Policy Advice Work overview

Country-tailored policy advice work Strengthening Chile’s Independent Fiscal Institution analytical tools At the request of Chile's Autonomous Fiscal Council (CFA), in 2020 the OECD assessed the models and tools used by the CFA to analyse long-term fiscal sustainability. The project helped the CFA, which started operating in June 2019, identify good practices for improving its analytical tools to look at the sustainability of public finances, monitoring compliance with fiscal rules, forecasting and developing potential outputs estimations as well as setting debt ceiling, limits and thresholds. The report, Assessing Chile’s analytical framework for long-term fiscal sustainability, identifies practical policy actions that the CFA has been using to scale up its analytical capacity.

Evaluating economic and fiscal measures to respond to the COVID-19 crisis in Luxembourg As part of a comprehensive review of the COVID-19 response in Luxembourg, the OECD conducted an in-depth assessment of the impact of the economic and fiscal measures put in place in Luxembourg to help the economy address the COVID-19 crisis. The assessment includes a detailed analysis of the use of the various measures by the size, sector and pre-crisis financial health of the beneficiary companies and an impact assessment analysing how the support received by businesses affected their performance. The assessment identifies key recommendations on improving targeting, implementation and impact of emergency economic and fiscal policies.

Improving housing affordability in Latvia and Lithuania A 2020 OECD review of housing affordability in Latvia, Policy Actions for Affordable Housing in Latvia, provided a comprehensive review of housing policies in Latvia. The review includes an assessment of affordable housing needs, highlighting that 44% of Latvian households are too rich to qualify for housing benefits or social housing, yet unable to afford a mortgage. Building on a key recommendation of the review, the Government of Latvia has established a Housing Affordability Fund to boost investment in affordable housing.

At the request of the Government of Latvia, between 2021 and 2023, the OECD supported the authorities with the design and setting up of the Fund by developing actionable recommendations for strengthening the institutional set up, funding mechanisms and monitoring tools building on OECD practices. The report, Strengthening Latvia’s Housing Affordability Fund, presents a roadmap with detailed actions that the Government is using to help ensure the long-term sustainability of the Fund.

Following the OECD work in Latvia, in 2021 the Government of Lithuania requested the OECD to conduct a review of housing policies. Between 2021 and 2023, the OECD conducted an in-depth assessment of social and renovation policies aimed at facilitating access to housing and improving the housing stock, which is of particularly poor quality. The report, Policy Actions for Affordable Housing in Lithuania, includes a set of practical actions to improve housing quality and energy efficiency, better target housing support to households, improve the rental market, scale up investment in affordable housing.

Strengthening economic policies through better data and quantification in Italy The project “Boosting evidence-based policy making” conducted from 2021 and 2023 supported the Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy in turning its Statistical Office into a Strategic Analysis and Evaluation Unit and more systematically evaluate planned and implemented policies and incentives. The project helped enhance the capacities of the Evaluation Unit through technical training on data collection and quantification methodologies to evaluate economic policies. The project also helped design a pilot evaluation of a EUR 1.3 billion incentive for investing in tangible and intangible assets. The project is expected to help the Ministry evaluate the over 2,000 business incentives under implementation and improve the effectiveness of business support policies.

Enhancing the business environment in Romania The OECD supported the Romanian authorities of a comprehensive reform aimed at improving business licensing. The project, conducted from 2019 to 2022, helped the Government develop the first business licensing inventory, identify unnecessary procedures and overlaps and develop a single industrial licence law that will significantly reduce time and costs of setting up and operating industrial businesses. The recommendations presented in the report and the simplification roadmap were used by the Government to introduce a single industrial licence law and a single co-ordinating office for licensing.

Enhancing the Slovak National Productivity Board’s set-up and analytical capacity Through the project completed in 2022, the OECD supported the Slovak National Productivity Board (NPB) to strengthen its institutional set-up and analytical capacity to collect and analyse productivity data, as well as develop policy-oriented recommendations. The project contributed to enhance the capacity of the NPB to analyse productivity trends and contribute to the development of pro-productivity policies. Through exchanges and working sessions with other NPBs, the project also facilitated co-ordination and dialogue across European NPBs.

Assessing incentives to reduce traffic congestion in Israel With the ambition of adjusting the environmental taxes to improve environmental outcomes, the Israeli Government requested the OECD to assess the incentives to reduce traffic congestion in Tel Aviv. The project supported the authorities to identify key bottlenecks and provided options on how to address them in order to contribute to the public debate on how to address traffic congestion.

The report released in 2019 includes a simulation of charging options and potential impacts and detailed recommendations for revenue use and accompanying measures to facilitate the acceptance of the reform.

Enhancing economic performance and well-being in key strategic sectors Chile The Chilean Government requested OECD support to work with multiple ministries and institutions on a cross-sectoral economic development and well-being agenda between 2019 and 2021. The aim was to identify spillovers and cross-sectoral linkages The OECD provided Chile with policy advice on how to enhance the economic performance and wellbeing in four strategic sectors of the Chilean economy: pharmaceuticals, food, ports and telecommunications. Policy actions for implementation in the short, medium and long term addressed the following areas: 1) cost-effectiveness interventions to address obesity and create a healthier and more efficient food market; 2) simplification of registration of new pharmaceutical products; 3) better deployment of telecom infrastructure and improved governance of the telecom sector; and 4) improved ports’ labour conditions and maritime logistics to enhance competitiveness and productivity.