The Constrained Politics of Local Public Investments under Cooperative Federalism

Public investment spending declined steadily in advanced economies during the last three decades. Germany is a case in point where the aggregate decline coincided with growing inequality in investments across districts. What explains variation in local investment spending? We assembled a novel dataset to investigate the effects of structural constraints and partisanship on German districts’ investment spending from 1995 to 2018. We find that the lack of fiscal and administrative capacity significantly influences local investment patterns. Yet, within these constraints, partisanship matters. Conservative politicians tend to prioritize public investment more than the left. This is especially the case when revenues from local taxes are low. As the fiscal conditions improve, left-wing politicians increase investment more strongly and hence the difference between the left and the right disappears. Our findings are indicative of how regional economic divergence can emerge even within cooperative federalist systems and show that, despite rigid fiscal rules, partisanship matters when parties face trade-offs over discretionary spending.Über die vergangenen Jahrzehnte sind öffentliche Investitionen in Industrieländern deutlich zurückgegangen. Dies ist auch in Deutschland zu beobachten, wo der Rückgang mit wachsenden Ungleichheiten zwischen Kreisen einherging. Dieser Beitrag untersucht diese interregionalen Diskrepanzen von öffentlichen Investitionen in Deutschland. Zu diesem Zweck nutzen wir einen neuen Datensatz, der strukturelle Bedingungen sowie parteipolitische Aspekte erfasst, die Investitionstätigkeit auf der Kreisebene zwischen 1995 und 2018 beeinflusst haben. Wir zeigen, dass Finanzprobleme sowie fehlendes technisches Personal die Investitionstätigkeit maßgeblich beschränkt haben. Gleichzeitig setzen unterschiedliche lokale Parteien in Anbetracht solcher strukturellen Beschränkungen unterschiedliche Prioritäten in ihren freiwilligen Ausgaben. Konservative Bürgermeister und Landräte tendieren dazu, öffentliche Investitionen mehr zu priorisieren als linke Politiker. Dies ist vor allem der Fall, wenn die Einnahmen aus Gewerbesteuern gering sind. Wenn die Einnahmen steigen, erhöhen linke Politiker ihre Ausgaben für öffentliche Investitionen allerdings stärker als rechte Politiker, sodass der Unterschied verschwindet. Diese Resultate indizieren, dass regionale Ungleichheiten in öffentlichen Investitionen sogar in kooperativen föderalen Systemen auftreten können und zeigen, wie Parteipolitik lokale Ausgabenentscheidungen selbst dann beeinflusst, wenn lokale Entscheidungsträger unter rigiden Regeln operieren.Contents 1 Introduction 2 Germany’s divergent local investments and the political economy of local public finances 3 Constrained partisanship: The politics of public investments in a multi-level polity Fiscal and administrative constraints for local public investments Local partisanship, voluntary spending priorities, and responsiveness to different constraints 4 Data and methodology Data Independent and dependent variables Methods 5 Empirical results The constraining effects of Germany’s semi-sovereign state on local public investments The constrained partisanship of investment spending 6 Concluding discussion Reference

The Constrained Politics of Local Public Investment Under Cooperative Federalism

Public investment spending declined steadily in advanced economies during the last three decades. Germany is a case in point where the aggregate decline coincided with growing inequality in investments across districts. What explains the variation in local investment spending? We assembled a novel data set to investigate the effects of structural constraints and partisanship on German districts’ investment spending from 1995 to 2018. We find that the lack of fiscal and administrative capacity significantly influences local investment patterns. Yet, within these constraints, partisanship matters. Conservative politicians tend to prioritize public investment more than the left. This is especially the case when revenues from local taxes are low. As the fiscal conditions improve, left-wing politicians increase investment more strongly and hence the difference between the left and the right disappears. Our findings are indicative of how regional economic divergence can emerge even within cooperative federal systems and show that, even when decision-makers operate under various institutional and structural constraints, partisanship matters for how these actors allocate discretionary spending.1. Introduction 2. Germany’s divergent patterns of local public investment and the political economy of subnational fiscal policymaking 3. Structural constraints and partisan choices: public investment in a multilevel polity 4. Data and methodology 5. Empirical results 6. Concluding discussion Footnotes Acknowledgments Supplementary material Reference

Mycobacterium tuberculosis Drives Expansion of Low-Density Neutrophils Equipped With Regulatory Activities

