Tax effort determinants in Latin America

Mestrado Bolonha em FinançasTax revenues form an essential contribution to public expenditures and are ordinarily a distress for developing countries to which Latin America is no exception. Over the years, this topic has become of increasing interest, as countries are urged to enhance their tax system for inclusive economic growth. Addressing their generally low tax effort is of great importance in reaching the latter. This dissertation complements the existing literature on tax effort determinants. The aim of this research is to identify the main determinants of tax effort in Latin America and the Caribbean (LCN region) over the period 2007-2018. The explanatory variables have been classified in 5 separate clusters: fiscal-, economic-, structural-, institutional-, and other determinants. Through OLS regression it was found that the openness of the economy, the share of agriculture in the economy, inflation and the level of income inequality are determinants that increase tax effort. On the contrary, control of corruption, economic development, and government expenditures were found to reduce countries their tax effort.As receitas fiscais constituem uma contribuição essencial para os gastos públicos e costumam ser um obstáculo para os países em desenvolvimento, para os quais a América Latina não é a exceção. Com o passar dos anos, este tópico tornou-se cada vez mais interessante, à medida que os países tem a necessidade de melhorar o seu sistema tributário para um crescimento econômico inclusivo. Abordar seu esforço tributário geralmente baixo é de grande importância para alcançar este último. Esta dissertação complementa a literatura existente sobre os determinantes do esforço tributário. O objetivo desta pesquisa é identificar os principais determinantes do esforço tributário na América Latina e no Caribe (região LCN) no período 2007-2018. As variáveis explicativas foram classificadas em 5 grupos distintos: fiscais, econômicos, estruturais, institucionais e outros determinantes. Por meio da regressão OLS, constatou-se que a abertura da economia, a participação da agricultura na economia, a inflação e o nível de desigualdade de renda são determinantes que aumentam o esforço tributário. Ao contrário, o controle da corrupção, o desenvolvimento econômico e os gastos do governo reduzem o esforço tributário de um país.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries

This research challenges previous findings regarding the robustness of the African growth dummy by expanding the list of variables to include those suggested by Easterly and Levine (1998) and Sachs and Warner (1997b). Using the Bayesing Averaging of Classical Estimates Approach, this paper concludes that the African growth dummy does not appear to be robustly related to growth. This supports the interpretation that the presence of the African dummy in other studies results from misspecification. This paper also contributes to the debate on growth strategies for Africa by assessing the robustness of divergent perspectives offered in the recent literature.growth, Africa, model specification, robustness

TLAD 2011 Proceedings:9th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the ninth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2011), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2011 - the 28th British National Conference on Databases. TLAD 2011 is held on the 11th July at Manchester University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will present eight peer reviewed papers. Of these, six will be presented as full papers and two as short papers. These papers cover a number of themes, including: the teaching of data mining and data warehousing, databases and the cloud, and novel uses of technology in teaching and assessment. It is expected that these papers will stimulate discussion at the workshop itself and beyond. This year, the focus on providing a forum for discussion is enhanced through a panel discussion on assessment in database modules, with David Nelson (of the University of Sunderland), Al Monger (of Southampton Solent University) and Charles Boisvert (of Sheffield Hallam University) as the expert panel

TLAD 2011 Proceedings:9th international workshop on teaching, learning and assesment of databases (TLAD)

This is the ninth in the series of highly successful international workshops on the Teaching, Learning and Assessment of Databases (TLAD 2011), which once again is held as a workshop of BNCOD 2011 - the 28th British National Conference on Databases. TLAD 2011 is held on the 11th July at Manchester University, just before BNCOD, and hopes to be just as successful as its predecessors.The teaching of databases is central to all Computing Science, Software Engineering, Information Systems and Information Technology courses, and this year, the workshop aims to continue the tradition of bringing together both database teachers and researchers, in order to share good learning, teaching and assessment practice and experience, and further the growing community amongst database academics. As well as attracting academics from the UK community, the workshop has also been successful in attracting academics from the wider international community, through serving on the programme committee, and attending and presenting papers.Due to the healthy number of high quality submissions this year, the workshop will present eight peer reviewed papers. Of these, six will be presented as full papers and two as short papers. These papers cover a number of themes, including: the teaching of data mining and data warehousing, databases and the cloud, and novel uses of technology in teaching and assessment. It is expected that these papers will stimulate discussion at the workshop itself and beyond. This year, the focus on providing a forum for discussion is enhanced through a panel discussion on assessment in database modules, with David Nelson (of the University of Sunderland), Al Monger (of Southampton Solent University) and Charles Boisvert (of Sheffield Hallam University) as the expert panel

Examining the Robustness of Competing Explanations of Slow Growth in African Countries

