Economic Voting in Portuguese Municipal Elections

This paper analyses the impact of economic conditions on Portuguese local electoral outcomes. We use two extensive datasets to estimate an economic voting model which accounts for the possibility that different levels of government have different levels of responsibility for economic outcomes and for clarity of government responsibility. Empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important especially if local governments are of the same party as the central government. The municipal situation is also relevant particularly in scenarios of higher clarity of government responsibilityLocal governments, Elections, Portugal, Voting, Economic conditions

Economic Voting in Portuguese Municipal Elections

This paper analyses the impact of economic conditions on Portuguese local electoral outcomes. We use two extensive datasets to estimate an economic voting model which accounts for the possibility that different levels of government have different levels of responsibility for economic outcomes and for clarity of government responsibility. Empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important especially if local governments are of the same party as the central government. The municipal situation is also relevant particularly in scenarios of higher clarity of government responsibility.Local governments, Elections, Portugal, Voting, Economic conditions

Turnout and the modeling of economic conditions: Evidence from Portuguese elections

This paper analyzes the impact of economic conditions on voter turnout at Portuguese legislative and municipal elections. We use four extensive datasets to estimate an economic turnout model in which local economic variables are included in quadratic form, so that non-linear effects can be taken into account. The first two datasets cover all mainland municipalities (currently 278), from 1979 to 2005. The other two are cross-sections of all 4037 mainland freguesias, used to analyze the determinants of turnout at the 2001 municipal elections and at the 2002 legislative elections. Empirical results indicate that the performance of the national economy is important only in legislative elections and that, in accordance with our expectations, the regional and local unemployment rates tend to have a non-linear relationship with turnout.Turnout, Local governments, Elections, Portugal, Economic conditions

Addressing organisational and societal concerns : an application of critical systems thinking to information systems planning in Colombia

Most current information system s (IS) planning methodologies are focused on achieving ‘successful’ plans, i.e. plans that provide competitive advantage, can be implemented in a given period of time, and that solve the problems of information needs by taking advantage of the latest technologies available. Concerns are technology and business driven, and focus on how to get the maximum profit for organisations from investing in information systems. However, this relatively narrow focus can be problematic, especially in developing countries where the social contexts of IS implementation may require a different primary focus. This chapter presents a methodology for IS planning based on critical systems thinking – an approach that encourages the critical analysis of stake holder understandings of social contexts prior to the selection and/ or design of planning methods. The methodology presented in this chapter uses a combination of the systems theories of autopoiesis and boundary critiques, which deepen our understanding of what it means to reflect on participation, values and social concerns during IS planning. In the course of applying the methodology in a project in Colombia, an issue arose of the ethics of the practitioner. To address this issue, following completion of the project, we sought to enhance critical systems thinking with Foucault ’s notions of power and ethics, which offer interesting alternatives for practitioner self-reflection. Implications for IS planning are derived from this perspective on ethics and power

Non-conservation of dimension in divergence-free solutions of passive and active scalar systems

For any $h\in(1,2]$, we give an explicit construction of a compactly supported, uniformly continuous, and (weakly) divergence-free velocity field in $\mathbb{R}^2$ that weakly advects a measure whose support is initially the origin but for positive times has Hausdorff dimension $h$. These velocities are uniformly continuous in space-time and compactly supported, locally Lipschitz except at one point and satisfy the conditions for the existence and uniqueness of a Regular Lagrangian Flow in the sense of Di Perna and Lions theory. We then construct active scalar systems in $\mathbb{R}^2$ and $\mathbb{R}^3$ with measure-valued solutions whose initial support has co-dimension 2 but such that at positive times it only has co-dimension 1. The associated velocities are divergence free, compactly supported, continuous, and sufficiently regular to admit unique Regular Lagrangian Flows. This is in part motivated by the investigation of dimension conservation for the support of measure-valued solutions to active scalar systems. This question occurs in the study of vortex filaments in the three-dimensional Euler equations.Comment: 32 pages, 3 figures. This preprint has not undergone peer review (when applicable) or any post-submission improvements or corrections. The Version of Record of this article is published in Arch Rational Mech Anal, and is available online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s00205-021-01708-

Tipo de cambio flexible y fijación de metas inflacionarias en Chile: experiencia y aspectos resaltantes

(Disponible en idioma inglés) Los primeros cinco años del régimen de tipo de cambio flexible y la fijación de metas inflacionarias en Chile han arrojado resultados positivos. La inflación está controlada, el tipo de cambio ha evolucionado a la par de las condiciones externas, la política monetaria ha sido de tipo anticíclico y todo indica que el ciclo se ha suavizado. Aunque ha aumentado la inestabilidad del tipo de cambio, tal como cabría anticipar con un sistema flexible, lo mismo ha ocurrido en otros países de características similares. Este aumento de la inestabilidad muestra valoraciones extremas del tipo de cambio real más bajas que en el pasado y también se aprecia en otros países con sistemas cambiarios distintos. Avances importantes en la profundización del mercado de derivados, así como una menor transmisión del tipo de cambio a la inflación, han contribuido a mejorar la credibilidad y la viabilidad del actual marco de políticas, al tiempo que se minimizan los costos potenciales derivados de ese marco.