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Daily Archives: February 16, 2015

Expenditure Rules: Effective Tools for Sound Fiscal Policy?

IMF Working Paper WP/15/29  – Till Cordes; Tidiane Kinda; Priscilla S. Muthoora; Anke Weber. February 12, 2015.

This paper provides new evidence on the effectiveness of expenditure rules. The analysis is based on a unique dataset covering all countries with national and supranational fiscal rules, including 33 expenditure rules, between 1985 and 2013. It contributes to the existing literature on fiscal rules in two main ways. First, it is the most comprehensive assessment of compliance with rules and of the potential role of expenditure rules, in particular regarding long-term sustainability. Second, it analyzes whether expenditure rules are associated with changes in public investment and its efficiency.

Report – Plastic waste inputs from land into the ocean

Science 13 February 2015: Vol. 347 no. 6223 pp. 768-771  DOI: 10.1126/science.1260352 [subscription req’d]: “Plastic debris in the marine environment is widely documented, but the quantity of plastic entering the ocean from waste generated on land is unknown. By linking worldwide data on solid waste, population density, and economic status, we estimated the mass of… Continue Reading

Paper – New Ideas in Invention

New Ideas in Invention by Mikko Packalen, Jay Bhattacharya. NBER Working Paper No. 20922. Issued in January 2015. “A key decision in research is whether to try out new ideas or build on more established ideas. In this paper, we evaluate which type of work is more likely to spur further invention. When recent advances… Continue Reading

The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System

“The Eleventh Annual W. J. Usery Distinguished Lecture on the American Workplace, was held on Wednesday, October 8, 2014, at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies. Robert Moffitt, the Krieger-Eisenhower Professor of Economics, Johns Hopkins University [presented] “The Deserving Poor, the Family, and the U.S. Welfare System.” Professor Moffitt’s research focuses on applied microeconometrics… Continue Reading

Human Rights World Report 2015

“World Report 2015 is Human Rights Watch’s 25th annual review of human rights practices around the globe. It summarizes key human rights issues in more than 90 countries and territories worldwide. In his keynote, Human Rights Watch Executive Director Kenneth Roth reflects on a year so tumultuous, “it can seem as if the world is… Continue Reading

Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index 2015

“The Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index ranks the performance of 180 countries according to a range of criteria that include media pluralism and independence, respect for the safety and freedom of journalists, and the legislative, institutional and infrastructural environment in which the media operate. Top of the list, as so often, are three… Continue Reading

Report – 12 Risks that threaten human civilisation

“This report [via Global Challenges Foundation] has, to the best of the authors’ knowledge, created the first list of global risks with impacts that for all practical purposes can be called infinite. It is also the first structured overview of key events related to such risks and has tried to provide initial rough quantifications for… Continue Reading