Estimating the small area effects of austerity measures in the UK

Governments across Europe are starting to implement a range of cost-cutting and income generating programmes in order to re-balance their fiscal budgets following substantial investments in stabilising domestic financial institutions in 2008 and 2009. One method of doing this has been to increase tax rates such as the increase in VAT in the UK from 17.5% to 20% from January 1st 2011. In this paper we explore the different spatial impact of this VAT rise on household expenditure on public and private transport and communication technology from 2006 to 2016. We do this by combining three elements: an agent-based dynamic population microsimulation model that produces projected snapshots of the UK population in 2006, 2011 and 2016; an expenditure system model based on the familiar Quadratic Almost Ideal Demand System approach; and synthetic small area census tables produced by projecting historical UK census data. Taken together these elements provide a toolkit for assessing the potential spatial impact of rising taxes or prices (or both) and we use them to compare small area projections of household expenditure under two scenarios. The first is a 'no intervention' scenario where prices and income align to UK government inflation forecasts and the second is a one-off non-reversed 2.5% increase in VAT on goods and services rated at 17.5% on 1st January 2011. We present results for different areas (rural vs urban/deprived vs affluent) and for different income groups within them and discuss the potential implications for the telecommunications industry and for the usage of public and private transport

Public Finance, Governance, and Cash Transfers in Alleviating Poverty and Inequality in Chile

As the Chilean government seeks to reduce both poverty and inequality through cash transfers to poor households, local governments are responsible for both identifying the poor and allocating transfers. Until recently, however, evaluating the effectiveness of local governments in enacting these policies has been restricted by data limitations. The paper builds on recent evidence that cash transfers had highly variable impacts on poverty and inequality at the county level in 2002. In particular, we explore how local public finance and the strength of the governing mandate influence the efficiency of cash transfers. With a richly-specified model, we find that public spending on goods and services, the fraction of available subsidies claimed by the local government, and the share of county land that is zoned for industrial purposes are all correlated with considerable reductions in poverty and inequality. In addition, the strength of the governing mandate weakly influences the efficiency of transfers in reducing poverty, but not inequality. These results demonstrate that a better understanding of such institutions can lead to more efficient targeting for social programs.Monetary transfers; Inequality; Poverty

Cell death pathology: Perspective for human diseases

AbstractApoptosis, a genetically regulated form of cell death with distinct biochemical and morphological features, plays a relevant physiological and pathological role in the organism, being pivotal in the maintenance of tissue development and homeostasis in the adult as well as in the regulation of immune responses. Deregulation of this process causes several human disorders including cancer, autoimmune and neurodegenerative diseases. Thus, modulation of the apoptotic process and of cell death in general, is a potential therapeutic approach for the treatment of several human pathologies

Simulating the Impact on the Local Economy of Alternative Management Scenarios for Natural Areas

This working paper estimates the impact on the local economy of the High Garda Natural Park of alternative management scenarios for the West Garda Regional Forest. The local economy is specialized in tourist services and strongly linked to the tourist presence and their level of expenditure. We wish to investigate the effects of the participative management strategy, which takes into account users preferences and the non-participative strategy, using the SAM multiplier analysis. The local SAM has been constructed considering three sectors: agriculture, tourism and a third aggregate sector including all the other activities. The resident population has been divided into two categories: residents employed in the tourist sector and the remaining resident population. The SAM analysis shows that the accounting representation of the local economy is meaningful and that the participative program, if chosen by the central regional management, would be the most desirable program also at the local level.Tourism, SAM, Multiplier analysis

Paying for Biodiversity Conservation Services in Agricultural Landscapes

Adoption of improved silvopastoral practices in degraded pasture areas is thought to provide valuable local and global environmental benefits, including biodiversity conservation, However, these practices are insufficiently attractive to individual land users for them to adopt them spontaneously, particularly due to their high initial costs. This paper describes the contract mechanism developed for the Regional Integrated Silvopastoral Ecosystem Management Project, which is being implemented with financing from the Global Environment Facility (GEF). The project is testing the use of the payment-for-service mechanism to encourage the adoption of silvopastoral practices in three countries of Central and South America: Colombia, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua. The project has created a mechanism that pays land users for the global environmental services they are generating, so that the additional income stream makes the proposed practices privately profitable. Designing the mechanism required addressing issues such as (1) measuring the actual amount of environmental services being provided, so that appropriate payments can be made; (2) providing payments in a way that resulted in the desired change in land use; and (3) avoiding the creation of perverse incentives (for example, for land users to cut down existing trees so as to qualify for additional payments for tree planting). Two variants of the proposed payment mechanism are being tested, with participating land users assigned randomly to one or the other. The project also includes extensive monitoring of the effectiveness of each mechanism in stimulating adoption of the proposed measures and of the resulting impact on environmental services and on household welfare. These features, together with the three-country approach, will provide in the coming years a very rich dataset for testing the use of contract mechanisms for biodiversity conservation.Payments for Environmental Services, Contract design, Biodiversity, Conservation, Silvopastoral, Agroforestry

