FDI determination and corporate tax competition in a volatile world

This paper investigates the role of economic and political volatility in the process of corporate tax-rate determination. The article is based on a theoretical framework that allows for the ability of multinational firms to choose the optimal timing of foreign investment and to shift profits by transfer pricing, and provides an empirical analysis on a large panel data set of countries over the 1983-2003 period. First, a reduced-form dynamic equation of corporate tax rate determination is estimated by the generalised method of moments (GMM), where a country's top statutory corporate tax rate depends on a number of measures of economic and political volatility. The fundamental testable prediction derived from the theoretical model is that increased volatility should reduce a country's corporate tax rate. Our results support the hypothesis that economic volatility is associated with lower top statutory corporate tax rates, while our measures of political volatility have no significant impact on corporate taxation policy. In order to identify the channels through which volatility works, we also estimate a structural model allowing for simultaneous determination of the corporate tax rate and the inflow of FDI to a particular country. The estimates of the structural model show that economic volatility affects the corporate tax setting process through their impact on FDI inflow

Rainwater harvesting for home-garden irrigation: a case study in Italy

In residential buildings, drinking water is often used for tasks that do not necessarily require high quality water, such as home-garden irrigation. Our research focuses on the idea of harvesting rainwater to promote sustainable management of low-quality water resources on a building scale for irrigation purposes. The effectiveness of a collection system depends on the weather conditions, which determine also the water need of the plants, on the size of the cultivated area and on the collection surfaces. In this research, a rainwater harvesting system (RWH) for the irrigation of home-gardens in the city of Celano (L'Aquila - Italy) has been analysed. The obtained results show that to maximize water savings a great investment is necessary, i.e. not refundable in a reasonable period due to the low cost of drinking water. On the contrary, to maximize the economic return, it is required a smaller and cheaper tank, but the maximum water savings efficiency decrease to about 60%. In the latter case the RWH system can be cheaper than an irrigation plant supplied by the aqueduct. In the work graphs are provided for practical design use for realizing a RWH system in areas with meteorological conditions similar to those of the survey area, according both the highest water savings efficiency or the highest economic return

Discretization-related issues in the KPZ equation: Consistency, Galilean-invariance violation, and fluctuation--dissipation relation

In order to perform numerical simulations of the KPZ equation, in any dimensionality, a spatial discretization scheme must be prescribed. The known fact that the KPZ equation can be obtained as a result of a Hopf--Cole transformation applied to a diffusion equation (with \emph{multiplicative} noise) is shown here to strongly restrict the arbitrariness in the choice of spatial discretization schemes. On one hand, the discretization prescriptions for the Laplacian and the nonlinear (KPZ) term cannot be independently chosen. On the other hand, since the discretization is an operation performed on \emph{space} and the Hopf--Cole transformation is \emph{local} both in space and time, the former should be the same regardless of the field to which it is applied. It is shown that whereas some discretization schemes pass both consistency tests, known examples in the literature do not. The requirement of consistency for the discretization of Lyapunov functionals is argued to be a natural and safe starting point in choosing spatial discretization schemes. We also analyze the relation between real-space and pseudo-spectral discrete representations. In addition we discuss the relevance of the Galilean invariance violation in these consistent discretization schemes, and the alleged conflict of standard discretization with the fluctuation--dissipation theorem, peculiar of 1D.Comment: RevTex, 23pgs, 2 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev.

Age-related increase in resistance to acute Trypanosoma cruzi infection in rats is associated with an appropriate antibody response

Inoculation at weaning with Trypanosoma cruzi in inbred 'l' rats resulted in a self-resolving acute infection characterized by marked parasitaemias, whereas challenge to adult rats revealed a mild disease with extremely low parasitaemias. To explore the mechanisms underlying such age-associated differences in disease outcome, we analysed the in vitro replication of T. cruzi, nitric oxide and tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) production in peritoneal macrophages (PMs), the serum concentrations of the specific immunoglobulins (Igs) IgM and IgG, antibodies exhibiting lytic activity against bloodstream forms of T. cruzi and circulating levels of nitrate, TNF-α and interferon-γ (IFN-γ). Macrophages from young rats were as effective as their adult counterparts for restraining intracellular parasite replication. When stimulated with IFN-γ, culture supernatants from young PMs contained higher amounts of nitrite and TNF-α. Serum samples from 4 and 7 days post infection revealed easily detectable amounts of nitrate, with values being further augmented by day 7 post infection and significantly higher in the young group. TNF-α levels were only detected in the young group by day 7 post infection. Both groups had increased amounts of IFN-γ in their sera, although in adult rats, this trend was followed by a significant drop at day 7, with young rats showing values still higher by the same time point evaluation. In contrast, young rats presented significantly lower levels of IgM and IgG antibodies during the first week of infection. Increased resistance in adult rats seems to be the result of a more appropriate antibody production.Fil: Pascutti, María Fernanda. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Bottasso, Oscar Adelmo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Hourquescos, M. C.. Universidad Nacional de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Wietzerbin, Jeanne. Institute Curie; FranciaFil: Revelli, Silvia Susana. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología Clinica y Experimental de Rosario; Argentin

