Determinants of sub-central European government debt

[EN] The aim of this paper is to analyse the determinants of sub-central government debt in Europe (Italy, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium and Spain) through estimation for each State based on corresponding panel data from 1996 to 2010. Furthermore, we estimate the debt model using a joint sample, consolidating conclusions on the most influential variables in terms of public debt. A comparative analysis of institutional frameworks in Europe shows that relationships between central and sub-central tax authorities have common traits, although the extent of change in each country remains unknown. In sum, this study shows that sub-sovereign government budgets are counter-cyclical, that economies of scale are present, which the golden rule of public finance is followed, that population growth and lower per capita financing lead to higher debt levels, and that regions characterised by higher debt/GDP ratios tend to have lower future deficits.Jannone Bellot, N.; Martí Selva, ML.; García Menéndez, L. (2017). Determinants of sub-central European government debt. The Spanish Review of Financial Economics. 15(2):52-62. doi:10.1016/j.srfe.2017.04.001S526215

Institutional Model of Decentralization in Action

Applying the Institutional Model of Decentralization, the paper argues that the presumption that local democracy will impose accountability pressure on elected officials does not always hold. Even in a democratic system like in Indonesia, decentralization policy is welfare-enhancing only for the developed regions, not for all, exacerbating interregional welfare disparity. This "captured democracy" is largely due to the presence of "negative local capture". Where welfare has not improved, limited participation, low initial welfare combined with poor quality of local leaders are found to be the most critical determinants

Direct evidence on income comparisons and their welfare effects

This paper provides direct evidence that comparisons exert a significant effect on subjective well-being. It also evaluates the relative importance of different types of benchmarks. Internal comparisons to one's own past living standard outweigh any other comparison benchmarks. Local comparisons (to one's parents, former colleagues or high school mates) are more powerful than self-ranking in the social ladder. The impact of comparisons is asymmetric: under-performing one's benchmark always has a greater welfare effect than out-performing it (in absolute value). Comparisons which reduce satisfaction also increase the demand for income redistribution, but there, the relative impact of subjective ranking is preponderant.Exploitant une enquête conduite en 2006 par la BERD dans 28 pays en transition (LITS), cet article tente de mettre en évidence l'importance des comparaisons de revenu et leur effet sur le bien-être subjectif des agents. Il évalue également le poids relatif de différentes aunes de comparaison. Il apparaît que les comparaisons dans le temps sont plus importantes que les comparaisons statiques. Les catégories de références internes sont plus importantes que les groupes de référence externes. Enfin, les comparaisons à des groupes précis ont davantage d'impact que le rang subjectif d'un individu au sein de la hiérarchie sociale. L'effet le plus remarquable en terme de bien-être provient de la détérioration du niveau de vie des enquêtés par rapport au passé, ainsi que du fait de connaître une évolution moins favorable que d'anciens camarades de classes ou d'anciens collègues. Une interprétation possible est que les comparaisons sont d'autant plus puissantes qu'elles sont interprétées par les agents en termes d'occasions saisies ou manquées

Non-Keynesian Effects of Fiscal Consolidations in Central Europe in the Years 2000-2013

Last two decades were a period of significant discussion concerning determinants of effectiveness of fiscal policy. After some cases of expansionary episodes of fiscal consolidations in eighties of XX century, an intensive international research on the possibility of non-Keynesian effects of fiscal contractions in highly developed countries has started. The aim of the article is to analyze the possibility of obtaining non-Keynesian effects of fiscal consolidations in post-transformation countries of Central Europe. An important aim of macroeconomic policy in the analyzed economies is to benefit the advantages of convergence process. Thus, the empirical analysis is made within conditional β-convergence framework. The verification of hypothesis of β-convergence enables to identify the long term tendency of output per capita, in the same time it enables to identify non-Keynesian effects of fiscal prudence and to assess their role in the process of reducing GDP gap between the analyzed economies. Then the potential transmission channels for non-Keynesian effects of fiscal policy were analyzed. In the research the data from Eurostat and European Commission for the years 2000-2013 was used. The paper provides arguments in favor of the existence of non-Keynesian effects of fiscal consolidations in Central Europe that support the process of conditional convergence

Optimal opportunistic screening of atrial fibrillation using pulse palpation in cardiology outpatient clinics: Who and how

Atrial fibrillation (AF) remain a prevalent undiagnosed condition frequently encountered in primary care.We aimed to find the parameters that optimize the diagnostic accuracy of pulse palpation to detect AF. We also aimed to create a simple algorithm for selecting which individuals would benefit from pulse palpation and, if positive, receive an ECG to detect AF.Nurses from four Cardiology outpatient clinics palpated 7,844 pulses according to a randomized list of arterial territories and durations of measure and immediately followed by a 12-lead ECG, which we used as the reference standard. We calculated the sensitivity and specificity of the palpation parameters. We also assessed whether diagnostic accuracy depended on the nurse's experience or on a list of clinical factors of the patients. With this information, we estimated the positive predictive values and false omission rates according to very few clinical factors readily available in primary care (age, sex, and diagnosis of heart failure) and used them to create the algorithm.The parameters associated with the highest diagnostic accuracy were palpation of the radial artery and classifying as irregular those palpations in which the nurse was uncertain about pulse regularity or unable to palpate pulse (sensitivity = 79%; specificity = 86%). Specificity decreased with age. Neither the nurse's experience nor any investigated clinical factor influenced diagnostic accuracy. We provide the algorithm to select the ≥40 years old individuals that would benefit from a pulse palpation screening: a) do nothing in <60 years old individuals without heart failure; b) do ECG in ≥70 years old individuals with heart failure; c) do radial pulse palpation in the remaining individuals and do ECG if the pulse is irregular or you are uncertain about its regularity or unable to palpate it.Opportunistic screening for AF using optimal pulse palpation in candidate individuals according to a simple algorithm may have high effectiveness in detecting AF in primary care