Were we really all in it together? The distributional effects of the UK Coalition government's tax-benefit policy changes

This paper examines the distributional impacts of the changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct (but not indirect) taxes between the systems in place in May 2010 at the time of the Election and in 2014/15. It also looks ahead to the longer-term effects of already announced changes and plans, such as the complete introduction of Universal Credit and changes to the ways benefits, pensions and tax brackets are changed (indexed) from year to year, modelling what effects these would have by 2019/20

Distribución Espacial de la Pobreza en Chile

Chile ha sido particularmente exitoso en la reducción de la pobreza durante los últimos 20 años, disminuyendo el porcentaje de la población bajo la línea de pobreza de un 38,6% en 1990 a un 13,7% en 2006. Con tasas de pobreza más bajas, el esfuerzo de focalización necesario para el diseño de políticas públicas que permitan reducir aún más o erradicar la pobreza, es mucho mayor y se requiere información más desagregada a nivel geográfico. Los mapas de pobreza pueden cumplir este rol, ya que entregan una descripción detallada de la distribución espacial de la pobreza, lo cual permite adicionalmente estudiar las relaciones entre la pobreza, urbana y rural, y algunas variables socioeconómicas o comportamientos sociales. Sin embargo, estos estudios se ven limitados por la falta de datos suficientemente detallados y desagregados respecto a la pobreza a nivel local. Específicamente, los datos disponibles en las encuestas de ingreso no son representativos a niveles geográficos muy desagregados y, los censos, no tienen información sobre ingresos. En los últimos años ha habido avances importantes en el desarrollo de metodologías que permitan combinar datos de encuestas y de censos para obtener estimadores de pobreza robustos a niveles geográficos más desagregados. En este trabajo, se utiliza este tipo de metodologías para producir estimadores consistentes de pobreza, tanto rural como urbana, a nivel comunal para Chile. Esto abre la posibilidad de investigar en el futuro los determinantes de la pobreza en Chile y el rol que juega la pobreza local, ya que los resultados obtenidos muestran la existencia de un grado importante de variación en la pobreza entre comunas y entre la pobreza comunal urbana y rural.Pobreza Local, Mapas de Pobreza

Adaptive Immune Responses in Primary Cutaneous Sarcoidosis

Sarcoidosis is a multisystemic inflammatory disorder with cutaneous lesions present in about one-quarter of the patients. Cutaneous lesions have been classified as specific and nonspecific, depending on the presence of nonnecrotizing epithelial cell granulomas on histologic studies. The development and progression of specific cutaneous sarcoidosis involves a complex interaction between cells of the adaptive immune systems, notably T-lymphocytes and dendritic cells. In this paper, we will discuss the role of T-cells and skin dendritic cells in the development of primary cutaneous sarcoidosis and comment on the potential antigenic stimuli that may account for the development of the immunological response. We will further explore the contributions of selected cytokines to the immunopathological process. The knowledge of the adaptive immunological mechanisms operative in cutaneous sarcoidosis may subsequently be useful for identifying prevention and treatment strategies of systemic sarcoidosis

Were we really all in it together? The distributional effects of the 2010-2015 UK Coalition government's tax-benefit policy changes: an end-of-term update

This paper examines the distributional impacts of the changes to benefits, tax credits, pensions and direct taxes between the UK Elections in May 2010 and in May 2015. It also looks ahead to the longer-term effects of changes and plans that were announced by the 2010-2015 Coalition government, such as the complete introduction of Universal Credit and changes to the ways benefits, pensions and tax brackets are indexed from year to year, modelling what effects these would have after five more years. It shows that the changes 2010-15 did not have a common effect on all household incomes and nor did the direct tax-benefit changes contribute to deficit reduction. In effect reductions in benefits and tax credits financed part of the cuts in direct taxes. We find that the relative extent to which the changes most favoured the rich or the poor is sensitive to a wide range of analytical choices and assumptions, but under most sets of assumptions the main gains were in the upper middle of the income distribution and the main losers were at the bottom and those close to, but not at, the very top. Across most of the distribution the impact of the changes was regressive. Looking forward to the effects that Coalition policies would have had by 2020 we find a more strongly regressive picture but with open questions about the effect of Universal Credit on those not currently receiving their entitlements to means-tested payments, and so potentially increasing some of the lowest incomes