Fiscal responsibility laws for subnational discipline : the Latin American experience

This paper discusses fiscal responsibility laws in Latin America, with special attention to their provisions for fiscal discipline by subnational governments. It discusses why and when such laws might be useful-to help resolve the coordination problem in getting diverse governments to avoid overusing the common national credit market and to help individual governments make a time-consistent commitment for fiscal prudence. It examines the cases of Brazil, Colombia, Peru, and Argentina, as well as the case of Mexico where other types of laws and regulations aim to achieve the same objectives of solidifying incentives for fiscal discipline at all levels of government. Fiscal responsibility laws are found to be useful in some cases, although the experience is not long enough to be certain, but they are clearly not necessary in every case, nor always sufficient to assure fiscal stability.Urban Economics,Banks&Banking Reform,Public&Municipal Finance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,National Governance,National Governance,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Urban Economics,Public&Municipal Finance

The fluxing effect of fluorine at magmatic temperatures (600-800 °C): A scanning calorimetric study

The effect of F on the glass transition behavior of albite, diopside, and four other silicate melts has been investigated using scanning calorimetry. The addition of F to all silicate melts investigated results in a strong, nonlinear decrease of the glass transition temperature (Z' as recorded by the peak temperatures of heat capacity). The decreases observed extrapolate consistently to published fluoride glass transition temperatures. The largest Z, decrease is observed for albite-FrO-, melts (AT = 250 °C at 6 wt%F ). The effect of F is similar to that previously observed for HrO (Taniguchi, 1981). Physical properties of low-temperature silicate liquids are a valuable constraint on lowtemperature petrogenetic processes in granite and pegmatite petrogenesis. Low-temperature wiscosities can be estimated from the glass transition data. These data are combined with previously published high-temperature, concentric-cylinder viscosity data to obtain a much more complete description of the temperature dependence of viscosity for these melts. The present data, obtained on supercooled liquids close to the glass transition, are of special significance because it is at the glass transition that silicate glass structures are frozen. A separate multinuclear NMR study of glasses quenched from these experiments has shown that the predominant coordination of F in albite glass is octahedral to Al. The coordination state of F does not appear to be concentration dependent, and thus the structural origin of the nonlinear Z, decrease does not arise from such a mechanism

Non-Newtonian Rheology of Igneous Melts at High Stresses and Strain Rates: Experimental Results for Rhyolite, Andesite, Basalt, and Nephelinite

The stress-strain rate relationships of four silicate melt compositions (high-silica rhyolite, andesite, tholeiitic basalt, and nephelinite) have been studied using the fiber elongation method. Measurements were conducted in a stress range of 10–400 MPa and a strain rate range of 10−6 to 10−3 s−1. The stress-strain rate relationships for all the melts exhibit Newtonian behavior at low strain rates, but non-Newtonian (nonlinear stress-strain rate) behavior at higher strain rates, with strain rate increasing faster than the applied stress. The decrease in calculated shear viscosity with increasing strain rate precedes brittle failure of the fiber as the applied stress approaches the tensile strength of the melt. The decrease in viscosity observed at the high strain rates of the present study ranges from 0.25 to 2.54 log10 Pa s. The shear relaxation times τ of these melts have been estimated from the low strain rate, Newtonian, shear viscosity, using the Maxwell relationship τ = η s /G ∞. Non-Newtonian shear viscosity is observed at strain rates ( ɛ ˙ = time - 1 ) equivalent to time scales that lie 3 log10 units of time above the calculated relaxation time. Brittle failure of the fibers occurs 2 log10 units of time above the relaxation time. This study illustrates that the occurrence of non-Newtonian viscous flow in geological melts can be predicted to within a log10 unit of strain rate. High-silica rhyolite melts involved in ash flow eruptions are expected to undergo a non-Newtonian phase of deformation immediately prior to brittle failure

Evaluating the New Automatic Method for the Analysis of Absorption Spectra Using Synthetic Spectra

We recently presented a new "artificial intelligence" method for the analysis of high-resolution absorption spectra (Bainbridge and Webb, Mon. Not. R. Astron. Soc. 2017, 468,1639-1670). This new method unifies three established numerical methods: a genetic algorithm (GVPFIT); non-linear least-squares optimisation with parameter constraints (VPFIT); and Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA). In this work, we investigate the performance of GVPFIT and BMA over a broad range of velocity structures using synthetic spectra. We found that this new method recovers the velocity structures of the absorption systems and accurately estimates variation in the fine structure constant. Studies such as this one are required to evaluate this new method before it can be applied to the analysis of large sets of absorption spectra. This is the first time that a sample of synthetic spectra has been utilised to investigate the analysis of absorption spectra. Probing the variation of nature's fundamental constants (such as the fine structure constant), through the analysis of absorption spectra, is one of the most direct ways of testing the universality of physical laws. This "artificial intelligence" method provides a way to avoid the main limiting factor, i.e., human interaction, in the analysis of absorption spectra.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures, published on 5 April 2017 in Univers

