Strategic debt and unified governments: evidence from Latin American presidential transitions

The hypothesis on the strategic use of debt argues that governments issue more debt when facing higher probabilities of electoral defeat. Testing this hypothesis has proven challenging, since measures of those probabilities are potentially endogenous. However, during presidential transitions, the probability of electoral defeat becomes one if the incumbent was defeated in the election and zero if the incumbent was reelected. I thus use ex post electoral outcomes as a proxy of the probability of electoral defeat to construct measures of the electoral surprise and to estimate their impact on the budget deficit. Monthly data from Latin American democracies in 1980–2005 reveal that higher magnitudes of surprise defeats (wins) produce higher (lower) deficits when the executive controls the legislature, but there is no effect when the legislature is controlled by the opposition. While previous studies find that unified governments facilitate the manipulation of fiscal resources for electoral gain, here I show that such manipulation is extended even beyond electoral defeats, during presidential transitions

Broken promises: regime announcements and exchange rates around elections

We study exchange rate dynamics around government changes conditional on the exchange rate regime, which we identify by combining the IMF de jure and the Reinhart and Rogoff de facto exchange rate regime classifications. This allows distinguishing whether the official exchange rate regime announcements match actual policy or are inconsistent with it. Using monthly data from Latin American democracies, we do not find significant exchange rate depreciations before the change of government in any of the regimes we identify. However, we do detect a gradual real exchange rate overvaluation when the de jure regime is fixed but the de facto policy is flexible, which is abruptly corrected after the change of government; this pattern of real exchange rate misalignments when the announcement does not match actual behavior is linked to incumbents that postpone devaluations until the successor steps in. This pattern of broken promises is typical until 1999, but it becomes exceptional thereafter

Leaving the Classroom, Entering the City: An Educational Experience of Urban Synchronization for the Students of the Master of Architecture

The teaching-learning process of drawing the city is too often unrelated to the social reality that requests it. The numerous databases available online (IGN, cadastre, google earth ...) mean, while an excellent and valuable source of information, a distorted digital simulation of the city. The multiple layers of information available (roads, vegetation, real estate, properties, roads, topography, ...) refer to a different temporality from the current one and, although they are presented simultaneously, they are far from meaning to the digital twin with which technology companies intend (on many occasions) confuse them. The present teaching research work assumes that, in order to draw the city accordingly, it is necessary to become aware of the temporary disconnection between urban reality and the databases hosted on our web servers. This fact (the drawing of the city is constructed by fragments of other temporal moments), analysed in a teaching context, leads us to rethink the methodology of the teaching-learning process of urban drawing, in which the theory has traditionally prevailed over the practice and in which the representation of the city has had a fundamentally theoretical component. It is with these premises that the experience developed begins: leaving the classrooms for entering the city is the first step for students to become aware of the need to first-hand contrast the information with which they work and, in addition, is evidenced as an opportunity to build a personal database, present and, above all, aware of its limitations. By analysing the different results obtained, we will be able to argue the fundamental importance of contrasting the skills and abilities acquired during the years at the university (by our students themselves) and, at the same time, being able to solve the contemporary problems that are proposed by the representation of what we call city: the set of elements (in permanent change) which make up our life in society.The present work is developed as part of an R+D+I project entitled “The representation of time in graphic expression”, with reference Proyecto-emergente-GRE18-10 and financed, in public concurrence, by the Vice-Rectorate for Research and Transfer of Knowledge of the University of Alicante, Spain

Drawing Alicante / Drawing Palermo. An Experience of Teaching Innovation within the Erasmus+ Program

The present research work exposes the results of a teaching innovation experience carried out in connection with a mobility between Spain and Italy. We strongly believe that an inter-university experience, within the framework of a traditional academic program, can help students to learn new ways of understanding teaching, drawing, the profession and the architecture itself. The starting hypothesis defends the self-assessment as a method to build a critical positioning with respect to the drawing. To understand the research, it is necessary to explain the process: The students of the University of Alicante, within the framework of the Master of Architecture, have had the opportunity to propose a series of exercises to students of the first course of Architecture and Urbanism of the University of Palermo. The objective has been multiple. On one hand, the ability of students from Alicante to build statements that, in a graphic context, were coherent and could adapt to a specific academic year. On the other hand, the solvency of the students of Palermo to solve small graphical exercises outside their current educational program. But the experience does not end at this point. Once the exercises have been done, the students have played the role of teacher to assess, with the pertinent justification, the results of their proposals, and have sent their considerations and advice to their foreign colleagues. The conclusions of the work, as will be argued during the detailed analysis of the results, are as encouraging as they are exciting. The possible union links that were intuited at the beginning of the work have ended up constituting firm bridges of communication. Thanks to these bridges the students, exercising a role with more responsibility than the simple learner, have been able to maximize their abilities to help, in a graphic context, to build a shared criterion that, surely, will lay the foundations of their maturity as draftsmen and, therefore, as architects

