Federalism, Decentralization, and Economic Growth

The distribution of competencies between the different levels of a federal system may have remarkable effects on economic growth, because mainly the regions of a country contribute to national economic development. Thus, a government’s economic policy is reasonably shaped along regional lines. The theoretical discussion in economics focuses however on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision and financing of public services; rarely the argument is raised that decentralization or federalism increases growth through a higher ability of the political system to innovate and to carry out reforms. After a discussion of the theoretical arguments on federalism and growth, we address the empirical question in this paper how important the assignment of decision making competencies and the design of fiscal federalism are for economic development. Finally, on the basis of existing theoretical and empirical studies on economic growth and federalism, open questions and possible ways of answering them are presented.

Regional and Transregional Currents in the Shallows of Lake Chad

Der Beitrag analysiert die Spannung zwischen der Interpretation eines Konflikts und den regionalen oder transregionalen Reaktionen darauf. Den empirischen Fokus bildet das militärische Vorgehen der Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) – Benin, Kamerun, Tschad, Niger und Nigeria – gegen Boko Haram. Dieses Vorgehen ist zwar in einem regionalen Kontext verankert und wird von der Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC) koordiniert, doch zugleich auch in einem transregionalen Kontext, im Rahmen der Kooperation zwischen zwei Regional Economic Communities, der Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) und der Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). Keine dieser beiden räumlichen Verankerungen sind einfach gegeben, vielmehr sind es bestimmte Akteure, die den regionalen oder transregionalen Charakter des Konflikts und der entsprechenden Reaktionen produzieren und reproduzieren.This article addresses the tension between the conception of a conflict and the ensuing response as regional or as transregional. The empirical focus is the military response within the Multinational Joint Task Force (MNJTF) – comprised of Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria – against Boko Haram. This response is situated in a regional context, as its coordinating forum is the Lake Chad Basin Commission (LCBC), but also in a transregional one, through the cooperation between two Regional Economic Communities (RECs), the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and the Economic Community of Central African States (ECCAS). This article cautions that neither of these two framings is a given. Rather, particular actors produce and reproduce the regional or respectively transregional character of a security concern as well as its response

Divided Government European Style? Electoral and Mechanical Causes of European Parliament and Council Divisions

Voters who participate in elections to the European Parliament tend to use these elections to punish their domestic governing parties. Many students of the EU therefore claim that the party-political composition of the Parliament should systematically differ from that of the Council. This study, which compares empirically the party-political centers of gravity of these two central political actors, shows that opposed majorities between Council and Parliament may have other than simply electoral causes. The logic of domestic government formation works against the representation of politically more extreme parties, and hence against more EU-skeptic parties in the Council. At the same time, voters in EP elections vote more often for these more extreme and more EU-skeptic parties. The different locations of Council and Parliament in the pro-/contra-EU dimension may thus be caused by two – possibly interrelated – effects: a mechanical effect, due to the translation of votes into seats and then into 'office', and thus also into Council representation, and an electoral effect in elections to the European Parliament. The paper discusses the implications of this finding for our understanding of the political system of the EU and of its democratic legitimacy.Regelmäßig scheinen Wähler Europawahlen dazu zu nutzen, ihre jeweilige nationale Regierung elektoral zu bestrafen. Viele Beobachter der Wahlen zum Europäischen Parlament gehen daher davon aus, dass die parteipolitische Ausrichtung des Parlaments systematisch von der des Ministerrats abweicht. Die vorliegende Analyse, die die parteipolitische Zusammensetzung dieser beiden zentralen europapolitischen Akteure empirisch vergleicht, zeigt, dass neben den elektoralen Ursachen auch andere Gründe für gegenläufige Mehrheiten zwischen Parlament und Rat verantwortlich sein können. Die Logik der Regierungsbildung auf nationalstaatlicher Ebene führt dazu, dass "zentristische" und damit eher europafreundliche Parteien überproportional stark im Rat vertreten sind. In Europawahlen hingegen geben Wähler häufig extremer positionierten, das heißt auch europaskeptischeren Parteien ihre Stimme. Die politische Distanz zwischen Rat und Parlament resultiert in der Pro/contra-EU-Dimension daher aus dem Zusammenwirken zweier, möglicherweise miteinander verbundener Effekte: elektoralen und "mechanischen" Gründen für divided government in Europa. Das Papier diskutiert die Implikationen dieses Befundes für unser Verständnis von der Funktionsweise der EU und ihrer demokratischen Legitimation

