scholarly journals Mediating distributive politics: political alignment and electoral business cycle effects on municipality financing in Greece

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anastasios Kitsos ◽  
Antonios Proestakis
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Intergovernmental Transfers ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Resource Misallocation ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Political Alignment

AbstractWe examine the role of political alignment and the electoral business cycle on municipality revenues in Greece for the period 2003–2010. The misallocation of resources for political gain represents a waste of resources with significant negative effects on local growth and effective decentralization. The focus of our analysis is municipality mayors since they mediate the relationship between central government and voters and hence can influence the effectiveness of any potential pork-barrelling activity. A novel panel data set combining the results of two local and three national elections with annual municipality budgets is used to run a fixed-effects econometric model. This allows us to identify whether the political alignment between mayors and central government affects municipality financing. We examine this at different stages of local and national electoral cycles, investigating both direct intergovernmental transfers (grants) and the remaining sources of local revenues (own revenues, loans). We find that total revenues are significantly higher for aligned municipalities in the run-up to elections due to higher intergovernmental transfers. We also find evidence that the 2008 crisis has reduced such pork-barrelling activity. This significant resource misallocation increases vertical networking dependency and calls for policy changes promoting greater decentralization and encouraging innovation in local revenue raising.

scholarly journals Budget institutions and government effectiveness

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-246
Author(s):  
Momi Dahan ◽  
Michel Strawczynski
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Central Government ◽  
National Level ◽  
Negative Relationship ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Fiscal Responsibility ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Government Effectiveness ◽  
Budget Institutions ◽  
Government Level

PurposeDo budget institutions play a role in explaining why government effectiveness is higher in some advanced countries than in others?Design/methodology/approachEmploying an original panel data set that covers four years (1991, 2003, 2007 and 2012), we find that budget centralization is associated with lower government effectiveness in OECD countries after accounting for a list of control variables, such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, government expenditure and country- and year-fixed effects.FindingsWe show that less-centralized countries display significantly better performance in health and infrastructure and a similar effectiveness in tax collections. The negative relationship between budget centralization and government effectiveness seems to manifest, especially at the execution stage of the budgeting process, but it is not significant at the formulation and legislation stages. These results survive a list of sensitivity tests.Research limitations/implicationsOur paper finds that centralization is associated with lower effectiveness in field areas like health and education. However, it has been previously shown that centralization improves fiscal responsibility. Thus, our findings point out to the need of achieving the right balance between fiscal responsibility and government effectiveness.Practical implicationsResults suggest that when governments at the national level are aiming at achieving effectiveness in field areas like health and education, they shall avoid excessive centralization at the execution stage of the budget.Social implicationsEffectiveness in the provision of public health, and education can be enhanced by giving more power to the field ministries at the execution stage of the budget preparation.Originality/valueWhile decentralized budget power was proved at the local government level, this paper belongs to the small group of contributions that deal with this issue at the central government level.

scholarly journals Desentralisasi Fiskal, Tax Efiort dan Pertumbuhan Ekonomiz Studi Empirik Kabupaten/Kota di Indonesia 2001-2008

2010 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-34
Author(s):  
D. S. Priyarsono ◽  
Budi Asih ◽  
Neli Agustina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Local Governments ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Fiscal Decentralization ◽  
Intergovernmental Transfers ◽  
Positive Role ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Time Period ◽  
Regional Governments

Indonesia has implemented a new policy of regional autonomy and fiscal decentralization for almost ten years. One of the objectives of this fiscal decentralization is to give the full autonomy to local governments in spending and managing their revenues. The local governments have the authority to explore and collect their own-source revenue ('Pendapatan Asli Daerah', or PAD), i.e. through the improvement of their tax effort. The objectives of this study are: (i) to describe the fiscal performance of districts and municipalities in Indonesia, both in the revenue as well as the expenditure sides, (ii) to analyze the effects of intergovernmental transfers (’dana perimbangan', or balancing fund from the central to regional governments) on regional tax efforts, and (iii) to identify the regional economic growth elasticity of intergovernmental transfers and own-source revenue. This study employs a panel data set of 336 districts and municipalities covering the whole area of Indonesia over the time period of 2001-2008. The results show a relatively low contribution of PAD to regional revenues, indicating high fiscal dependency of regional governments on the central government. Intergovernmental transfers positively effect tax efforts. The result of the elasticity analysis also indicates a positive role of the transfers as stimuli to economic growth.

