Fiscal illusion, fiscal consolidation and government expenditure composition in the OECD: a dynamic panel data approach

Following the present atmosphere of budgetary cuts in the OECD countries we analyze the effects of fiscal consolidation in the composition of government expenditures by functions. We modify a standard median voter demand model to incorporate a form of fiscal illusion based on the idea that voters-taxpayers may not be fully aware of the true composition of government expenditures because all types of expenditures are not equally visible. Then we exploit the panel structure of the dataset - 26 OECD countries over the period 1970-1997- by GMM estimation of a dynamic model taking into account unobserved country effects and possible endogeinity of the explanatory variables. Under the assumption that governments know the relative visibility of each type of expenditure, the pattern of the last three decades indicates that defense and the non-productive economic services are the less visible expenditures. On the other hand, education and housing seem to be the more visible expenditures.

The evolution and convergence of the government expenditure composition in the OECD countries: an analysis of the functional distribution

The composition of the public expenditure affects the long-run growth rate (Barro, 1990, Devarajan, Swaroop and Zou, 1996). This paper has explored the existence of convergence in the structure of government expenditure by functions in the OECD countries for the period 1970-1998 and the perspectives of this process to persist in the future. The results obtained first through the similarity index and afterwards using the usual convergence indicators (ƒÒ, ƒã and ƒ×), adapted to the analysis of the breakdown of public expenditure, point out to the existence of a distribution approximation. Nevertheless, we have found that the majority of expenditures were near to the steady-state, which differs across countries. This reveals that there are some individual factors that impede the convergence to a single structure in the long run. This could be one of the explanations of the difference observed among economic growth rates in developed countries.convergence, composition of public expenditures, funtions of the government

The evolution and convergence of the government expenditure composition in the OECD countries: an analysis of the functional distribution

This paper explores the existence of convergence in the structure of government expenditure by functions in the OECD countries for the period 1970-1998 and the prospects of this process persisting in the future. The results obtained first through the similarity index and afterwards using the usual convergence indicators, adapted to the analysis of the breakdown of public expenditure, point to the existence of a distribution approximation. Nevertheless, we have found that the majority of expenditures were near to the steady-state, which differs across countries. This suggests that there are some individual factors that impede convergence to a single structure in the long run.

Prolamin content and grain weight in RNAi silenced wheat lines under different conditions of temperature and nitrogen availability

Temperature and nitrogen (N) availability are two important environmental factors that may produce important changes in grain composition during grain filling of bread wheat. In this study, four wheat lines with the down-regulation of gliadins by means of RNA interference (RNAi) have been characterized to determine the effect of thermal stress and N availability on grain weight and quality; with focus on gliadin and glutenin protein fractions. Grain weight was reduced with heat stress (HS) in all RNAi lines, whereas gliadin content was increased in the wild-types. With respect to gliadin content, RNAi lines responded to HS and N availability differently from their respective wild-types, except for ω-gliadin content, indicating a very clear stability of silencing under different environmental conditions. In a context of increased temperature and HS events, and in environments with different N availability, the RNAi lines with down-regulated gliadins seem well suited for the production of wheat grain with low gliadin content.The Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (Project AGL2016-80566-P) and the European Regional Development Fund (FEDER) supported this research

The enlightment fashion or the old-fashioned nobility. Houses of capitular Burgos clergy in the eighteent-century

El acceso al contenido de los inventarios post-mortem de algunos de los titulares de la capiscolía de la Catedral de Burgos permite analizar la existencia de contrastes nítidos entre las formas de vida, la cultura material y los perfiles ideológicos de clérigos con diferentes sensibilidades y talantes. Unas escoradas hacia usanzas de raigambre aristocrática más del pasado y otras ligadas a estrategias más ilustradas y de sesgo más moderno, más burgués y “progresista”.The access to the content of probate inventories of some of the headlines of the capiscolia of Burgos Cathedral make possible to analyse the existence of sharp contrasts between the way of life, material culture and ideological profiles of clergy with different sensibilities and moods. Some of them inclined toward more aristocratic roots usages from the past and others linked to more modern and enlightened strategies, more middle class and “progressive”