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Israel

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In recent decades, Israel’s growing population and rising incomes have seen consumption increase substantially, bringing with it considerable pressure on the environment. One of the main environmental pressures is from the ever-increasing transport activity, especially the use of private vehicles. Although travelling in a private vehicle brings benefits to the individual using it, this entails costs to society as a whole. These social costs extend beyond the private costs of the car and the fuel borne by the car user, imposing a burden on public health and the environment. Transport involves noise, local air pollution, and contributes to climate change, congestion, accidents, and wear and tear to infrastructure. All these negatively affect public health and quality of life in general, a fact not taken into account when an individual chooses whether or not to buy a car. This is known as a “market failure”, because the price of a car does not fully reflect the social costs of using it. Governments can correct market failures like these through policies that ensure that the actual costs to society are incorporated within the price of a car, thus influencing consumers’ purchases. This paper describes how Israel developed an innovative scheme to encourage consumers to choose less polluting cars. The Green Tax scheme targets reductions in all polluting vehicle emissions, not only carbon dioxide (CO2). The paper outlines the design process, reflects on the challenges encountered and the environmental, economic and social impacts. It concludes by discussing the wider lessons that are raised for other governments seeking to tackle similar environmental problems.

Environment --- Israel

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Promoting competition to enhance productivity at the firm level and resulting income and growth improvement and a lower cost of living is an important economic and social challenge in Israel. Consistent evidence shows multiple deficiencies leading to a dual functioning of the economy between exposed and sheltered sectors. Product markets are hampered by regulations that are far from best practice. Because of its geographical and geopolitical situation, Israel is less open to foreign trade than other small OECD countries. Moreover, its product markets feature monopolies in many sectors. Addressing these issues have been high on the policy agenda since the 2011 “tent protests”, and the authorities have adopted or launched reforms in many domains since then. However, further increases in foreign trade exposure by lowering non-tariff barriers, making regulation more competition-friendly in network industries, especially electricity, and reducing the oligopolistic structure of the food and banking sectors would still have considerable economic payoffs.This Working Paper relates to the 2016 OECD Economic Review of Israel www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/economic-survey-israel.htm

Economics --- Israel

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Welfare-to-work measures are a central theme of Israel’s labour and social policies to tackle relative poverty, which is concentrated among the Arab-Israeli and Ultra-orthodox (Haredi) communities. Policies include pilot programmes involving private-sector job placement (the “Wisconsin” programme) and an earned-income tax credit. Also, there is increased policy attention to help parents to combine work and family through improvements to daycare and early education. Microeconomic simulations of taxes and benefits suggest room for augmenting these policies with adjustments to benefits and tax expenditures. In the labour market, hiring and firing regulations are light, while the minimum-wage is relatively high in comparison with OECD countries, but it is not strongly enforced. Poverty among pensioners is set to fall in the future with the recent introduction of mandatory second-pillar pension saving. But this reform has also raised questions about the structure of tax breaks on pensions. This Working Paper relates to the 2010 OECD Economic Survey of Israel (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/israel)

Economics --- Israel

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The 2008-09 global financial crisis did not result in the failure of any major financial institution in Israel, but it did reveal vulnerabilities in the non-banking sector . particularly in the corporate-bond market. Conservative regulation of the banking sector helped this segment avoid a financial meltdown, and low loan-to-value ratios in mortgage lending are undoubtedly helping limit the pace of house-price increases. Nevertheless, as elsewhere, capital requirements and stress tests for banks have been ramped up. Also the identification and monitoring of systemic risks and macro-prudential problems has intensified. In the Israeli context somewhat unusual issues arise from the control of most of Israel.s major financial institutions by family-based business groups that have significant interests in non-financial sectors of the economy. This close link between the financial and non-financial sectors generates potential risks to financial stability, and it is a key issue in a wider debate about the relative merits of the business groups in terms of competition and control in the economy. This Working Paper relates to the OECD 2011 Economic Survey of Israel (www.oecd.org/eco/surveys/Israel).

Economics --- Israel