, Roy Temple Cassidy, head of one of Washington’s biggest lobbying firms, said that political candidates must deal with more thirdparty groups than they did 25 years ago: “… as a candidate, you are much less the master of your domain”. Policymakers may spend less time at guesswork, but given the sophistication of new technology, they may end up spending more time trying to decipher the messages and trends in the din of voices.
Getting information and communications “right” has always been a necessary condition for delivering sound policy advice; today, there are many more possibilities to generate and to share evidence-based policy insights, but there are also many more competing messages and messengers. Here are two examples. Public support for freer trade has eroded in the wake of the economic crisis, slow and uneven growth, and increased unemployment; some people are advocating a return to protectionist type policies. While the desire to be “protected” is understandable, it is also unfounded; but simply asserting this is not convincing. By working with nine other international organisations to compile available evidence on how trade openness, along with complementary and mouse game. The euro crisis has been a case in point, as sound political announcements reassure jittery markets one day, lose their effect the next, and cause a scramble for new initiatives and another rifle of announcements. Clearly, new habits and an online culture, whether in policymaking or security, will
labour market and social protection policies, have contributed to economic growth and new job creation, a more unified, coherent and convincing case can be made. And our evidence is clear: open economies grow faster than closed ones; no country has ever grown in the long run by restricting trade; and active labour market and social protection policies help to ensure that the benefits are widely shared . Popular wisdom would also suggest that “exports are good and imports are bad”. Again, this is demonstrably not true. The reality is that you need to import in order to export. By systematically disentangling traditional trade data to identify where value is added, we can paint a clearer picture of where income is generated, where jobs are created, and how large bilateral trade imbalances are. Most trade today is in intermediate inputs. Increasingly, with the emergence of global value chains, firms import world class inputs that enable them to improve their productivity and competitiveness. Closing markets will in effect destroy the jobs that countries want so much to maintain. Producing the evidence-based policy advice is only a start; getting the message to the right people at the right time, and informing the wider public, requires tapping into all corners of today’s information and communications world. www.oecd.org/trade
take time to form. The trouble is, some governments want to go further, and are pushing to constrain the Internet with internationally-agreed rules. Other governments are opposed to attempts to hoist state-led controls on cyberspace, preferring to preserve the open, borderless, multi-stakeholder model that has driven the Internet’s success.