Forensic Investigation Into Petroleum Products Consumption, Subsidisation and Fiscal Spending in Nigeria by C. E. Alozie (PhD)

This paper analytically investigated petroleum products procurement, volume of consumption, fiscal expenditure on consumption subsidies, the utilisation of domestic crude-oil allocations in local refining production in satisfying consumption, discipline in the approved subsidy expenditure budget. Ex-post ‘facto’ materials were employed. Numerical descriptive statistics on volume of locally produced-supplied to imported products volume ratios, budget deviation indexing for fiscal discipline; simulated ‘produce or import simulation of prior fiscal expenditures. Results indicate that local refining output of petroleum products were partly the major root cause of insufficient source of supply of products procurements which in turn compelled Nigeria to be reliant on importation in satisfying consumption requirements. Domestic crude allocation utilisation for refining production indicates that only about 33 percent of average aggregate expected minimum refined petroleum products yields of average aggregate volume consumption requirements were recorded. Budget discipline is lacking. Gross undersupply of electricity induced constant rise in the consumption of petroleum products. The paper concludes that lack of proper routine maintenance of extant local refineries, production inefficiencies as well as grossly mismanagement of the daily domestic crude-oil allocations were primarily responsible for the huge fiscal subsidies expenditure. Nigeria’s indulgence in fuels importation and negligence of local refineries is tantamount to creating employment in those other refined fuels producing countries and escalating unemployment in Nigeria. T Fiscal spending on subsidies would have funded proper routine TAM and build four new refineries which is financing option that ought to have guaranteed ‘pareto optimality’ in the economy.

The taxation of artificial intelligence between new taxes and additional incentives

The profound changes that accompany the history of mankind appear to be largely dependent on the unstoppable strength of knowledge and innovation. Robotics and artificial intelligences bring about profound changes in production and service delivery patterns (with automated and interconnected productions), in the rethinking of the man-machine and machine-machine relationship (so-called industry 4.0), in work organisation and even in domestic life and everyday life , according to whom “the fourth industrial revolution can act in two directions: an impact on the manufacturing world because the production of goods and services thanks to robots, artificial intelligence, communication technologies, the cloud can be completely reformed and modified and the transformation of society because the entry of robots 4.0 will take place in our midst. In re – thinking and designing the regulatory models of robotic lex, fiscal discipline, although too often towed with civil and commercial, can and must play a decisive role both in the promotion and dissemination of new models of production and social organization and in the taxation of new forms of wealth, also in the form of savings in expenditure, which the diffusion of new enabling technologies and that of data storage and circulation tools (big data) generate, speeding up transactions and expanding how the information is used. The aim of the article is an attempt to assess the application of robot taxes and web taxation taking into account specific nature of the subject of taxation. The author tries to present the possible development of the fiscal instrument in the light of technological development.

Political business cycle and fiscal discipline in Sub-Saharan Africa

We tested the Political Business Cycle theory in Sub-Sahara Africa. To provide an empirical explanation for this nexus, this paper used unbalanced panel data from thirty-six (36) Sub-Saharan African countries between 1990 and 2018. The system Generalized Method of Moment (GMM) developed by Arrelano-Bover/Blundell-Bond was employed to analyze the collected data. The results of the system GMM revealed that the fiscal deficit is significantly large in election years and the deficit spending spills into the year after the election, though not as high as in the election year. We could not, however, find a significant effect in the pre-election year. In addition, we found evidence suggesting that though democracy significantly lowers the fiscal deficit, it promotes higher deficit spending in the election year and the year after the election. Hence, the study established the existence of a political business cycle in Sub-Saharan African countries. The study thus recommends that sound economic policies should be put in place to reduce the persistent deficit in SSA so as to maintain sustainable fiscal health, as well as the sustainability of macroeconomics, particularly enhanced industrialization, as the study found that countries' fiscal deficits are lower in more industrialized countries in the region.

FISCAL POLICY IN BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA - AN INSTRUMENT FOR FASTER GROWTH OR ECONOMIC STAGNATION?

The paper investigates the impact of fiscal policy on economic growth, foreign direct investment and employment in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The focus of research is fiscal policy, which as a lever of economic policy that affects economic growth and development. The aim of the research is to determine the impact of fiscal policy on the economy of Bosnia and Herzegovina and propose solutions for higher growth and development, a higher degree of foreign direct investment and reducing the unemployment rate. The results of the research show that the fiscal policy for the years that are the subject of the research, has affected the public debt of the state. High taxes and contributions have contributed to the spread of the gray economy, fiscal discipline is at a low level due to the management in this way of this lever of economic policy. Public financial management should be one of the key macroeconomic goals, with special emphasis on fiscal policy. The research went in the direction of analyzing current trends and proposals for improving the situation. The research aims to show the current statistical impact of variables on gross domestic product, on growth and development and the impact after the application of expansionary fiscal policy on the same variables. It is recommended that economic policy be conducted in the direction of releasing additional funds through the redistribution of taxes in favor of workers, in the direction of capital investments that will repay themselves, to reduce the rate of taxes and contributions on wages and with incentives for investors, to go towards stimulating production and tax reliefs for export-oriented activities with an effort to try to produce products whose production is possible in our conditions, and all this is mostly possible with the implementation of an expansive fiscal policy.