Charge fluctuations and electric mass in a hot meson gas

Net-Charge fluctuations in a hadron gas are studied using an effective hadronic interaction. The emphasis of this work is to investigate the corrections of hadronic interactions to the charge fluctuations of a non-interacting resonance gas. Several methods, such as loop, density and virial expansions are employed. The calculations are also extended to SU(3) and some resummation schemes are considered. Although the various corrections are sizable individually, they cancel to a large extent. As a consequence we find that charge fluctuations are rather well described by the free resonance gas.Comment: 32 pages, 18 figure

Ramsey interferometry with an atom laser

We present results on a free-space atom interferometer operating on the first order magnetically insensitive |F=1,mF=0> -> |F=2,mF=0> transition of Bose-condensed 87Rb atoms. A pulsed atom laser is output-coupled from a Bose-Einstein condensate and propagates through a sequence of two internal state beam splitters, realized via coherent Raman transitions between the two interfering states. We observe Ramsey fringes with a visibility close to 100% and determine the current and the potentially achievable interferometric phase sensitivity. This system is well suited to testing recent proposals for generating and detecting squeezed atomic states.Comment: published version, 8 pages, 3 figure

Inertia and chiral edge modes of a skyrmion magnetic bubble

The dynamics of a vortex in a thin-film ferromagnet resembles the motion of a charged massless particle in a uniform magnetic field. Similar dynamics is expected for other magnetic textures with a nonzero skyrmion number. However, recent numerical simulations revealed that skyrmion magnetic bubbles show significant deviations from this model. We show that a skyrmion bubble possesses inertia and derive its mass from the standard theory of a thin-film ferromagnet. Besides center-of-mass motion, other low energy modes are waves on the edge of the bubble traveling with different speeds in opposite directions.Comment: updated simulation detail

Reform der Gewerbesteuer: Wie es Euch gefällt? - Eine Nachlese

One of the most pertinent reform discussions in Germany is found in the debate on the local business tax. During the last year, two basic reform proposals, a ‚revitalisation‘ of the current local business tax and its replacement by a surcharge on personal and corporate income taxes, intensively competed. Finally, none of these alternatives was realised. The federal parliament and government could only agree to introduce temporary financial relieves for local jurisdictions. In this paper, the continuous need for a fundamental reform of local government finances is emphasised. After a discussion of the basic alternative reform models against the background of characteristics of economically reasonable local government finances, the simulated impact of a local surcharge on income taxes is compared to the tax rate differences at the local level in Switzerland. The surcharge model would lead to smaller tax rate differentials than currently exist at the Swiss local level. The resistance against such a reform is explained by the fact that political actors at the local level oppose the implied higher political responsibility when citizens face local income tax rates as prices for local public services.

Optimal time-dependent polarized current pattern for fast domain wall propagation in nanowires: Exact solutions for biaxial and uniaxial anisotropies

One of the important issues in nanomagnetism is to lower the current needed for a technologically useful domain wall (DW) propagation speed. Based on the modified Landau-Lifshitz-Gilbert (LLG) equation with both Slonczewski spin-transfer torque and the field-like torque, we derive the optimal spin current pattern for fast DW propagation along nanowires. Under such conditions, the DW velocity in biaxial wires can be enhanced as much as ten times compared to the velocities achieved in experiments so far. Moreover, the fast variation of spin polarization can help DW depinning. Possible experimental realizations are discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Pulsed pumping of a Bose-Einstein condensate

In this work, we examine a system for coherent transfer of atoms into a Bose-Einstein condensate. We utilize two spatially separate Bose-Einstein condensates in different hyperfine ground states held in the same dc magnetic trap. By means of a pulsed transfer of atoms, we are able to show a clear resonance in the timing of the transfer, both in temperature and number, from which we draw conclusions about the underlying physical process. The results are discussed in the context of the recently demonstrated pumped atom laser.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, published in Physical Review

Cold atom gravimetry with a Bose-Einstein Condensate

We present a cold atom gravimeter operating with a sample of Bose-condensed Rubidium-87 atoms. Using a Mach-Zehnder configuration with the two arms separated by a two-photon Bragg transition, we observe interference fringes with a visibility of 83% at T=3 ms. We exploit large momentum transfer (LMT) beam splitting to increase the enclosed space-time area of the interferometer using higher-order Bragg transitions and Bloch oscillations. We also compare fringes from condensed and thermal sources, and observe a reduced visibility of 58% for the thermal source. We suspect the loss in visibility is caused partly by wavefront aberrations, to which the thermal source is more susceptible due to its larger transverse momentum spread. Finally, we discuss briefly the potential advantages of using a coherent atomic source for LMT, and present a simple mean-field model to demonstrate that with currently available experimental parameters, interaction-induced dephasing will not limit the sensitivity of inertial measurements using freely-falling, coherent atomic sources.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures. Final version, published PR