Is there a connection between the tax administration and the political power?

This paper offers empirical evidence from Spain of a connection between the tax administration and the political power. Firstly, the regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of regional government, and tends to exert a greater (or lesser) effort in tax collection the greater (or lower) the (expected) public deficit. At the same time, the system of unconditional grants from the central layer of government provokes an ¿income effect¿ which disincentivises the efforts of the tax administration. Secondly, these efforts also decrease when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district is cut, although the importance of this disincentive decreases according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent- Aquest article oferix proves empíriques d'Espanya d'una connexió entre l'administració fiscal i el poder polític. En primer lloc, l'administració regional fiscal no és immune a la situació pressupostària de govern regional, i tendeix a exercir un major (o menor) l'esforç en la col·lecció fiscal el major (o més baix) el dèficit (esperat) públic. Al mateix temps, el sistema de subvencions incondicionals de la capa central de govern provoca " un efecte d'ingrés " que el desànim es disminuïx segons la força parlamentària de l'encarregat

Violence and Drug Prohibition in Colombia

We assess the role of inequality, poverty and drug prohibition, in explaining homicide rates(HR) in Colombia using panel data at the municipality level between 1990 and 1998. We use maximum likelihood estimation to evaluate several specifications of spatial models. When we pool the data we find a significant relation between the HR and poverty which is reinforced when the inequality variables are included in the regression. We use rates of arrest related to drugs as proxy for drug prohibition enforcement, and find no evidence of any net effect in this exercise. We proceed to estimate the model for every year since 1991 to 1998, and find mixed results along the analyzed period, with statistically significant positive coefficients for some years, evidencing a positive net effect for those years of drug prohibition on violence. This result calls for caution in the implementation of global policies meant to improve specific countries’ welfare, such as drug prohibition policies. On the other hand, our proxy for income inequality is not related to violence, while its relationship with poverty is weakly positive.Drug Prohibition, Violence, Crime, Spatial Econometrics

The Politics of Tax Administration: Evidence from Spain

Does there exist a connection between the political power and the tax administration? In this paper, we offer empirical evidence from Spain that there exists. First, the Spanish regional tax administration is not immune to the budgetary situation of the regional government, and tends to exert a greater (lower) effort in tax collection as the (expected) public deficit is greater (lower). At the same time, the system of unconditional grants provokes an “income effect” that disincentives the efforts carried out by the tax administration. Second, when the margin to lose a parliamentary seat in an electoral district decreases, the efforts also diminish, though this disincentive is lessened according to the parliamentary strength of the incumbent (evidence of electoral competition).Tax Administration, Political Economy

A impenhorabilidade do imóvel do fiador e o impacto nos contratos de locação comercial

O contrato de locação comercial é responsável por concretizar uma boa parte da atividade econômica no país. Trata-se de um acordo entre o locador, proprietário do imóvel, e o locatário, responsável pela contraprestação pecuniária e que deterá o direito de usar e gozar a propriedade por determinado período. Nessa espécie contratual, é muito comum a celebração de um contrato acessório: o contrato de fiança, o qual um terceiro passa a garantir as obrigações do locatário, geralmente com um bem imóvel de sua propriedade. Na primeira parte do trabalho, serão expostas as principais características do contrato de locação em geral, para, logo em seguida, discutir as generalidades do contrato acessório de fiança, mais especificamente o imóvel de família do fiador dado em garantia. Por fim, serão analisadas duas decisões que tratam sobre o cerne do trabalho. A primeira é a decisão consolidada pelo Supremo Tribunal Federal que possibilita a penhora do bem de família do fiador quando dado em garantia locatícia tanto comercial quanto residencial. A segunda, trata do possível novo entendimento aplicado pela Corte aos contratos de locação comercial.Commercial renting is responsible for a good portion of the country’s economic activity. This contract usually takes place between the property owner and the renter, who is responsible for the financial compensation and who will effectively use the property for a given time. In this type of agreement, it is very common to celebrate an accessory contract: the guarantee contract, in which a third party secures the renter’s obligations, usually putting down a real state property of his or hers as collateral. Therefore, the first portion of this senior thesis deals with the main characteristics of a commercial rent contract as to, immediately afterwards, discuss the generalities of the guarantee accessory contract, more specifically, the family real state property given as assurance. Finally, two jurisprudences will be analyzed: a Brazilian Supreme Court one that allows for the use of family property as collateral when signed up to a commercial contract (as well as a home one); and a decision that regards the Court’s new understanding regarding commercial rent contracts

