Fiscal Sustainability When Time is on Your Side

With a favourable demographic profile, a budget balance currently in surplus and gross government debt under 60 per cent of GDP, Ireland would appear to be an economy with time on its side before any concerns about fiscal sustainability arise. In this paper, it is argued that favourable baseline prospects, nevertheless, provide no less a challenge for public finance management than dealing with poor baseline prospects. Two long-term policy options - reducing the debt and prefunding future pension liabilities - with a direct impact on the public finances are discussed. Both raise important issues for government and have implications for the financial and monetary system that need careful consideration. It is pointed out that member states face disincentives under EU fiscal rules to initiating public pensions prefunding schemes. The dynamics of fiscal sustainability in a fast-growing economy such as Ireland are also considered. It is argued that the EU fiscal rules may limit the attainment of the optimal growth path of an economy, particularly in economies where significant government investment may be warranted. With a wide range of growth rates and stage of development experiences in prospect across member states in future years, it is important that the fiscal rules be assessed as to whether they cater successfully for the diversity of investment requirements and public finance prospects in the EU.

Measuring Structural Budget Balances in a Fast Growing Economy: The Case of Ireland

The most popular method of measuring structural budget balances is the “gaps plus elasticities” approach. Abtract: In this paper, it is argued that the idiosyncratic features of an economy need to be accounted for properly when seeking to achieve good estimates of structural budget balances using this method. The first step in this approach involves measuring the economy’s potential output in order to identify an output gap that indicates the economy’s cyclical position. There are two main approaches to measuring potential output - a production function approach and a trend smoothing approach. The paper highlights how estimates of potential output growth can vary quite considerably between these two approaches in an economy such as Ireland due to the manner in which the high mobility of productive factors can impact on the production function approach and in how very high recent growth rates impact on the trend smoothing approach. The second step of the gap plus elasticities approach requires measuring the sensitivity of revenue and expenditure items to the output gap in the form of an elasticity. In the standard estimation procedure, these elasticities are generally assumed to remain constant over the cycle. Evidence from Ireland, however, suggests that an assumption of constant elasticity values is unlikely to be plausible in practice. On the contrary, cyclically-sensitive fiscal policy will introduce time-variance into elasticity measures. There may be a need, therefore, to assess and quantify the significance and consequences of time variance in elasticity measures and its implications for structural budget balance estimation.

David McCoy in a Senior Voice Recital

This is the program for the senior voice recital of David McCoy. Pianist Philip Ingalls assisted the performance. The recital took place on February 29, 1988, in the Mabee Fine Arts Center Recital Hall

An assessment of the management of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) in a rural district health ward of Northern Kwazulu

This study is an assessment of the quality of sexually transmitted disease (STD) management and control in a rural district of South Africa. A semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 5 nurses from public sector primary health care clinics, 5 doctors from the public district hospital, 5 private general practitioners, 6 traditional healers and 7 STD patients. A patient simulation exercise involving 6 nurses and 6 general practitioners was also conducted. Using routine data collection forms, the spectrum of STD syndromes and the contact tracing rate were assessed. The private sector treated nearly a third of the STDs even though they charge about ten times the price of the public sector services. In general, the clinical skills of all providers were poor. While hypothetical patient histories produced reasonable responses on STD management during the interviews, the patient simulation results showed that health service providers provided STD management that was much poorer than the questionnaires indicated. The private general practitioners did not practice syndromic STD management and often did not use laboratory tests appropriately resulting in incorrect diagnosis and inappropriate treatment for STDs. All health service providers did not counsel, promote condoms or encourage contact notification adequately. All health service providers were keen to participate in continuing medical education that better equip them to manage STDs. Any attempts at improving the quality of care in the district must therefore include private general practitioners as an important and central component of STD policy and planning. Interviews with traditional healers and patients showed the importance of using non-biomedical constructs of health and illness in developing health promotion strategies. There is an urgent need to improve STD management at district level in an attempt to meet the first milestone of ensuring that a patient presenting with an STD to a health service is correctly managed. This can be done through the design of simple quality assurance methods as demonstrated in this paper

Mis-Designing the UK Electricity Market

electricity auctions, regulation

Breakdown potentials of gases under alternating voltages

This investigation was devoted to a study of the starting potentials of gases of commercial purity for frequencies less than one million cycles per second. The gases used were Hydrogen, Nitrogen, Helium, and Argon. The discharge tube was of spherical design having spherical aluminum electrodes three-fourths inch to diameter. Five gap distances were used ranging from 10 mm to 50 mm;The results of the investigation show that: (1) The effect of impurities in the gas pointed out by J. Thomson were not observed. (2) The usual straight line portion of the curves of Vs versus pressure were observed to be concave downward. An explanation for this was not obtained. A general form for the curve was shown to be: Vs=Ax1/2+Bx 3/2 where x is a number proportional to the mean free path of an electron. (3) The three stages of the discharge as observed by J. Thomson were also observed. This phenomenon occurred in all the gases at a frequency of one million cycles per second only. (4) The relations connecting the starting potential, the pressure and the gap distance for plane parallel electrodes do not hold for spherical electrodes. At the larger gap distances the variation of the starting potential with the gap distance was quite unreliable. As the gap distance became less the reliability increased, also, giving a strong indication that the conditions were rapidly approaching those of the plane parallel electrodes. (5) The slope of the log p versus log d curve is independent of frequency and also of the gas for gap distances less than approximately 32 mm. This suggests that the expressions representing the conditions in the discharge are independent of the gas and of the frequency for plane parallel electrodes

Perceived Work Life Balance: Exploring the Influence of Cultural Experience on Work Life Balance Perceptions

Much like the typical employee, college students are often involved in a multitude of activities beyond the classroom that make maintaining work life balance challenging. Research suggests that cultural exposure may influence an individual’s quality of work life perceptions. The present study aims to explore the impact of cultural experience, such as study abroad and international partner conversations, on the individual’s perception of their work life balance and the work life balance of others. Participants will first provide information regarding current work life balance, and cultural exposure, then they will be presented with employee vignettes, and finally, they will report their satisfaction with the work life balance of each employee’s situation as well as their own. Results will contribute to the field by investigating the relationship between cultural exposure and perceptions of work life balance in order to facilitate the recruitment and selection process. It is essential for organizations to understand and be aware of the impact that cultural experience can have on individuals to ensure that a potential employee’s work life balance values align with the values of the organization. By doing so, organizations will be able to offer positions to individuals that are best suited, while also matching applicants to appealing work life balance opportunities

Interview with David and Marcia McCoy

The McCoys talk about their family farm, which their family has lived on for 130 years. They discuss operations on the dairy farm, and David discusses how he became a farmer, including his time as a member of \u27Future Farmers of America\u27.https://digital.kenyon.edu/ffp_interviews/1027/thumbnail.jp