Bribery is becoming a high priority public concern and the legal framework and enforcement apparatus used in the fight against it are being developed in the OECD and elsewhere. Reflecting these civic and legal pressures, firms now often deal with bribery in their codes of corporate conduct –...

Evidence of public concerns about globalisation is pervasive -- in the newspapers, on the Internet and more formal discussions of public policy. The business community has been attempting to position itself with respect to these concerns. Indeed, voluntary efforts to define and implement...

Emerging market companies make up 3.8 per cent of the FT500, the 500 largest global traded companies1 and 4.6 per cent of the Dow Jones Global Index of 2,500 companies. OECD statistics show that, while the bulk of international investment flows originate in the OECD, non-OECD countries are...

The OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises (the “Guidelines”) are one of many intergovernmental instruments that seek to promote economic, social and environmental progress. The OECD Guidelines do this by establishing concepts and principles for responsible business conduct that help...

This paper explores the differences, similarities and synergies between voluntary and binding approaches to international rules. Voluntary efforts to ensure that firms adhere to appropriate standards of business conduct have been an important recent development in international business. These...

The OECD Guidelines are recommendations by governments to multinational enterprises (MNEs) operating in or from the 33 countries that adhere to the Guidelines. The Guidelines help ensure that MNEs act in harmony with the policies of countries in which they operate and with societal expectations....

There have been a number of tax reforms in Switzerland in recent years aimed at enhancing economic efficiency and equity. This paper sets these reforms in the context of the forces shaping tax policy in Switzerland and the main features of the Swiss tax system and suggests areas where further...

This paper uses options pricing techniques to estimate the value of the government’s tax claim on household or business incomes. It treats the annual tax claim as a European call option on taxable income (a European call is an option that can be exercised at its expiration date and not...

This paper presents marginal effective tax rates (METRs) for a number of physical and intangible assets and for a number of funding sources. The assets include machinery, buildings, inventories, investments in short-lived R&D (that is, investments whose returns last only a few years) and in...

International investment agreements define commitments on investment protection, but also shed light on how these commitments are to be integrated with other public policy objectives. Investment protection in the context of environmental regulation has been a frequent source of controversy and...