Sequencing fiscal decentralization

While there is extensive knowledge about how to design fiscal decentralization policies, considerably less is understood about how a decentralization program should be sequenced and implemented. Countries embarking on decentralization often struggle with decisions about the essential components of decentralization, including the order of an introduction of decentralization policies, the number of years necessary to bring a full program on line, and the components of the transition strategy. The authors argue that the sequencing of decentralization policies is an important determinant of its success. The consequences of a poorly sequenced decentralization program can range from minor delays and complications to ineffectiveness and subsequent failing support of decentralization efforts, macroeconomic instability, and fundamental failure in public sector delivery. At a minimum, the strategy of"making it up as we go"will not lead to the same structure of decentralization as will a planned strategy. The paper raises two questions: First, is there an optimal sequencing for decentralization policies and implementation? The answer is that there is, and that following these sequencing rules can reduce the costs and risks of implementing fiscal decentralization. Second, to what extent do countries follow these optimal sequencing rules? The answer is, in general, they do not. The gap between theory and practice is a result of the complexity of sequencing design, which discourages fiscal planners from implementing the full process. In addition, sequencing requires a sustained discipline and vision for its implementation, as well as overcoming pressures from political actors, especially in developing countries.Decentralization,Subnational Regional Economics,Economic Theory&Research,Teaching and Learning,Regional Rural Development

The impact of NAFTA and options for tax reform in Mexico

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has had a profound impact on Mexico's economy and institutions. Clearly, no consideration of tax reform can ignore its role. The thinking about tax reform in Mexico requires evaluating NAFTA's effect on Mexico's economy, including its tax structure, and the effects of its tax system on trade and capital flows between Mexico and its NAFTA partners, the United States and Canada. The authors review the evidence on NAFTA's economic effects, focusing on the changes in foreign trade and foreign direct investment flows in Mexico and the effects of these changes on Mexico's tax base and ability to raise tax revenues. Using marginal effective tax rate analysis, the authors also compare Mexico's tax system with those of Canada and the United States in terms of the effect on foreign direct investment. The authors draw two main conclusions from their analysis. First, by fueling Mexico's exports and foreign direct investment inflows, NAFTA has altered the country's economic structure and hence the industrial distribution of the tax base. This transformation calls for adapting the tax structure to an economy oriented toward services and manufacturing exports. And second, Mexico's membership in NAFTA provides no significant reasons for fundamental change in its tax structure. The new wave of tax reform should concentrate on raising revenues, simplifying the tax structure, and increasing the efficiency and overall equity of the tax system.Public Sector Economics&Finance,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,International Terrorism&Counterterrorism,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Agricultural Research,TF054105-DONOR FUNDED OPERATION ADMINISTRATION FEE INCOME AND EXPENSE ACCOUNT

Distributed convex optimization via continuous-time coordination algorithms with discrete-time communication

This paper proposes a novel class of distributed continuous-time coordination algorithms to solve network optimization problems whose cost function is a sum of local cost functions associated to the individual agents. We establish the exponential convergence of the proposed algorithm under (i) strongly connected and weight-balanced digraph topologies when the local costs are strongly convex with globally Lipschitz gradients, and (ii) connected graph topologies when the local costs are strongly convex with locally Lipschitz gradients. When the local cost functions are convex and the global cost function is strictly convex, we establish asymptotic convergence under connected graph topologies. We also characterize the algorithm's correctness under time-varying interaction topologies and study its privacy preservation properties. Motivated by practical considerations, we analyze the algorithm implementation with discrete-time communication. We provide an upper bound on the stepsize that guarantees exponential convergence over connected graphs for implementations with periodic communication. Building on this result, we design a provably-correct centralized event-triggered communication scheme that is free of Zeno behavior. Finally, we develop a distributed, asynchronous event-triggered communication scheme that is also free of Zeno with asymptotic convergence guarantees. Several simulations illustrate our results.Comment: 12 page

Unsupervised edge map scoring: a statistical complexity approach

We propose a new Statistical Complexity Measure (SCM) to qualify edge maps without Ground Truth (GT) knowledge. The measure is the product of two indices, an \emph{Equilibrium} index $\mathcal{E}$ obtained by projecting the edge map into a family of edge patterns, and an \emph{Entropy} index $\mathcal{H}$, defined as a function of the Kolmogorov Smirnov (KS) statistic. This new measure can be used for performance characterization which includes: (i)~the specific evaluation of an algorithm (intra-technique process) in order to identify its best parameters, and (ii)~the comparison of different algorithms (inter-technique process) in order to classify them according to their quality. Results made over images of the South Florida and Berkeley databases show that our approach significantly improves over Pratt's Figure of Merit (PFoM) which is the objective reference-based edge map evaluation standard, as it takes into account more features in its evaluation