THEORY OF ATTRIBUTION DAN KEPATUHAN PAJAK DI MASA PANDEMI COVID-19

Tax compliance is an essential dimension in tax revenue collection. It plays a vital role in achieving a 3% fiscal discipline limit by 2023 and Indonesia's economic recovery. This study aims to analyze the factors that influence the compliance behavior of individual taxpayers (WP OP) from internal and external perceptions (Attribution Theory). The internal factors in this study are awareness, perception of justice, religiosity, whereas the external factors are tax service facilities, tax rate levels, technological advances, and COVID-19 education. The population is all WP OP in Yogyakarta City who registered with KPP Pratama Yogyakarta, of which 100 samples were taken using purposive sampling technique. Structural Equation Model (SEM) Partial Least Square (PLS) method was used to analyze the data. This study found that factors in a form of awareness have a significant positive effect on taxpayer compliance, so do religiosity and technological advances. On the other hand, the perception of fairness has no significant effect, tax service facilities, and COVID-19 education have no significant effect on taxpayer compliance. Lastly, the tax rate level negatively impacts taxpayer compliance, albeit insignificant.

Socio-Economic and Political Challenges of EU Member Countries: Grasping the Policy Direction of the European Semester

The European Semester (ES) and the country-specific recommendations (CSRs) have been introduced with the purpose to promote flexibility and adaptation to national circumstances in the governance of fiscal policies. To assess whether the ES has contributed to reconcile economic and social objectives, we measured, through the distance to frontier (DTF) score methodology, the distance of each member country from a benchmark based on EU aims and values defined in the EU treaties. Results show that EU member countries are far from the benchmark and CSRs have not prevented a progressive deterioration of stability and cohesion from an economic, political and social perspective. A content analysis of the CSRs issued from 2011 to 2018 and a comparison with the DTF scores reveal a weak connection between member countries’ performance and CSRs. Despite the social content of many CSRs, we actually observe a “commodification” of their goals. CSRs promote a society functional to flexible and competitive markets, and compatible with the requirements of fiscal discipline and sustainability. This neoliberal approach apparently played a role in the EU deterioration and makes the “socialization” of the ES a process with ambiguous implications for European citizens.

Financial Sustainability of the Russian Higher Education Institutions: Quantitative Analysis

Purpose. Quantitative analysis and identification of determinants of Russian universities’ financial sustainability.Methods. Non-parametric methods for data analysis and machine learning.Results. We proposed two groups of working hypothesis. The levels of financial sustainability of Russian state universities are linked to internal environmental factors including the levels of financial management quality, income-generating activities scale, debt financing, fiscal discipline, academic and research-based activities scales. The levels of financial sustainability of Russian state universities are linked to external environmental factors and depend on the funding patterns and regional dimensions.Conclusions. Special conditions for increased state funding are not sufficient to strengthen universities’ financial sustainability. Moreover, we have established the insignificance of the university geographical location influence on financial sustainability. We have come to a conclusion that both financial management efficiency and prior year financial sustainability have key roles to play in current sustainability formation. Universities with a large scale of income-generating activities are more financially stable due to the diversification of sources of financial support for their overall activities.

Analysis of public expenditure management in terms of respect for economic, social and cultural rights in the Republic of Moldova

To a great extent, respecting human rights in the Republic of Moldova is affected by unsatisfactory evolution of public expenditures and the way the latter are managed. The quality of public expenditure management, with an impact on respecting economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) is evaluated through the prism of basic objectives of public financial management, namely the following: maintaining strict financial discipline, allocating public financial resources in conformity with government’s priorities, efficient provision of public services. The central public administration and local public administrations from the Republic of Moldova are relatively more successful in consolidating fiscal discipline than in providing an efficient use of public expenditure in conformity with strategic priorities. The research argues the positive effect which can be made by improvement of public expenditure management on respecting ESCR in the Republic of Moldova.

The progressive gendering of the European Union’s economic governance architecture

This study shows the correlation between the European integration process and the progress of gender equality objectives. In particular, it focuses on the effectiveness of economic governance tools to enhance coordination between national policies towards gender equality. The research question pertains to whether the new architecture of economic governance aims to consolidate the market model or correct gender imbalances. This aspect leads us to explore the diverse tools of national monitoring displayed in the recently reinforced governance, particularly the fiscal discipline policy as a conditioning framework, the European Semester as the current significant instrument for coordinating national policies, and the European Pillar of Social Rights (EPSR) and its Social Scoreboard annex. The analysis confirms that the potential of governance instruments to enhance gender equality is underused. Meanwhile, these tools set out a policy focused on consolidating the market model of competitiveness and fiscal discipline, rather than tackling gender inequalities