Decentralization and fiscal management in Colombia

Colombia's political geography contrasts sharply with its economy. Physical characteristics and guerilla war fragment the country geographically, yet it has a long tradition of political centrism and macroeconomic stability. Recently, with political and economic decentralization, there has been some weakening of macroeconomic performance. The authors explore institutional arrangements that have helped Colombia manage the fiscal aspects of decentralization, despite the country's political problems. Fiscal decentralization proceeded rapidly in Colombia. Education, health, and much infrastructure provision have been decentralized to the departmentos and municipios. Decentralization has led to substantial but not overwhelming problems, both in maintaining fiscal balance nationally ( as resources are transferred of subnational levels) and in preventing unsustainable deficits by the subnational governments. The problems have arisen because central government interference prevents departments from controlling their costs and because of expectations of debt bailouts. Both are legacies of the earlier pattern of management from the center, and some recent changes - especially about subnational debt - may improve matters. Colombia's traditional political process has had difficulty dealing with problems of decentralization because traditional parties are weak in internal organization and have lost de facto rule over substantial territories. The fiscal problems of subnational government have been contained, however, because subnational governments are relatively weak politically and the central government, for the time being, has been able to enforce restrictions on subnational borrowing.Urban Economics,Banks&Banking Reform,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Municipal Financial Management,Public&Municipal Finance,Banks&Banking Reform,National Governance,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Municipal Financial Management,Urban Economics

Political economy of policy reform in Turkey in the 1980s

Turkey's adjustment experience was a tremendous success in terms of structurally reorienting the economy. The share of output for export rose from 5 percent in 1979 to 23 percent in 1989, and real output roughly doubled. The financial markets opened and have developed depth and sophistication. The program failed to reduce fiscal deficits, inflation, income inequality, and the size of the inefficient public enterprise sector, but the transformation of trade and finance fundamentally altered the context of the problems, changing their effects on the private sector and changing the government's options for dealing with them. The first phase of economic adjustment was sustained, although not initiated, in an authoritarian context, but the Turks restored democracy when the agenda for reform was incomplete. The Motherland Party (ANAP) won office on the platform of economic success and eventally lost partly because of the failure of economic policy. ANAP's electoral defeat in 1991 did not mean, however, the demise of the pro-structural adjustment or the pro-liberalization coalitions. The long period of ANAP rule helped consolidate reforms to such a degree that all of the principal parties agreed on a broadly similar economic program. The ideological differences between the left and the right - a state-directed versus a marked-oriented economy - substantially diminished. The reforms of the early 1980s greatly reduced the importance of rent-seeking, particularly through foreign trade, but patronage politics became widespread again in the second half of the decade. The initial strength ANAP derived from privileged access to state resources progressively became a disadvantage, creating resentment and reaction among the populace. One source of discontent was the over-invoicing of exports (that is, fictitious exports), designed to take advantage of favorable export subsidies, and the government's failure to discipline or penalize the companies involved. This jeopardized attempts to build a pro-export coalition, and some key features of import substitution continued. The authors attribute the failure of Turkey's macroeconomic policies in the late 1980s to the government's failure tocultivate popular support for macroeconomic stability; to the top bureaucrats'lack of autonomy to counteract political pressures to expand the fiscal deficit; and to the continuation of top-down individualistic linkages between policymakers and key economic interests.National Governance,Parliamentary Government,Politics and Government,Environmental Economics&Policies,Economic Theory&Research

Determination of silicate liquid thermal expansivity using dilatometry and calorimetry

A method for the determination of relaxed silicate liquid molar volume and expansivity at temperatures just above the glass transition is discussed. The method involves the comparison of heat capacity and molar expansivity in the glass transition region. Glassy and liquid heat-capacity data are obtained using differential scanning calorimetry, and glassy thermal expansion data are obtained using scanning dilatometry. The molar expansivity of the liquid is calculated by a fictive temperature normalization of the relaxation behavior of both the heat capacity and the molar expansivity in the glass transition region, with the normalized heat capacity curve being used to extend the dilatometric data into the liquid temperature range. This comparison is based upon the assumed equivalence of the parameters describing the relaxation of volume and enthalpy. The molar expansivity of relaxed sodium trisilicate (Na2Si3O7) has been determined in this manner at temperatures above the glass transition temperature. This low-temperature determination of liquid molar expansivity has been tested against high-temperature liquid expansivity data obtained from high temperature Pt double bob Archimedean buoyancy measurements. The low-temperature molar expansivity (26.43±0.83xl0~4 cm3 mole"lßC_1 at 540°C) determined in this manner agrees within error with the high-temperature molar expansivity (23.29±1.39xl0~4 cm3 mole^ºC1 at 1400°C). This dilatometric/calorimetric method of liquid molar expansivity determination greatly increases the temperature range accessible for thermal expansion measurements. A weighted linear fit to the combined low and high temperature volume data gives a molar expansivity of 23.0010.25x10^ cm3 mole^ºC"1. The volume-temperature relationship thus derived reproduces the measured volumes from both dilatometry and densitometry with a RMSD value of 0.033 cm3 mole"1 or 0.14%. This represents a substantial increase in precision, which is especially important for liquids whose high liquidus temperatures restrict the temperature range accessible to liquid volume determinations

Faint star counts in the near-infrared

We discuss near-infrared star counts at the Galactic pole with a view to guiding the NGST and ground-based NIR cameras. Star counts from deep K-band images from the CFHT are presented, and compared with results from the 2MASS survey and some Galaxy models. With appropriate corrections for detector artifacts and galaxies, the data agree with the models down to K~18, but indicate a larger population of fainter red stars. There is also a significant population of compact galaxies that extend to the observational faint limit of K=20.5. Recent Galaxy models agree well down to K$\sim$19, but diverge at fainter magnitudes.Comment: 14 pages and 4 diagrams; to appear in PAS