VALORACIÓN E HISTORIA DE UN BIEN DE INTERÉS CULTURAL DECLARADO MONUMENTO NACIONAL EN LA CIUDAD DE BUCARAMANGA: LA CASA NATAL DEL GENERAL CUSTODIO GARCÍA ROVIRA

El presente artículo hace parte del estudio de consultoría privado contratado por Gloria Núñez Peñalosa, propietaria del inmueble reconocido en la ciudad de Bucaramanga como Casa Natal del General Custodio García Rovira, bien declarado monumento nacional, una investigación realizada para el Ministerio de Cultura de la República de Colombia, la cual se circunscribe a la línea de investigación Memoria y patrimonio cultural mueble e inmueble de la Facultad de Arquitectura de la Universidad Santo Tomás Seccional Bucaramanga.ABSTRACTThis article is part of a research of private commission requested by Gloria Núñez Peñalosa, owner of the Real State property known in the city of Bucaramanga as the birthplace of General Custodio García Rovira, state declared national monument. The research was done for the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Colombia, which is a branch of the Research of Memory and Heritage of cultural property of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Santo Tomas in the city of Bucaramanga

THE IMPACT OF DE-REGULAMENTATION ON THE BRAZILIAN BANKING INDUSTRY: A PRODUCTION METAFRONTIER APPROACH

This paper analyzes the impact after the entry and the increase in the capital participation of foreign banks in the Brazilian financial institutions. In this sense, taking into account three sub-sets of banks by controlling capital origin - domestic privates, foreigner and public-, an analysis was carried out to find out whether there were technical efficiency and productivity gains in Brazil' banking industry. Therefore, a production frontier was built using the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) which allows for the calculation of technical efficiency. Next, performing one of these measures, Malmquist's total productivity index is calculated. The results showed that the technical efficiency of the Brazilian banking industry has not evolved as must as it has been expected, although a total productivity increase has actually occurred, arising only from the technological progress. The foreign banks earned the most productivity gains followed by the domestic private banks. The technological leadership (test), proposed by Marinho and Benegas (2002), showed that the domestic private banks determined the industry's technological pattern.

Residual and technical tax efficiency scores for Brazilian municipalities: a two-stage approach

Recurrent fiscal imbalances in terms of tax and expenditure assignments among central and local governments are a critical issue in public finance. To equalize tax capacities, cope with spillovers or to achieve national policy objectives, central governments often provide transfers to lower levels of government. These transfers may affect the incentives to improve fiscal performance because they may induce low tax effort in the regions (Litvack, Ahmad and Bird, 1998; Boadway et al., 1999).Recurrent fiscal imbalances in terms of tax and expenditure assignments among central and local governments are a critical issue in public finance. To equalize tax capacities, cope with spillovers or to achieve national policy objectives, central governments often provide transfers to lower levels of government. These transfers may affect the incentives to improve fiscal performance because they may induce low tax effort in the regions (Litvack, Ahmad and Bird, 1998; Boadway et al., 1999)

Generosity and Wealth:Experimental Evidence from Bogota Stratification

This paper combines laboratory experiments with a unique feature of the city of Bogota to uncover the relationship between generosity and wealth. Bogota is divided by law into six socio-economic strata which are close proxies of household wealth and income. We recruit subjects from different strata and run a series of double-blind dictator games where the recipient is the NGO Techo-Colombia, which builds transitional housing for homeless families. We identify the stratum of each subject anonymously and blindly, and match their donations with their stratum. In a first experiment we provide a fixed endowment to all participants and nd that donations are significantly increasing with wealth. However, in a second experiment, we show that this is not because the rich are intrinsically more generous, but because the experimental endowment has lower real value for them. With endowments that are equivalent to their daily expenditures, the rich, the middle-class and the poor give a similar proportion of their stratum-equivalent endowment. Moreover, we find that the motivation to donate is similar across strata, where the generosity act is explained mainly by warm-glow rather than pure altruism

Survey on implementation level of government services in mobile devices

When comparing Argentina’s population with the number of cellular telephony active lines, it can be assert that the active lines widely exceed the inhabitants. Because of this high concentration of cellular telephony, due to the lower cell phone’s price against computer’s price, it begins to be necessary for the government agencies to provide services that can be implemented in cellular phones. The government agencies, that opportunely, joined their efforts to provide on line services through the web, facilitating the procedures for the citizens and starting a field called eGovernment, must now consider the high insertion of the cellular phones within the population and, accordingly, facilitate the access to services from mobile devices (mServices). When mobile devices become the eGovernment communication channel, this new field of study is called mGovernment. The present paper presents the analysis of the obtained results after surveying mServices and the technology implemented by government agencies.VI Workshop Ingeniería de Software (WIS)Red de Universidades con Carreras en Informática (RedUNCI