Peace and War in Territorial Disputes

Why do sovereign states sometimes fail to settle territorial disputes peacefully? Also, why do even peaceful settlements of territorial disputes rarely call for the resulting border to be unfortified? This paper explores a class of answers to these questions that is based on the following premise: States can settle a territorial dispute peacefully only if (1) their payoffs from a peaceful settlement are larger than their expected payoffs from a default to war, and (2) their promises not to attack are credible. This premise directs the analysis to such factors as the advantage of attacking over both defending and counterattacking, the divisibility of the contested territory, the possibility of recurring war, the depreciation or obsolescence of fortifications, and inequality in the effectiveness of mobilized resources. – credibility ; fortifications ; counterattacks ; divisibility ; recurring war ; depreciatio

The resource curse revisited: A Bayesian model averaging approach

© 2018 Elsevier B.V. The evidence for the effects of oil rents on growth is mixed, a result which can be explained with model uncertainty. We address the issue using Bayesian Model Averaging techniques and an updated cross-country data set for long-term growth in the period 1970–2014, including 91 countries and 54 potential growth determinants. We do not find empirical evidence for the existence of a “natural resource curse” in our sample. On the contrary, our results suggest a robust positive effect of oil rents on long-term economic growth. We then introduce interaction terms of oil rents with potential conditions under which oil dependency can lead to sub-standard growth. The results indicate that the positive effect of oil rents may be conditional on the quality of institutions. We test the robustness of our results using a panel data set and find neither a curse nor a positive effect of oil rents on short- to medium-run growth

Procedure for preparation, certification, and storage of a seed lot of the <i>Mycobacterium bovis</i> BCG-I (Russia) vaccine strain

To date, the Bacillus Calmette–Guérin (BCG) vaccine has been the only medicinal product for active mass childhood immunisation against tuberculosis in the Russian Federation. Industrial-scale batches of the BCG vaccine are manufactured using a seed-lot system, which provides for producing the vaccine for civil circulation from a single batch of seed material, a lyophilisate of Mycobacterium bovis BCG. National and international documents touch upon the evaluation of BCG vaccine seed material in terms of its quality attributes in small separate sections containing brief descriptions and/or lists of attributes and control methods. It is relevant to bring together the information on receipt, certification, and storage of the inoculum (the seed lot) for production of the Russian BCG vaccine. The aim of the study was a comparative assessment of the main characteristics of and control methods for the inoculum of the Russian vaccine strain, M. bovis BCG-I, set out in the national and international requirements for BCG vaccines. The article summarises literature data on the history of BCG substrains and the variability of their characteristics and presents a brief account of the origin of the Russian BCG-I substrain. It considers the control methods specified in the national and international requirements for the inoculum for the BCG vaccine. The study demonstrated the practical possibility of identifying BCG down to the substrain level with subsequent determination of genetic properties that characterise genomic stability of the substrain. The article presents the results of the comparative analysis of data on stability of lyophilisates of M. bovis BCG-I seed lots (Russia). Particular attention is paid to biological methods for controlling the seed lot (determination of residual virulence, including BCG survival) and the immunobiological method for controlling BCG for the absence of the genes responsible for virulence antigen expression (animal skin tests with Diaskintest®). The authors concluded that the control of stability of genetic and biological properties throughout the entire period of seed lot production and storage makes it possible to obtain BCG vaccines that meet all the regulatory requirements

Ethnic Integration and Development in China

This paper pursues an inquiry into the relationship between ethnicity and development in the largest authoritarian country in the contemporary world, the People’s Republic of China. It engages the theoretical literature on ethnic diversity and development in general, but also pays special attention to political economy logics unique to authoritarian systems. Focusing on the western part of China over a decade since the launch of China’s Western Development Program (xibu da kaifa) in 2000, this paper utilizes the data from two censuses (2000 and 2010) together with nighttime streetlight imagery data to analyze the overall relationship between ethnicity and development provision. It also analyzes changes in such a relationship during this period. The paper finds that ethnic minority concentration negatively correlates with economic development in both the years 2000 and 2010 across the western provinces. It also finds that counties in non-autonomous provinces, which are historically more integrated with the rest of China than autonomous provinces, have a positive and systematic correlation between changes in ethnic minority concentration and changes in development during the 10-year period. The counties in autonomous provinces, on the other hand, show the opposite trend. Using three case studies of Tibet, Inner Mongolia, and Xinjiang, the paper concludes that although there is in general a tendency for ethnic minority concentrated areas to be less developed, ultimately which groups prosper more or less depends upon specific economic development and which political control logics the Chinese state implements

Don't tax me? : Determinants of individual attitudes toward progressive taxation

This contribution empirically analyses the individual determinants of tax rate preferences. For that purpose we make use of the representative German General Social Survey (ALLBUS) that offers data on the individual attitudes toward progressive, proportional, and regressive taxation. Our theoretical considerations suggest that beyond self-interest, information, fairness considerations, economic beliefs and several other individual factors drive individual preferences for tax rate structures. Our empirical results indicate that the self-interest view does not offer the sole explanation for the heterogeneity in attitudes toward progressive taxation. Rather, we show that the choice of the favoured tax rate is also driven by fairness considerations