Yardstick Competition in German Municipalities

Does increasing transparency improve fiscal policy behavior of local governments? One way this could take place is via Yardstick Competition between incumbents of neighboring municipalities. This paper contributes to the literature by introducing a simple model which employs probabilistic voting to show the effect of Yardstick Competition on the amount of political rents diverted from the tax revenue. Since additional rents lower the probability of being reelected, the incumbent will reduce equilibrium rents if voters use information on fiscal performance in similar municipalities to evaluate the incumbent's quality. I test this hypothesis on a panel dataset of municipal budget and electoral data in the german state of Northrine-Westphalia. I show evidence for Yardstick Competition in the local business and property tax rates.Kann zunehmende Transparenz im kommunalen Budgetprozess die fiskalpolitische Disziplin der politischen Entscheidungsträger verbessern? In dieser Arbeit wird ein positiver Modellrahmen entwickelt, anhand dessen die Wirkungsweise von steigen - der Transparenz auf das Entscheidungsverhalten von Kommunalpolitikern durch den Yardstick Competition Effekt dargestellt werden kann. Politiker reduzieren die Veruntreuung finanzieller Mittel, wenn ihr Verhalten von den Wählern relativ zur Leistung von Politikern in benachbarten Kommunen bewertet wird. Unter Anwendung von Methoden der räumlichen Ökonometrie auf kommunale Haushalts- und Wahldaten der Jahre 1989 bis 2004 wird gezeigt, dass die räumliche Korrelation in den Gewerbe- und Grundsteuerhebesätzen in Nordrhein-Westfalen auf die Existenz von Yardstick Competition zurückzuführen ist

The weight of water

Leonardo da Vinci’s pioneering work on hydrostatics combined traditional knowledge and innovative empiricism in an attempt to understand an object fraught with paradox: the water-filled container

Economic evaluation of Medically Assisted Reproduction: An educational overview of methods and applications for healthcare professionals

Economic evaluations of the value-for-money of Medically Assisted Reproduction (MAR) interventions are increasingly important due to growing pressure on healthcare budgets. Although such evaluations are commonplace in the published literature, the number/methodological complexity of different evaluations available, and the challenges specific to MAR interventions, can complicate the interpretation of such analyses for fertility treatments. This article aims to serve as an educational resource and provide context on the design/interpretation of economic analyses for MAR interventions. Several areas are relevant for first-line providers and decision makers: scope of analysis, comparator used, perspective/time horizon considered, outcomes used to measure success, and how results from cost-effectiveness studies can be summarised and used in clinical practice. We aim to help clinicians better understand the strengths/weaknesses of economic analyses, to enable the best use of the evidence in practice, so resources available for MAR interventions can provide maximum value to patients and society

Deficient control of Trypanosoma cruzi infection in C57BL/6 mice is related to a delayed specific IgG response and increased macrophage production of pro-inflammatory cytokines

Earlier work in Trypanosoma cruzi-infected C57BL/6 and BALB/c mice revealed an acute disease, of lethal outcome in the former group and lesser severity in BALB/c mice. Fatal course was not accompanied by an increased parasite load, but by a substantial imbalance between pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokine serum levels. To better characterise the mechanisms allowing the host to restrain the infection, we have now studied the specific IgG production and in vitro behaviour of peritoneal macrophages (PMs) when exposed to T. cruzi. BALC/c mice displayed higher serum levels of specific immunoglobulins in the first weeks of acute infection. In vitro infected PMs showed no between-group differences in the number of intracellular parasites, although TNFalpha levels were significantly higher in culture supernatants from C57BL/6 mice. Because an LPS-based pretreatment (desensitisation protocol followed by a sublethal LPS dose) reduced disease severity of C57BL/6 mice, we next explored the features of the in vitro infection in PMs from mice subjected to such protocol. PMs from LPS-pretreated mice had a decreased production of TNFalpha and IL-1beta, becoming more permissive to parasite replication. It is concluded that deficient control of T. cruzi infection in C57BL/6 mice may also involve a less satisfactory specific IgG response and increased TNFalpha production by PMs. Improved disease outcome in LPS-pretreated mice may be associated with the reduced inflammatory cytokine production by PMs, but the impaired ability of these cells to control parasite growth suggests that compensatory mechanisms are operating in the in vivo situation.Fil: Perez, Ana Rosa. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Tamae Kakazu, M.. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Pascutti, María Fernanda. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; ArgentinaFil: Roggero, Eduardo Angel. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Serra, Esteban Carlos. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Rosario. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Bioquímicas y Farmacéuticas. Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Rosario; ArgentinaFil: Revelli, Silvia Susana. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; ArgentinaFil: Bottasso, Oscar Adelmo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas; Argentina. Universidad Nacional de Rosario. Facultad de Ciencias Médicas. Instituto de Inmunología; Argentin