Coconut lethal yellowing diseases: a phytoplasma threat to palms of global economic and social significance

The recent discovery of Bogia coconut syndrome in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is the first report of a lethal yellowing disease (LYD) in Oceania. Numerous outbreaks of LYDs of coconut have been recorded in the Caribbean and Africa since the late Nineteenth century and have caused the death of millions of palms across several continents during the Twentieth century. Despite the severity of economic losses, it was only in the 1970s that the causes of LYDs were identified as phytoplasmas, a group of insect-transmitted bacteria associated with diseases in many other economically important crop species. Since the development of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technology, knowledge of LYDs epidemiology, ecology and vectors has grown rapidly. There is no economically viable treatment for LYDs and vector-based management is hampered by the fact that vectors have been positively identified in very few cases despite many attempted transmission trials. Some varieties and hybrids of coconut palm are known to be less susceptible to LYD but none are completely resistant. Optimal and current management of LYD is through strict quarantine, prompt detection and destruction of symptomatic palms, and replanting with less susceptible varieties or crop species. Advances in technology such as loop mediated isothermal amplification (LAMP) for detection and tracking of phytoplasma DNA in plants and insects, remote sensing for identifying symptomatic palms, and the advent of clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats (CRISPR)-based tools for gene editing and plant breeding are likely to allow rapid progress in taxonomy as well as understanding and managing LYD phytoplasma pathosystems

Fiscal sustainability: The case for Jamaica

The paper assesses the sustainability of fiscal policy in Jamaica alongside a large public debt stock, albeit falling, in the context of an economic reform program. In addition, the paper examines the risks associated with the large public debt stock. Fiscal reaction functions are used to assess fiscal sustainability via an OLS, VAR, GMM and VECM models while the vulnerability of the public debt stock is evaluated using the IMF debt sustainability analysis (DSA) framework through shocks to real GDP, primary balance, interest rate, real exchange rate, and a combined shock. After the implementation of the country's economic reform program, the results show that fiscal policy in Jamaica is on a path to attain sustainability. However, after adjusting the sample to exclude the economic reform period, the findings show that fiscal policy in Jamaica is unsustainability. Further, the results indicate that in the long run a primary surplus of 4.8 per cent of GDP would be required to achieve a public debt-to-GDP ratio of 60 percent. The risk assessment of the public debt reveals that Jamaica's debt is most vulnerable to sharp exchange rate depreciations and that the overall risk to the public debt stock is high. Of note, the DSA results should be interpreted in the context within which the framework is created in that it does not account for all dynamics within the economy and therefore may overstate the extend of the impact. In light of the results and given that foreign currency debt accounts for approximately 60 percent of the public debt stock, it is critical to rebalance the debt portfolio in favour of domestic debt

SOME CONSIDERATIONS REGARDING THE MANIFESTATION OF FISCAL FRAUD IN ROMANIA

In our paper we shall try to present two mechanisms of fiscal fraud used by economical agents and also found in the control actions performed by the fiscal organs at different commercial societies from Romania. The presented mechanisms refer to the fiscal fraud resulted from fictitious acquisitions of goods and services done by Romanian firms which have as beneficiaries other commercial societies which are fiscally registered in Romania. Being empirically examined, the fiscal fraud will be presented through the use of some figures which will describe the detailed operations step by step.For the cases we have chosen to present we will describe the real circuit of goods and money according to the documents. We will also refer to the possibility of identifying the risk of fiscal fraud that results from the reports provided by the economic agents for different state institutions. We will also consider the information provide by the books of prime entry and bookkeeping, documents which have to be written by the commercial societies according to the Law accountancy nr. 82/199, with further modifications and completions. The mechanisms of fiscal fraud in use can be identical with the ones presented in this paper or they can be different as „new elements” can appear; these „new elements” depend on the type of activity performed, the modifications the legislative framework, the performers’ creativity or other external or internal factors which are not identified by the fiscal organs. By identifying the fiscal fraud mechanisms and the way in which they function, the fiscal organs will be given the opportunity to take the necessary measures so that the fiscal resources of the state consolidated budget should not be affected by such operations. It is will known that we can speak of fiscal fraud and shadow economy in any country but ,according to the reports and statistics published by different international institutions, Romania’s shadow economy represent almost 30% from the Gross Domestic Product. The Romanian authorities should carefully think about this phenomenon as it requires strict measures to reduced it