Influencia de las elecciones y el alineamiento partidario en el federalismo fiscal: una visión a partir de la experiencia provincial argentina

La descentralización fiscal en países federales posibilita el surgimiento de ciclos electorales a nivel subnacional, sean provincias (como en Argentina o Canadá) o estados subnacionales (como en Brasil, México o Estados Unidos). Este fenómeno es bien conocido en la literatura sobre ciclos electorales en política fiscal, a las que nos referiremos, por su denominación en inglés, como PBCs (political budget cycles). A su vez, la literatura sobre política distributiva ha mostrado que existen sesgos partidistas en la distribución de los fondos nacionales. Una literatura más reciente muestra además que la política distributiva nacional está afectada por el ciclo electoral, lo que liga este fenómeno con los PBCs. Sin embargo, el foco ha estado puesto sobre qué sucede con las políticas fiscales a nivel nacional, mientras que no se discuten sus implicancias a nivel subnacional. Aquí en cambio ponemos el foco sobre las políticas provinciales y cómo son afectadas por las políticas distributivas nacionales, apoyándonos en la experiencia de las provincias argentinas. Nuestro aporte específico es mostrar que los PBCs subnacionales no se pueden analizar independientemente del comportamiento de las transferencias nacionales, ya que los componentes discrecionales de estas transferencias están afectados por intereses partidistas. Como el ciclo electoral está motivado por el afán de ganar elecciones, estas cuestiones fiscales están estrechamente relacionadas con la literatura sobre determinantes de popularidad y voto. Dados los elementos anteriores, el voto provincial va a estar afectado no solo por el desempeño del gobierno local sino también por la política distributiva nacional. Nosotros discutimos específicamente cómo las políticas nacionales afectan al voto para gobernador.Facultad de Ciencias Economica

Influencia de las elecciones y el alineamiento partidario en el federalismo fiscal : una visión a partir de la experiencia provincial argentina

La descentralización fiscal en países federales posibilita el surgimiento de ciclos electorales a nivel subnacional, sean provincias (como en Argentina o Canadá) o estados subnacionales (como en Brasil, México o Estados Unidos). Este fenómeno es bien conocido en la literatura sobre ciclos electorales en política fiscal, a las que nos referiremos, por su denominación en inglés, como PBCs (political budget cycles).Instituto EconomíaFil: Garofalo, Pablo. New Jersey City University. School of Business, Department of Economics; Estados UnidosFil: Lema, Rolando Daniel Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (INTA). Centro de Investigación en Ciencias Políticas, Económicas y Sociales. Instituto de Economía; Argentina. Universidad del Cema; ArgentinaFil: Streb, Jorge M. Universidad del Cema; Argentin

Quantitative Metabolomics Reveals an Epigenetic Blueprint for Iron Acquisition in Uropathogenic Escherichia coli

Bacterial pathogens are frequently distinguished by the presence of acquired genes associated with iron acquisition. The presence of specific siderophore receptor genes, however, does not reliably predict activity of the complex protein assemblies involved in synthesis and transport of these secondary metabolites. Here, we have developed a novel quantitative metabolomic approach based on stable isotope dilution to compare the complement of siderophores produced by Escherichia coli strains associated with intestinal colonization or urinary tract disease. Because uropathogenic E. coli are believed to reside in the gut microbiome prior to infection, we compared siderophore production between urinary and rectal isolates within individual patients with recurrent UTI. While all strains produced enterobactin, strong preferential expression of the siderophores yersiniabactin and salmochelin was observed among urinary strains. Conventional PCR genotyping of siderophore receptors was often insensitive to these differences. A linearized enterobactin siderophore was also identified as a product of strains with an active salmochelin gene cluster. These findings argue that qualitative and quantitative epi-genetic optimization occurs in the E. coli secondary metabolome among human uropathogens. Because the virulence-associated biosynthetic pathways are distinct from those associated with rectal colonization, these results suggest strategies for virulence-targeted therapies