Budgetary policies during recessions. Retrospective application of the "stability and growth pact" to the post-war period. Economic Papers No. 121, May 1997

Over recent years, the budgetary policies carried out by Western countries during the Post-War period have been analysed extensively in the literature. Several studies have pointed to the interaction of economic and political factors and underlined the important role of institutions and procedures in shaping policies and outcomes1. Considerable attention has been devoted to budgetary consolidation processes, with some studies emphasising the role of the composition of budgetary measures in determining the success of these policies2. The purpose of this paper is to analyse budgetary policies carried out during and after severe recessions, an issue which the above-mentioned literature has not yet focused upon

Attacking quantum key distribution with single-photon two-qubit quantum logic

The Fuchs-Peres-Brandt (FPB) probe realizes the most powerful individual attack on Bennett-Brassard 1984 quantum key distribution (BB84 QKD) by means of a single controlled-NOT (CNOT) gate. This paper describes a complete physical simulation of the FPB-probe attack on polarization-based BB84 QKD using a deterministic CNOT constructed from single-photon two-qubit quantum logic. Adding polarization-preserving quantum nondemolition measurements of photon number to this configuration converts the physical simulation into a true deterministic realization of the FPB attack.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; references added, 1 new figure, appendix expanded; accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.