A Challenge for the G20: Globally Stipulated Debt Brakes and Transnational Independent Fiscal Supervisory Councils

Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialized economies. This requires disciplined consolidation efforts which are, however, supposed to come now at the wrong time with the economic recovery being fragile. Against this background, we call for a global debt brake following the German example and discuss the political progress achieved at the most recent Euro and G20 summits. The agreement on the debt brake should be binding and hence be fixed in national constitutions and monitored by independent transnational fiscal councils. The fiscal councils could be located at the ESM and the IMF and should conduct a regular evaluation of national budget plans. In an economic and political environment which is characterized by large uncertainties concerning economic prospects and the fear of a potential spreading of the sovereign debt crisis, a global debt brake in combination with an independent transnational supervisory council would send a credible signal that a reduction of sovereign debt to sustainable levels is not further delayed into the future. The new fiscal policy framework thus leaves enough room for discretionary fiscal policy and the workings of automatic stabilizers in an economic downturn.debt brake, fiscal council, G20

A Challenge for the G20: Globally Stipulated Debt Brakes and Transnational Independent Fiscal Supervisory Councils

Debt-to-GDP ratios have grown to unprecedented levels in many industrialized economies. This requires disciplined consolidation efforts which are, however, supposed to come now at the wrong time with the economic recovery being fragile. The countries forming the G20 need to make sure the long-term sustainability of public finances. Not least, this is indispensable in order to avoid a further spreading of the sovereign debt crisis. Against this background, we call for a global debt brake following the Swiss or German example which should be agreed upon in Cannes in early November 2011. The agreement on the debt brake should be binding – in contrast to previous expressions made at the G20-level to reduce government debt, as, for example, the Seoul Action Plan is lacking any binding character. Therefore, the debt brakes should be fixed in national constitutions and monitored by independent transnational fiscal councils. The fiscal councils could be located at the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and should conduct a regular evaluation of national budget plans in order to ensure that they meet the requirements stipulated by the debt brake. Through this global monitoring process, an early warning system could be developed with the aim to avoid sovereign debt crises and the resulting contagion risks among highly indebted countries in the future. In an economic and political environment which is characterized by large uncertainties concerning economic prospects and the fear of a potential spreading of the sovereign debt crisis, a global debt brake in combination with an independent transnational supervisory council would send a credible signal that a reduction of sovereign debt to sustainable levels is not further delayed into the future. Moreover, a well-designed debt brake ensures that the general government budget is balanced over the business cycle. Consequently, it is a more efficient instrument than the former Stability and Growth Pact for the Eurozone which in fact stipulated a ceiling for the budget deficit, but whose requirements regarding budget surpluses in good times were insufficient. This asymmetry is eliminated by those debt brakes which are in force in Switzerland and Germany. The new fiscal policy framework thus leaves enough room for discretionary fiscal policy and the workings of automatic stabilizers in an economic downturn.debt brake, fiscal council, G20

Eine Herausforderung für die G20: Global vereinbarte Schuldenbremsen und transnationale fiskalpolitische Aufsichtsgremien

Die Schuldenstände sind in vielen Industrieländern auf Rekordhöhen angestiegen. Dies erfordert disziplinierte Konsolidierungsanstrengungen, die im derzeitigen wirtschaftlichen Umfeld allerdings zu einem vermeintlich ungünstigen Zeitpunkt kommen. Die G20-Länder sind aufgefordert, die langfristige Nachhaltigkeit der öffentlichen Finanzen sicher zu stellen. Dies ist nicht zuletzt deshalb erforderlich, um eine weitere Ausbreitung der Staatsschuldenkrise zu vermeiden. Vor diesem Hintergrund appellieren wir an die G20 Staaten in Cannes Anfang November 2011, sich für eine globale Schuldenbremse nach schweizerischem oder deutschem Vorbild auszusprechen. Die Vereinbarung der G20-Länder sollte – im Gegensatz zu den bisherigen Absprachen auf G20-Ebene zum Abbau der Staatsverschuldung, siehe exemplarisch den unverbindlichen Seoul Action Plan – bindenden Charakter erhalten. Dieser muss durch eine Verankerung der Schuldenbremsen in den nationalen Verfassungen und eine Überwachung durch transnationale, unabhängige Expertengremien gewährleistet werden. Die Überwachungsgremien könnten beim Europäischen Stabilitätsmechanismus (ESM) und dem Internationalen Währungsfonds (IWF) angesiedelt sein und sollten eine regelmäßige Evaluierung der nationalen Budgetplanungen zur Einhaltung der Schuldenbremse vornehmen. Durch das globale Monitoring würde ein wirksames Frühwarnsystem mit dem Ziel entstehen, zukünftige Staatsschuldenkrisen und die daraus resultierenden Ansteckungsgefahren zu vermeiden. Eine globale Schuldenbremse in Verbindung mit einem unabhängigen transnationalen Aufsichtsgremium setzt im derzeitigen ökonomischen und politischen Umfeld, das durch große wirtschaftliche Unsicherheiten gekennzeichnet ist, zum einen ein glaubhaftes Signal, dass der Abbau der Staatsschulden nicht weiter in die Zukunft verschoben wird. Zum anderen stellt eine klug ausgestaltete Schuldenbremse sicher, dass der Staatshaushalt über den Konjunkturzyklus hinweg ausgeglichen ist. Sie ist somit ein wirksameres Instrument als zum Beispiel der bisherige Stabilitäts- und Wachstumspakt für die Eurozone, der zwar eine Defizit-Höchstgrenze vorsah, dessen Vorgaben hinsichtlich zu erwirtschaftender Überschüsse in guten Zeiten aber unzureichend waren. Diese Asymmetrie ist in den Modellen der schweizerischen und deutschen Schuldenbremse behoben. Die neue Regulierung der Fiskalpolitik lässt somit auch im wirtschaftlichen Abschwung genügend Raum für diskretionäre Maßnahmen sowie für das Wirken der automatischen Stabilisatoren.G20, Fiskalpolitische Aufsichtsgremien, Schuldenbremse