scholarly journals German forecasters’ narratives: How informative are German business cycle forecast reports?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karsten Müller
Keyword(s):  
Business Cycle ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Predictive Power ◽  
Recursive Estimation ◽  
Regression Methods ◽  
Inflation Forecasts ◽  
Fixed Effects Panel Regression ◽  
Weak Evidence ◽  
Out Of Sample ◽  
Different Characteristics

AbstractBased on German business cycle forecast reports covering 10 German institutions for the period 1993–2017, the paper analyses the information content of German forecasters’ narratives for German business cycle forecasts. The paper applies textual analysis to convert qualitative text data into quantitative sentiment indices. First, a sentiment analysis utilizes dictionary methods and text regression methods, using recursive estimation. Next, the paper analyses the different characteristics of sentiments. In a third step, sentiment indices are used to test the efficiency of numerical forecasts. Using 12-month-ahead fixed horizon forecasts, fixed-effects panel regression results suggest some informational content of sentiment indices for growth and inflation forecasts. Finally, a forecasting exercise analyses the predictive power of sentiment indices for GDP growth and inflation. The results suggest weak evidence, at best, for in-sample and out-of-sample predictive power of the sentiment indices.

scholarly journals Effect of regional skill gaps and skill shortages on firm productivity

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (5) ◽  
pp. 933-952 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Morris ◽  
Enrico Vanino ◽  
Carlo Corradini
Keyword(s):  
Spillover Effects ◽  
Firm Productivity ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Firm Level ◽  
Regional Productivity ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Industrial Sectors ◽  
Skill Gaps ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Skill Shortages

This paper contributes to the literature on regional productivity, complementing previous education and skill-level perspectives with a novel approach analysing the impact of regional skill gaps and skill shortages. This allows us to reflect the idiosyncratic needs of the regional economic structure better, considering both the demand and supply side of the skills equation in localised labour markets. Controlling for unobserved time-invariant firm-level heterogeneity and other region–industry effects across a longitudinal data set for the period 2008–2014, our analysis reveals a negative direct effect of skill shortages on firm productivity. We further find negative spillover effects for both skill gaps and skill shortages in related industries and proximate regions. Results are also shown to be heterogeneous with respect to agglomeration levels and industrial sectors. Stronger negative effects are found in industries defined by a knowledge-intensive skill base, pointing to the loss of learning effects in the presence of skill deficiencies. Conversely, agglomeration effects appear to moderate the impact of skill deficiencies through more efficient matching in the local labour market. The findings presented thus suggest that policies aimed at improving productivity and addressing the increasing regional productivity divide cannot be reduced to a simple space-neutral support for higher education and skill levels but need to recognise explicitly the presence and characteristics of place-specific skills gaps and shortages.

Negotiating under Political Uncertainty: National Elections and the Dynamics of International Co-operation

2017 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 315-337 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mareike Kleine ◽  
Clement Minaudier
Keyword(s):  
International Negotiations ◽  
Informational Efficiency ◽  
The European Union ◽  
Political Uncertainty ◽  
Legislative Bargaining ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Run Up ◽  
Uncertain Outcomes ◽  
Level 2 ◽  
The Eu

This article explores if (and how) national elections affect the chances of concluding an international agreement. Drawing on a literature about the informational efficiency of elections, it examines how political uncertainty in the run-up to an election impacts the dynamics of international negotiations. Using the case of decision making in the European Union (EU), it finds that (1) pending national elections significantly reduce the chances of reaching an agreement at the international level (2) this effect is strongest during close elections with uncertain outcomes and (3) the effect is particularly pronounced in the case of elections in larger member states. The findings highlight the fruitfulness of further research on the dynamics between national and international politics. The article has positive and normative implications for the literature on two-level games, international negotiations and legislative bargaining in the EU.

