Earmarking government revenues : does it work ?

Earmarking is the practice of assigning revenues from specific taxes or groups of taxes to specific government activities or to broader areas of government activity. As such, it contrasts with general fund financing where monies are pooled to be used for various government purposes. In practice, earmarking has come into being via statute or via constitutional clauses mandating that certain revenues only be used for specified activities. Governments often circumvent the intentions of earmarking by withholding funds or failing to change prices or taxes or, if need be, simply suspending the earmarking arrangements. One section of this report reviews the Bank's attitude toward earmarking and then summarizes its experience with a number of road funds in developing countries.Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,National Governance,Banks&Banking Reform

Alaska Correctional Requirements: A Forecast of Prison Population through the Year 2000

This report is part of the Fire Island Prison Feasibility Study, a project conducted jointly by the School of Justice and School of Engineering at University of Alaska, Anchorage under contract to the Alaska Department of Corrections. The project undertook to assess the feasibility of locating a correctional facility on a 4,240 acre tract of land on Fire Island, which lies in Upper Cook Inlet about three miles off Point Campbell within the Municipality of Anchorage. The project was divided into three major phases: (1) an assessment of future bed space needs of the Alaska Department of Corrections; (2) an evaluation of the physical site and cost estimates for prison construction and operation; and (3) a public opinion survey and open discussion.The growth of the Alaska prison inmate population over the past fifteen years has been substantial. According to available statistics there were 482 institutionalized adult prisoners under control of the Alaska Division of Corrections in January 1971; by January 1980 this population had increased to 770 inmates; and between 1980 and 1985, the number of Alaska inmates almost tripled, rising from 770 to 2,073. Accurate forecasts of the future size and makeup of the prison population are needed as a basis for long-range programs and capital planning. This report presents long and short-term forecasts of the Alaska incarcerated prisoner population and bedspace needs of the Alaska Department of Corrections through the year 2000. The forecasts were developed by taking into consideration historical facts and status quo assumptions. Attention is also given to the impact of the 1980 Alaska criminal code revision on unsentenced and sentenced populations. The forecast derived from this study provides evidence of the need for additional institutional capacity in Southcentral Alaska by 1990. Planning should proceed for a capacity of 1,000 beds to be available for use by 1990.Alaska Department of CorrectionsAcknowledgments / Summary of Study / I. Introduction / II. Long-Range Forecasts / III. Short-Range Forecasts / IV. Regional Forecasts / V. Conclusions / APPENDICES / A. Inmate Population Forecasting: Statistical Model / B. JUSSIM Forecasting Model / C. Bibliography of Inmate Population Forecastin

Displays, instruments, and the multi-dimensional world of cartography

Cartographers are creators and purveyors of maps. Maps are representations of space, geographical images of the environment. Maps organize spatial information for convenience, particularly for use in performing tasks which involve the environment. There are many different kinds of maps, and there are as many different uses of maps as there are spatial problems to be solved. Maps and the display instrument dichotomy are examined. Also examined are the categories of map use along with the characteristics of maps

Religion and Economic Growth

Empirical research on the determinants of economic growth has typically neglected the influence of religion. To fill this gap, we use international survey data on religiosity for a broad panel of countries to investigate the effects of church attendance and religious beliefs on economic growth. To isolate the direction of causation from religiosity to economic performance, we use instrumental variables suggested by our analysis of systems in which church attendance and beliefs are the dependent variables. The instruments are dummy variables for the presence of state religion and for regulation of the religion market, an indicator of religious pluralism, and the composition of religions. We find that economic growth responds positively to the extent of religious beliefs, notably those in hell and heaven, but negatively to church attendance. That is, growth depends on the extent of believing relative to belonging. These results accord with a perspective in which religious beliefs influence individual traits that enhance economic performance. The beliefs are, in turn, the principal output of the religion sector, and church attendance measures the inputs to this sector. Hence, for given beliefs, more church attendance signifies more resources used up by the religion sector.

U.S.-Based Private Voluntary Organizations: Religious and Secular PVOs Engaged in International Relief & Development

We have constructed a new and substantial data set from 1939 to 2004 on U.S.-based private voluntary organizations (PVOs) engaged in international relief and development. The universe comprises PVOs registered with the federal government (U.S. Agency for International Development since the early 1960s). PVOs are classified by type among secular and 14 types of religious categories. Classifications were made for the date of founding and in 2004 (or last date of existence). We can therefore examine shifts in classification over time%u2014among religion types and between religious and secular. The data set has information on revenue and expenditure for each year. We distinguish revenue by source: federal, international organization, and private. We distinguish within these sources by grants, contracts, in-kind and cash donations, and so on. We break down expenditure into categories, including a division between international and domestic programs. This data set allows us to track trends in the overall universe of PVOs and by type of PVO in terms of numbers registered, income, expenditure, and sub-categories of income and expenditure. Analysis can now be conducted at the individual agency and aggregate levels for PVOs engaged in international relief and development and registered with the U.S. federal government from 1939 to 2004.