Angiotensin converting enzyme intron 16 insertion/deletion genotype is associated with plasma C-reactive protein concentration in uteroplacental dysfunction

Introduction: Disturbance of the uteroplacental circulation (UPC) and the renin-angiotensin system are involved in the pathogenesis of preeclampsia. In women with history of preeclampsia persistently elevated C-reactive protein (CRP) levels have been described. The angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) intron 16 insertion/deletion (I/D) genotype is associated with ACE activity and assumed to be a risk factor for preeclampsia. As ACE generates proinflammatory angiotensin II, we analysed, whether ACE intron 16 I/D genotype is associated with CRP and whether this association exhibited a relation to uteroplacental dysfunction. Materials and methods: A total of 639 women have been followed during pregnancy with repeated measurements of CRP levels (observations: n=2333). ACE intron 16 I/D genotype was determined, and its association with CRP was assessed with adjustment for non-independent observations. Results: CRP levels of ACE D allele carriers were significantly higher than those of the ACE II (wild-type) genotype (p=0.0003, p adj=0.04). This relation was allele-dose dependent (p<10−4, p adj<0.02). Association between ACE I/D and CRP was significantly restricted to patients presenting with impaired UPC in univariate (p<0.04) and multivariate analyses (p=0.01). Conclusions: The ACE I/D genotype is significantly associated with CRP elevations during pregnancies complicated by disturbed UPC. Whether this effect on CRP is involved in pathogenesis of preeclampsia has to be elucidated

A challenge for the G20: Global debt brakes and transnational fiscal supervisory councils

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TYDR - Track Your Daily Routine. Android App for Tracking Smartphone Sensor and Usage Data

We present the Android app TYDR (Track Your Daily Routine) which tracks smartphone sensor and usage data and utilizes standardized psychometric personality questionnaires. With the app, we aim at collecting data for researching correlations between the tracked smartphone data and the user's personality in order to predict personality from smartphone data. In this paper, we highlight our approaches in addressing the challenges in developing such an app. We optimize the tracking of sensor data by assessing the trade-off of size of data and battery consumption and granularity of the stored information. Our user interface is designed to incentivize users to install the app and fill out questionnaires. TYDR processes and visualizes the tracked sensor and usage data as well as the results of the personality questionnaires. When developing an app that will be used in psychological studies, requirements posed by ethics commissions / institutional review boards and data protection officials have to be met. We detail our approaches concerning those requirements regarding the anonymized storing of user data, informing the users about the data collection, and enabling an opt-out option. We present our process for anonymized data storing while still being able to identify individual users who successfully completed a psychological study with the app.Comment: Accepted for publication at the 5th IEEE/ACM International Conference on Mobile Software Engineering and Systems (MOBILESoft '18

Context Data Categories and Privacy Model for Mobile Data Collection Apps

Context-aware applications stemming from diverse fields like mobile health, recommender systems, and mobile commerce potentially benefit from knowing aspects of the user's personality. As filling out personality questionnaires is tedious, we propose the prediction of the user's personality from smartphone sensor and usage data. In order to collect data for researching the relationship between smartphone data and personality, we developed the Android app TYDR (Track Your Daily Routine) which tracks smartphone data and utilizes psychometric personality questionnaires. With TYDR, we track a larger variety of smartphone data than similar existing apps, including metadata on notifications, photos taken, and music played back by the user. For the development of TYDR, we introduce a general context data model consisting of four categories that focus on the user's different types of interactions with the smartphone: physical conditions and activity, device status and usage, core functions usage, and app usage. On top of this, we develop the privacy model PM-MoDaC specifically for apps related to the collection of mobile data, consisting of nine proposed privacy measures. We present the implementation of all of those measures in TYDR. Although the utilization of the user's personality based on the usage of his or her smartphone is a challenging endeavor, it seems to be a promising approach for various types of context-aware mobile applications.Comment: Accepted for publication at the 15th International Conference on Mobile Systems and Pervasive Computing (MobiSPC 2018