This research challenges previous findings regarding the robustness of the African growth dummy by expanding the list of variables to include those suggested by Easterly and Levine (1998) and Sachs and Warner (1997b). Using the Bayesian Averaging of Classical Estimates approach, this paper concludes that the African growth dummy does not appear to be robustly related to growth. This supports the interpretation that the presence of the African dummy in other studies results from misspecification. The paper also contributes to the debate on growth strategies for Africa by assessing the robustness of divergent perspectives offered in the recent literature.growth, Africa, model specification, robustness

Keeping in touch – A benefit of public holidays using time use diary data

This paper argues that public holidays facilitate the co-ordination of leisure time but do not constrain the annual amount of leisure. Public holidays therefore have benefits both in the utility of leisure on holidays and (by enabling people to maintain social contacts more easily) in increasing the utility of leisure on normal weekdays and weekends. The paper uses the variation in public holidays across German Länder based on more than 37.000 individual diary data of the actual German Time Use Survey of 2001-02 to illustrate the positive association between more public holidays and social life on normal weekdays and weekends. These benefits are additional to the other, direct benefits of public holidays.Public holidays, social contacts, social leisure time, time allocation, time use diaries, German Time Budget Survey 2001/02

Exploring time diaries using semi-automated activity pattern extraction

Identifying patterns of activities in time diaries in order to understand the variety of daily life in terms of combinations of activities performed by individuals in different groups is of interest in time use research. So far, activity patterns have mostly been identified by visually inspecting representations of activity data or by using sequence comparison methods, such as sequence alignment, in order to cluster similar data and then extract representative patterns from these clusters. Both these methods are sensitive to data size, pure visual methods become too cluttered and sequence comparison methods become too time consuming. Furthermore, the patterns identified by both methods represent mostly general trends of activity in a population, while detail and unexpected features hidden in the data are often never revealed. We have implemented an algorithm that searches the time diaries and automatically extracts all activity patterns meeting user-defined criteria of what constitutes a valid pattern of interest for the user’s research question. Amongst the many criteria which can be applied are a time window containing the pattern, minimum and maximum occurrences of the pattern, and number of people that perform it. The extracted activity patterns can then be interactively filtered, visualized and analyzed to reveal interesting insights. Exploration of the results of each pattern search may result in new hypotheses which can be subsequently explored by altering the search criteria. To demonstrate the value of the presented approach we consider and discuss sequential activity patterns at a population level, from a single day perspective.Time-geography, diaries, everyday life, activity patterns, visualization, data mining, sequential pattern mining

Harmonising extended measures of parental childcare in the time-diary surveys of four countries – Proximity versus responsibility

Measures of childcare drawn from time-diary data are commonly based on the specific childcare activities a parent engages in throughout the day. This emphasis on activities has been criticised as it ignores the large quantity of time parents spend supervising their children. In order to provide more accurate estimates of childcare that incorporate supervisory childcare, researchers have turned to extended measures of care based on being i) in proximity to children or ii) responsible for children. There has been debate about the extent to which these approaches each measure the same aspect of childcare. In addition, it is thought they may be sensitive to the way surveys have been designed, which can affect the extent to which they can be compared crossnationally. We argue that measures of proximity and responsibility are conceptually interchangeable, and demonstrate that they can be harmonised and compared cross-nationally. Finally, we suggest ways in which these extended measures of childcare can be made increasingly comparable cross-nationally.Time-diary data, measurement of parental childcare, cross-national harmonisation of measures of childcare, time geography

Predictors of time famine among Finnish employees – Work, family or leisure?

The recent survey data indicates that the time famine is a common experience among employees, while the data of time use indicates increased leisure time. Similarly, there are different views on the causes of time famine. Firstly, in working life research time famine is usually explained by increasing requirements of work life. Secondly, in gender studies time famine is considered to be a product of family obligations. Thirdly, some authors interpret time famine as a phenomenon relating to the intensification of leisure. The aim of the study was to examine the extent and causes of time famine among Finnish employees. The analysis was based on the Finnish Use of Time data (1999–2000) and focused on 15-64-year old employees (n=4866). The first aim of the study was to compare different measures of time famine. The descriptive analysis indicated that time famine was overrepresented among women and those who were aged between 25-54 years, who were well-educated, and had children at home. The second aim was to examine predictors of time famine. The predictors of time famine were classified in three groups: work, family, and leisure factors. The logistic regression analyses were conducted separately for men and women. The analysis focused on two indicators of time famine representing different dimensions. Lack of time indicated general time famine and being busy during the diary day indicated more dayspecific situation. The two approaches to time famine – general and day-specific – raised different explanations. The general feeling of the lack of time was predicted all three predictor groups. Daily busyness was related strongly to work factors and only weakly to family obligations or leisure activities. Thus, time famine can be examined with different ways, which produce similar picture on the overrepresentation of it among women, well-educated and families with children. However, the predictors of time famine do vary depending on gender and how time famine is measured.Time famine, time pressure, time-use diaries