Excused Versus Unexcused: How Student Absences in Elementary School Affect Academic Achievement

2009 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 392-415 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael A. Gottfried
Keyword(s):  
Elementary School ◽  
Test Performance ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Standardized Test ◽  
Educational Achievement ◽  
Quantitative Model ◽  
Academic Risk ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Unexcused Absences ◽  
Reading And Math

The literature on school absences has focused predominantly on the reasons for student truancy, or it has assessed only aggregate student absences in their effect on achievement. However, this study brings forth a new issue: the relationship between types of absences—excused versus unexcused—and school performance. With a quantitative model of educational achievement on a longitudinal multilevel data set of all second-through fourth-grade students in the Philadelphia School District from 1994 to 2000, this study disaggregated absence information to provide new insight on the attendance–achievement relationship. Specifically, a model using fixed effects with classroom-level clustering was employed to determine how the distinction among varying proportions of excused versus unexcused absences related to students’ standardized test performance in reading and math. This article demonstrates that distinguishing between students with high rates of excused or unexcused absences is significant. Having a higher proportion of excused absences to total absences exhibits a positive relationship between reading and math test scores. Conversely, students with a higher proportion of unexcused absences places them at academic risk, particularly in math achievement and as early as in elementary school. Implications for policy are discussed.

scholarly journals Women Mayors in Portugal: A Case Study in Political Representation and Citizenship

2018 ◽  
Vol 26 (68) ◽  
pp. 27-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Antónia de Figueiredo Pires de Almeida
Keyword(s):  
Local Government ◽  
Central Government ◽  
Local Politics ◽  
Political Representation ◽  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Local Elections ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
National Elections ◽  
Representation Of Women ◽  
Positive Effects

Abstract Introduction The article presents a historical analysis of the participation of women in Portuguese politics and reveals the positive effects of the introduction of the parity law in 2006. In the 2015 national elections, for the first time one third of the elected the Members of the Portuguese Parliament were women. However, in municipalities there is still a long way to go to reach this level of female political representation. Does the political system limit women’s access only to elected positions? Thus, important questions remain: why are women still a minority in local politics? What obstacles do they encounter? And what can be done to improve the situation? Materials and Methods For this investigation, data were collected on the electronic pages of municipalities and political parties, as well as in the press, to monitor the evolution of the presence of women in Portuguese local government, initially as members of the administrative commissions appointed to manage municipal councils from 1974 to the first elections that took place on December 12, 1976 and then as elected representatives from 1976 to the latest 2017 local elections, comparing this level with central government. Results The study of this group reveals higher educational levels and more specialized jobs among women than among men, particularly in teaching and management. There is also discussion of partisan membership and it is revealed that left-wing parties invest more in women for local government than do right-wing parties. Discussion Although four decades have passed since the democratic regime was established, the representation of women in politics is still incipient. We present some examples of policy actions that can encourage the presence of women in local government and increase their role as active citizens.

scholarly journals Animal Model Versus Polynomial Legendre Test-Day In Dairy Cattle

2020 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12
Author(s):  
Mircea Cătălin Rotar ◽  
Horia Grosu ◽  
Mihail Alexandru Gras ◽  
Rodica Ştefania Pelmuş ◽  
Cristina Lazăr ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Animal Model ◽  
Dairy Cattle ◽  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Rank Correlation ◽  
Pedigree Information ◽  
Lactation Period ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Breeding Values ◽  
Normal Limits ◽  
Model Versus

AbstractThe aim of the study was to compare the classical animal model (based on total milk for 305 days) with the Test-Day model (using monthly records of milk yield from Official Records of Performances). The data set derived from a total 175 animals (cows with records, parents of these animals and the descendants) from two Romanian breeds (Romanian Black Spotted and Montbeliarde), the phenotypic and the pedigree information arisen from National Research Development Institute for Animal Biology and Nutrition (IBNA-Balotesti). The selection criteria to be included in the analysis for each cow was to have at least 3 test-days and the days in milk between 200 and 330 for the Test-Day model and the total amount of the 305- day lactation yield for classical Animal Model respectively. Both models use B.L.U.P methodology and for that reason all the estimates were adjusted for fixed effects and all the breeding values and the solution for fixed effects were estimated simultaneous. For the animal model the fixed effects used was the breed and the year of performing and for the Test-Day model was an extra one, the test day effect. The correlation calculated between test days was very high (over 90%) for consecutive tests, and was getting lower when the days between tests was higher (under 40%). Also, in terms of heritability the values were in normal limits throughout lactation, except at the beginning and end of lactation period where these values were a little bit higher. The comparison of the ranking of breeding values with Spearman rank correlation shows that in 80% of the cases the ranking was similar for both models. As the ranking correlations shows, it is certain that the two models are very similar when they are used for genetic evaluation. But, in conclusion, we can say that for a better lactation curve estimation it is recommending to use test-day model for dairy cattle.