In human tuberculosis (TB) neutrophils represent the most commonly infected phagocyte but their role in protection and pathology is highly contradictory. Moreover, a subset of low-density neutrophils (LDNs) has been identified in TB, but their functions remain unclear. Here, we have analyzed total neutrophils and their low-density and normal-density (NDNs) subsets in patients with active TB disease, in terms of frequency, phenotype, functional features, and gene expression signature. Full-blood counts from Healthy Donors (H.D.), Latent TB infected, active TB, and cured TB patients were performed. Frequency, phenotype, burst activity, and suppressor T cell activity of the two different subsets were assessed by flow cytometry while NETosis and phagocytosis were evaluated by confocal microscopy. Expression analysis was performed by using the semi-quantitative RT-PCR array technology. Elevated numbers of total neutrophils and a high neutrophil/lymphocyte ratio distinguished patients with active TB from all the other groups. PBMCs of patients with active TB disease contained elevated percentages of LDNs compared with those of H.D., with an increased expression of CD66b, CD33, CD15, and CD16 compared to NDNs. Transcriptomic analysis of LDNs and NDNs purified from the peripheral blood of TB patients identified 12 genes differentially expressed: CCL5, CCR5, CD4, IL10, LYZ, and STAT4 were upregulated, while CXCL8, IFNAR1, NFKB1A, STAT1, TICAM1, and TNF were downregulated in LDNs, as compared to NDNs. Differently than NDNs, LDNs failed to phagocyte live Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) bacilli, to make oxidative burst and NETosis, but caused significant suppression of antigen-specific and polyclonal T cell proliferation which was partially mediated by IL-10. These insights add a little dowel of knowledge in understanding the pathogenesis of human TB

Earth-Mars transfers through Moon distant retrograde orbits

This paper focuses on trajectory design which is relevant for missions that would follow NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to further explore and utilise asteroids and eventually human Mars exploration. Assuming that a refueling gas station is present at a given Lunar Distant Retrograde Orbit (DRO), we analyse ways of departing from the Earth to Mars via that DRO. Thus, the analysis and results presented in this paper add a new cis-lunar departure orbit for Earth-Mars missions. Porkchop plots depicting the required C3 at launch, v1 at arrival, Time of Flight (TOF), and total ∆V for various DRO departure and Mars arrival dates are created and compared with results obtained for low ∆V LEO to Mars trajectories. The results show that low ∆V DRO to Mars transfers generally have lower ∆V and TOF than LEO to Mars maneuvers

Numerical study of the scaling properties of SU(2) lattice gauge theory in Palumbo non-compact regularization

In the framework of a non-compact lattice regularization of nonabelian gauge theories we look, in the SU(2) case, for the scaling window through the analysis of the ratio of two masses of hadronic states. In the two-dimensional parameter space of the theory we find the region where the ratio is constant, and equal to the one in the Wilson regularization. In the scaling region we calculate the lattice spacing, finding it at least 20% larger than in the Wilson case; therefore the simulated physical volume is larger.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figure

Theta dependence of CP^9 model

We apply to the $CP^9$ model two recently proposed numerical techniques for simulation of systems with a theta term. The algorithms, successfully tested in the strong coupling limit, are applied to the weak coupling region. The results agree and errors have been evaluated and are at % level. The results scale well with the renormalization group equation and show that, for $CP^9$ in presence of a theta term, CP symmetry is spontaneously broken at $\theta=\pi$ in the continuum limit.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Evaluation of PD-L1 expression on vortex-isolated circulating tumor cells in metastatic lung cancer.

Metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) is a highly fatal and immunogenic malignancy. Although the immune system is known to recognize these tumor cells, one mechanism by which NSCLC can evade the immune system is via overexpression of programmed cell death ligand 1 (PD-L1). Recent clinical trials of PD-1 and PD-L1 inhibitors have returned promising clinical responses. Important for personalizing therapy, patients with higher intensity staining for PD-L1 on tumor biopsies responded better. Thus, there has been interest in using PD-L1 tumor expression as a criterion for patient selection. Currently available methods of screening involve invasive tumor biopsy, followed by histological grading of PD-L1 levels. Biopsies have a high risk of complications, and only allow sampling from limited tumor sections, which may not reflect overall tumor heterogeneity. Circulating tumor cell (CTC) PD-L1 levels could aid in screening patients, and could supplement tissue PD-L1 biopsy results by testing PD-L1 expression from disseminated tumor sites. Towards establishing CTCs as a screening tool, we developed a protocol to isolate CTCs at high purity and immunostain for PD-L1. Monitoring of PD-L1 expression on CTCs could be an additional biomarker for precision medicine that may help in determining response to immunotherapies

Micro-class mobility: social reproduction in four countries

In the sociological literature on social mobility, the long-standing convention has been to assume that intergenerational reproduction takes one of two forms, either a categorical form that has parents passing on a big-class position to their children, or a gradational form that has parents passing on their socioeconomic standing to their children. These conventional approaches ignore in their own ways the important role that occupations play in transferring advantage and disadvantage from one generation to the next. In log-linear analyses of nationally representative data from the United States, Sweden, Germany, and Japan, we show that (a) occupations are an important conduit for reproduction, (b) the most extreme rigidities in the mobility regime are only revealed when analyses are carried out at the detailed occupational level, and (c) much of what shows up as big-class reproduction in conventional mobility analyses is in fact occupational reproduction in disguise. Although the four countries studied here differ in the extent to which the occupational form has been institutionalized, we show that it is too prominent to ignore in any of these countries. Even in Japan, which has long been regarded as distinctively 'deoccupationalized,' we find evidence of extreme occupational rigidities. These results suggest that an occupational mechanism for reproduction may be a fundamental feature of all contemporary mobility regimes. [author's abstract