80 research outputs found
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Interpreting Fiscal Accounting Rules in the European Union
In the European Union, the creation of public debt statistics starts with member state governmentsâ reports. The EUâs statistical agencyâEurostatâthen revises. How do these actorsâ incentives shape reported numbers? Governments have incentives to take a more favourable view of often ambiguous accounting rules than Eurostat. Lower debt improves governmentsâ performance with domestic and external audiences. Eurostat is tasked with monitoring budgets for âexcessiveâ debts. We expect governments to present debt figures that Eurostat then revises upwards. This is more likely when governments have high debts, especially when in the eurozone, and prior to elections. Financial crises heighten the number of policies needing interpretation and both actors have more incentives to shape the numbers. We examine these propositions using Eurostatâs debt revisions. We find debts are revised upwards more for eurozone countries with higher debt levels and years with unscheduled elections. Financial stress strengthens these effects
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simPH: An R package for illustrating estimates from cox proportional hazard models including for interactive and nonlinear effects
The R package simPH provides tools for effectively communicating results from Cox proportional hazard (PH) models, including models with interactive and nonlinear effects. The Cox (PH) model is a popular tool for examining event data. However, previously available computational tools have not made it easy to explore and communicate quantities of interest and associated uncertainty estimated from them. This is especially true when the effects are interactions or nonlinear transformations of continuous variables. These transformations are especially useful with Cox PH models because they can be employed to correctly specifying models that would otherwise violate the nonproportional hazards assumption. Package simPH makes it easy to simulate and then plot quantities of interest for a variety of effects estimated from Cox PH models including interactive effects, nonlinear effects, as well as standard linear effects. Package simPH employs visual weighting in order to effectively communicate estimation uncertainty. There are options to show either the standard central interval of the simulation's distribution or the shortest probability interval - which can be useful for asymmetrically distributed estimates. This paper uses hypothetical and empirical examples to illustrate package simPHâs syntax and capabilities
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When all is said and done: updating "Elections, special interests, and financial crisis"
How do elections affect the costliness of financial crises to taxpayers? Previous research contends that more electorally competitive countries choose policies that are less costly to taxpayers. In this paper, we update Keeferâs seminal 2007 article published in International Organization with revised data. The original article found that more electorally competitive countries had lower fiscal costs from responding to crises. The commonly used IMF/World Bank data set Keefer employed has since been extensively corrected and expanded. We update the original analysis with the newest version of this data set. After doing so, we find no evidence for an association between electoral competitiveness and the fiscal costs of responding to financial crises both within the original sample and outside of it. Our update highlights a broader methodological lesson: that the costs of responding to financial crises can take many years to be settled. Future research should explicitly address and model this delayed cost resolution
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Preventing German bank failures: Federalism and decisions to save troubled banks
We examine government decisions to support troubled banks. Our contribution is the examination of how federalism can affect decisions to classify banks as systemically important. Whether a bank is viewed by politicians as 'systemically important' varies based on how its failure would affect supporters of the government. How a federation is designed has a strong influence on which banks are given public assistance. Where the top level of government is solely responsible for banks, there will be fewer systemically important institutions and so more banks will be allowed to fail. Where lower levels are responsible, governments will allow fewer failures. We use this approach to understand government support for failing banks in Germany. Our findings are relevant for the European Banking Union
LIMS Instrument Package (LIP) balloon experiment: Nimbus 7 satellite correlative temperature, ozone, water vapor, and nitric acid measurements
The Limb Infrared Monitor of the Stratosphere (LIMS) LIP balloon experiment was used to obtain correlative temperature, ozone, water vapor, and nitric acid data at altitudes between 10 and 36 kilometers. The performance of the LIMS sensor flown on the Nimbus 7 Satellite was assessed. The LIP consists of the modified electrochemical concentration cell ozonesonde, the ultraviolet absorption photometric of ozone, the water vapor infrared radiometer sonde, the chemical absorption filter instrument for nitric acid vapor, and the infrared radiometer for nitric acid vapor. The limb instrument package (LIP), its correlative sensors, and the resulting data obtained from an engineering and four correlative flights are described
A new standard area diagram set for assessment of severity of soybean rust improves accuracy of estimates and optimizes resource use.
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Measurements of wave-cloud microphysical properties with two new aicraft probes
Measurements of ice water content (IWC) and
mean ice-crystal size and concentration made by two in-situ
probes, C, VI and PVM, were compared on the DC-8 aircraft
during SUCCESS flights in orographic ice clouds. The
comparison of 1WC in these wave clouds, that formed at
temperatures of about -38 °C on April 30 and -62 °C on
May 2, 1996, showed good agreement. The comparison of
ice crystal concentrations agreed better for the April-30
clouds than for the May-2 clouds ; and the effective radius
compared for both probes and for remote retrievals from
aircraft and satellite for a segment of the Berthoud wave
cloud (May 2) agreed within 30%. The measured
parameters of the ice crystals were similar to earlier
measurements and recent modeling of cold wave clouds.Copyrighted by American Geophysical Union
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Environmental conditions required for contrail formation and persistance
The ambient temperatures and humidities required for contrail formation
and persistence are determined from in situ measurements during the
Subsonic Aircraft: Contrail and Cloud Effects Special Study (SUCCESS) experiment.
Ambient temperatures and water vapor concentrations were measured
with the meteorological measurement system, a laser hygrometer, and a cryogenic
hygrometer (all onboard the DC-8). The threshold temperatures are compared
with theoretical estimates based on simple models of plume evolution. Observed
contrail onset temperatures for contrail formation are shown to be 0-2 K below
the liquid-saturation threshold temperature, implying that saturation with respect
to liquid water must be reached at some point in the plume evolution. Visible
contrails observed during SUCCESS persisted longer than a few minutes only when
substantial ambient supersaturations with respect to ice existed over large regions.
On some occasions, contrails formed at relatively high temperatures (> -50°C) due
to very high ambient supersaturations with respect to ice (of the order of 150%).
These warm contrails usually formed in the presence of diffuse cirrus. Water vapor
from sublimated ice crystals that entered the engine was probably necessary for
contrail formation in some of these cases. At temperatures above about -50°C,
contrails can only form if the ambient air is supersaturated with respect to ice, so
these contrails should persist and grow.Copyrighted by American Geophysical Union
A new approach for modeling delayed fireâinduced tree mortality
Abstract Global change is expanding the ecological niche of mixedâseverity fire regimes into ecosystems that have not usually been associated with wildfires, such as temperate forests and rainforests. In contrast to standâreplacing fires, mixedâseverity fires may result in delayed tree mortality driven by secondary factors such as postâfire environmental conditions. Because these effects vary as a function of time postâfire, their study using commonly applied logistic regression models is challenging. Here, we propose overcoming this challenge through the application of timeâexplicit survival models such as the KaplanâMeier (KMâ) estimator and the Cox proportionalâhazards (PHâ) model. We use data on tree mortality after mixedâseverity fires in beech forests to (1) illustrate temporal trends in the survival probabilities and the mortality hazard of beech, (2) estimate annual survival probabilities for different burn severities, and (3) consider driving factors with possible timeâdependent effects. Based on our results, we argue that the combination of KMâestimator and CoxâPH models have the potential of substantially improve the analysis of delayed postâdisturbance tree mortality by answering when and why tree mortality occurs. The results provide more specific information for implementing postâfire management measures
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