The role of fiscal rules and institutions in shaping budgetary outcomes

The Workshop "The role of fiscal rules and institutions in shaping budgetary outcomes" organized by the Directorate-General for Economic and Financial affairs of the European Commission on 24 November 2006 in Brussels aimed at enriching the debate on the fiscal arrangements and improving the understanding of their functioning. This Economic Paper contains all the paper presented in this event that was organised in four sessions. A first set of papers mainly focus on the impact of numerical fiscal rules on budgetary outturns. Other paper deal primarily with the appropriate design of fiscal rules and institutions. An additional group of papers addresses the relationship between the fiscal governance approach adopted by the EU Member States and their institutional and political frameworks. Finally the remaining presentations relate more directly to policy experiences. fiscal rules, budget, institutions.fiscal rules, budget, institutions, Ayuso-i-Casals, Deroose, Flores, Moulin

Long and short-term variability of aggregate size distribution in tillage and chemical fallow

Non-Peer ReviewedSize distribution of aggregates is one of the most important factors which affect soil erodibility with respect to wind erosion. A long-term study was established in 1968 to investigate the influence of tillage and chemical fallow systems on aggregate size distribution. The cropping systems involved fallow with herbicides only, herbicides in combination with one or two tillage operations, and tillage alone. Significant differences in aggregate size distribution were found between years during the period between 1968 and 1986. It was clear that in some years Melfort soils were highly erodible. In 1991, aggregate size distribution was measured at 5 times during the fallow season in order to evaluate the effects of the different cropping systems, determine aggregate size distribution with depth, and to compare variability over the long and short term. The percentage of aggregates at the surface in the 0 to 0.5 mm size fraction decreased after tillage with a double disk, and increased with time thereafter despite further cultivation with a field cultivator, but remained relatively constant under chemical fallow. During the period of this study it was clear that there were two distinct sources of variability in soil erodibility. Both sources of variability should be taken into account if soil erodibility is to be predicted over the long term

Uncertainties on mean areal precipitation: assessment and impact on streamflow simulations

International audienceThis paper investigates the influence of mean areal rainfall estimation errors on a specific case study: the use of lumped conceptual rainfall-runoff models to simulate the flood hydrographs of three small to medium-sized catchments of the upper Loire river. This area (3200 km2) is densely covered by an operational network of stream and rain gauges. It is frequently exposed to flash floods and the improvement of flood forecasting models is then a crucial concern. Particular attention has been drawn to the development of an error model for rainfall estimation consistent with data in order to produce realistic streamflow simulation uncertainty ranges. The proposed error model combines geostatistical tools based on kriging and an autoregressive model to account for temporal dependence of errors. It has been calibrated and partly validated for hourly mean areal precipitation rates. Simulated error scenarios were propagated into two calibrated rainfall-runoff models using Monte Carlo simulations. Three catchments with areas ranging from 60 to 3200 km2 were tested to reveal any possible links between the sensitivity of the model outputs to rainfall estimation errors and the size of the catchment. The results show that a large part of the rainfall-runoff (RR) modelling errors can be explained by the uncertainties on rainfall estimates, especially in the case of smaller catchments. These errors are a major factor limiting accuracy and sharpness of rainfallrunoff simulations, and thus their operational use for flood forecasting

Rapid assessment of soil salinity

Non-Peer Reviewe

Towards the ultimate reach of current Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes to TeV Dark Matter

Indirect detection opens a unique window for probing thermal dark matter (DM): the same annihilation process that determined the relic abundance in the early Universe drives the present day astrophysical signal. While TeV-scale particles weakly coupled to the Standard Model face undoubted challenges from decades of null searches, the scenario remains compelling, and simple realizations such as Higgsino DM remain largely unexplored. The fate of such scenarios could be determined by gamma-ray observations of the centre of the Milky Way with Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes (IACTs). We consider the ultimate sensitivity of current IACTs to a broad range of TeV-scale DM candidates - including specific ones such as the Wino, Higgsino, and Quintuplet. To do so, we use realistic mock H.E.S.S.-like observations of the inner Milky Way halo, and provide a careful assessment of the impact of recent Milky Way mass modeling, instrumental and astrophysical background uncertainties in the Galactic Center region, and the theoretical uncertainty on the predicted signal. We find that the dominant systematic for IACT searches in the inner Galaxy is the unknown distribution of DM in that region, however, beyond this the searches are currently statistically dominated indicating a continued benefit from more observations. For two-body final states at $1~{\rm TeV}$, we find a H.E.S.S.-like observatory is sensitive to $\langle \sigma v \rangle \sim 3 \times 10^{-26}-4 \times 10^{-25}~{\rm cm}^3{\rm s}^{-1}$, except for neutrino final states, although we find results competitive with ANTARES. In addition, the thermal masses for the Wino and Quintuplet can be probed; the Higgsino continues to be out of reach by at least a factor of a few. Our conclusions are also directly relevant to the next generation Cherenkov Telescope Array, which remains well positioned to be the discovery instrument for thermal DM.Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, including appendi

Equilibria in Sequential Allocation

Sequential allocation is a simple mechanism for sharing multiple indivisible items. We study strategic behavior in sequential allocation. In particular, we consider Nash dynamics, as well as the computation and Pareto optimality of pure equilibria, and Stackelberg strategies. We first demonstrate that, even for two agents, better responses can cycle. We then present a linear-time algorithm that returns a profile (which we call the "bluff profile") that is in pure Nash equilibrium. Interestingly, the outcome of the bluff profile is the same as that of the truthful profile and the profile is in pure Nash equilibrium for \emph{all} cardinal utilities consistent with the ordinal preferences. We show that the outcome of the bluff profile is Pareto optimal with respect to pairwise comparisons. In contrast, we show that an assignment may not be Pareto optimal with respect to pairwise comparisons even if it is a result of a preference profile that is in pure Nash equilibrium for all utilities consistent with ordinal preferences. Finally, we present a dynamic program to compute an optimal Stackelberg strategy for two agents, where the second agent has a constant number of distinct values for the items

Remembering and knowing: using another's subjective report to make inferences about memory strength and subjective experience

The Remember-Know paradigm is commonly used to examine experiential states during recognition. In this paradigm, whether a Know response is defined as a high-confidence state of certainty or a low-confidence state based on familiarity varies across researchers, and differences in definitions and instructions have been shown to influence participants' responding. Using a novel approach, in three internet-based questionnaires participants were placed in the role of 'memory expert' and classified others' justifications of recognition decisions. Results demonstrated that participants reliably differentiated between others' memory experiences--both in terms of confidence and other inherent differences in the justifications. Furthermore, under certain conditions, manipulations of confidence were found to shift how items were assigned to subjective experience categories (Remember, Know, Familiar, and Guess). Findings are discussed in relation to the relationship between subjective experience and confidence, and the separation of Know and Familiar response categories within the Remember-Know paradigm

An integrating factor matrix method to find first integrals

In this paper we developed an integrating factor matrix method to derive conditions for the existence of first integrals. We use this novel method to obtain first integrals, along with the conditions for their existence, for two and three dimensional Lotka-Volterra systems with constant terms. The results are compared to previous results obtained by other methods