scholarly journals Political Economy of Discretionary Transfers: A Dynamic Panel Data analysis of Indian States

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (01) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chittaranjan Nayak ◽  
. PriyabrataSatpathy
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Panel Data ◽  
Fiscal Federalism ◽  
Panel Data Analysis ◽  
Dynamic Panel Data ◽  
Intergovernmental Transfers ◽  
Estimation Model ◽  
Indian States ◽  
Data Set ◽  
National Governments

Intergovernmental transfers are a major instrument to ensure smooth functioning of ‘Fiscal federalism’ in India. But the mechanism of Central transfers in India seems to be confusing and overlapping. Although a formula-based practice has been mandated by the Indian Constitution, there are several breaks in the practice. While predetermined formulas are used for some transfers, there is considerable discretion in allocating other classes of transfers. This paper makes an attempt to focus on the determinants that influence the quantum of discretionary transfer to sub-national governments from a political economy perspective. Taking a panel data set of 28 states for the period 2001 to 2011, and by using Arrellana-Bover (1995)/ Blundell-Bond (1998) system estimation model, the paper observes that the chosen variables do explain disparity in Central fund disbursement under non formulaic discretionary head in a robust way. The study has analysed the results separately for SCS and NSCS and in combine. The findings of the study reveal that the chosen variables have different outcomes for SCS and NSCS. However, when SCS and NSCS states are combined, the variables like fiscal capacity, fiscal performance and coalition status are found to be significant.

scholarly journals Population Pharmacokinetics of Fluconazole in Young Infants

2008 ◽  
Vol 52 (11) ◽  
pp. 4043-4049 ◽  
Author(s):  
K. C. Wade ◽  
D. Wu ◽  
D. A. Kaufman ◽  
R. M. Ward ◽  
D. K. Benjamin ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fixed Effects ◽  
Compartment Model ◽  
Volume Of Distribution ◽  
Relative Standard Error ◽  
Data Set ◽  
Mixed Effect ◽  
Young Infants ◽  
Relative Standard ◽  
Population Pk ◽  
The Impact

ABSTRACT Fluconazole is being increasingly used to prevent and treat invasive candidiasis in neonates, yet dosing is largely empirical due to the lack of adequate pharmacokinetic (PK) data. We performed a multicenter population PK study of fluconazole in 23- to 40-week-gestation infants less than 120 days of age. We developed a population PK model using nonlinear mixed effect modeling (NONMEM) with the NONMEM algorithm. Covariate effects were predefined and evaluated based on estimation precision and clinical significance. We studied fluconazole PK in 55 infants who at enrollment had a median (range) weight of 1.02 (0.440 to 7.125) kg, a gestational age at birth (BGA) of 26 (23 to 40) weeks, and a postnatal age (PNA) of 2.3 (0.14 to 12.6) weeks. The final data set contained 357 samples; 217/357 (61%) were collected prospectively at prespecified time intervals, and 140/357 (39%) were scavenged from discarded clinical specimens. Fluconazole population PK was best described by a one-compartment model with covariates normalized to median values. The population mean clearance (CL) can be derived for this population by the equation CL (liter/h) equals 0.015 · (weight/1)0.75 · (BGA/26)1.739 · (PNA/2)0.237 · serum creatinine (SCRT)−4.896 (when SCRT is >1.0 mg/dl), and using a volume of distribution (V) (liter) of 1.024 · (weight/1). The relative standard error around the fixed effects point estimates ranged from 3 to 24%. CL doubles between birth and 28 days of age from 0.008 to 0.016 and from 0.010 to 0.022 liter/kg/h for typical 24- and 32-week-gestation infants, respectively. This population PK model of fluconazole discriminated the impact of BGA, PNA, and creatinine on drug CL. Our data suggest that dosing in young infants will require adjustment for BGA and PNA to achieve targeted systemic drug exposures.

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