Political competition,tax salience and accountability. Theory and evidence from Italy

This paper argues that electoral competition may hinder rather than foster political accountability, especially when elected officers can choose among a number of tax instruments. We develop a political agency model showing that politicians in more competitive jurisdictions use less salient tax instruments more intensely. Defining salience as visibility or, analogously, as voters' awareness of the costs associated with specific government revenue sources, we argue that voters are less likely to hold politicians to account for the associated tax burden of a less salient instrument. This in turn implies that strategic politicians will more heavily rely on less salient revenue sources when electoral competition is stronger. Using data on Italian municipal elections and taxes over a 10-year period, we determine the degree of salience of various tax instruments, including property taxes (high salience) and government fees for official documents (low salience). We then show that mayors facing stronger competition for re-election use less salient tax instruments more intensely.     

Small system dynamics model for alleviating the general practitioners rural care gap in Ontario,Canada

The disproportionate concentration of healthcare professionals in urban areas is a concern in many countries, including Canada. A need to address this rural care gap has driven a large number of government led initiatives worldwide over the years. This paper presents a model that can be used as a tool to examine the efficacy of such policies on the workforce distribution in the long term. A small system dynamics model is employed to simulate the current and future distribution of general physicians at a jurisdictional level. The model represents the transition of general practitioners to provide insight into the dynamics of care provision over time. The movement, and competition, between rural and urban areas is modeled to enable detailed exploration of the ability for proposed measures to alleviate the care gap in the future. Among the tested policies are such commonly used initiatives as financial incentives to rural professionals, promotion of medical education in rural areas, expansion of rural education programs and the engagement of international medical graduates etc. We demonstrate how the model can be used as a tool to determine an efficient and well-chosen combination of policies which can help alleviate the rural care gap in the future, given that some policies are more effective than others alone but also combined with other initiatives. The presented small system dynamics model is tested on Canada's reality, but its simple nature lends itself to easy application to other countries that experience a similar problem.     

“五年规划”该规划什么,不该规划什么?

在市场经济条件下，政府制定规划的基本作用与思路为“研判未来趋势，提出发展愿景，规划政府任务”，对市场进行“负面清单管理”，对政府进行“正面清单约束”。政府应提高治理能力，努力把自己该做的事做足、做好，少搞产业政策，减少对市场干预，做真正体现小政府、大市场、由市场起决定性作用的规划。     

Finite lifetimes,long-term debt and the fiscal limit

The U.S. faces exponentially rising entitlement obligations. I introduce a fiscal limit—a point where higher taxes are no longer a feasible financing mechanism—into a Perpetual Youth model to examine how intergenerational redistributions of wealth, the average duration of government debt, and entitlement reform impact the consequences of explosive government transfers. Three key findings emerge: (1) Growing government transfers cause more severe and more persistent stagflation than in representative agent models that do not capture intergenerational transfers of wealth; (2) A longer average duration of government debt pushes the financing of government liabilities into the future and reduces the short-run impacts of explosive transfers; (3) The time it takes the economy to rebound from a period of growing transfers increases exponentially with the number of years it takes to pass entitlement reform.     

税收优惠影响企业创新产出的多元机制研究——来自中国软件与集成电路产业的证据

创新政策一直是激励企业创新的重要手段，其中税收优惠政策是一种具有市场导向性的激励政策，对企业创新具有良好的促进作用，但是政策对企业产生激励作用的原因尚不清晰。选取对我国技术突破有重要作用的软件与集成电路企业，采用2006-2018年中国A股上市公司数据，聚焦2011年国家对软件与集成电路行业的两个税收优惠政策，运用双重差分法对企业创新产出影响进行实证研究。结果发现：税收优惠政策对发明专利申请有显著促进作用，而对非发明专利申请无显著影响。融资约束、企业避税行为等是税收激励政策发挥作用的主要渠道。另外，税收优惠政策对不同规模、产权和区域企业有不同影响，税收优惠政策对大型企业、国有企业以及中西部地区企业创新产出促进作用更大。从税收优惠政策长期影响看，该政策对专利申请的影响存在时滞性，而发明专利申请在政策发生当年就显著增加。研究结论可为明晰税收优惠政策、融资约束与企业创新产出间关系提供有益启示。     

A cellular automata-based land-use model as an integrated spatial decision support system for urban planning in developing cities: The case of the Bogotá region

Bogotá and the 17 neighboring municipalities make up one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Latin America. However, despite strong functional interactions within the area, there is no official government body at this level in charge of coordinating authorities and providing solutions to the wide variety of issues arising in the regional urban land system. Aiming at providing an insight on future land-use developments linked to new transport infrastructures and at offering a tool to support territorial decision-making, this paper presents a cellular automata-based (CA) model based in Metronamica® software, that allows testing different scenarios based on potential land-use policies, environmental suitability and transport alternatives.There has not been, so far, an urban planning tool that accounts for the complexities of this region. CA-based land-use simulations constitute a useful approach to understanding the impacts of urban planning policies and regulations. This tool can help to improve inter-territorial and inter-institutional coordination, which through planning and management policies seek a spatially integrated development, with a long-term perspective.The CA-based model proposed was calibrated to reproduce land-use changes between 2007 and 2016 using different methods and indicators. The model was used to simulate and analyze eight scenarios with different policy directions of transport infrastructure in the future of the region. The results of the simulations reflect the dynamics of territorial occupation. The calibration indices in the experiment indicate a high degree of suitability for the CA Bogotá model, proving its effectiveness and potential as a useful tool for decision-making. The results show that occupation scenarios with restricted developable zones within the city, tend to have the greater dispersion rate in the study area, compared to scenarios where land development plans are promoted in Bogotá, which representing a more compact development.     

Impact of national policies on patterns of built-up development: an assessment over three decades

Globally, built-up development is taking place at unprecedented rates. To mitigate and limit its effects, recent scientific and spatial planning communities call for built-up management to be addressed on broader scales, from regional to national, and coordinated with multiple policy domains. In this paper, we aimed to analyze the evolution and impact of Romania’s national policies on built-up management during the entire period from the fall of the communist regime to the present. The new perspective offered by our study concerns the use of spatiotemporal built-up development assessment with policy analysis and visualization. Moreover, policies and built-up land changes are addressed in direct relationship with major political events and global economic influences. Our findings reveal that policies were influenced by the communist legacy, accession to the EU and the global economic crisis. Most effective were the policies adopted during the pre-EU accession period and after the economic crisis. The strongest impact on patterns of development came from policies in the domains of transportation, regional development, public administration and the environment.     

创新政策工具组合、创新能力与创新绩效研究

基于2008-2018年我国内地30个省市面板数据，采用面板固定效应模型分析创新政策工具及其交互项对创新能力及创新绩效的影响。结果发现：①供给型和环境型创新政策均有利于促进技术创新能力提升和创新数量增长，需求型创新政策对创新能力及创新绩效的影响均不显著；②需求型、环境型和供给型创新政策两两交互项能够显著提高基础创新能力和技术创新能力，并显著增加创新数量，但对创新质量均呈显著负向影响；③需求型与供给型以及需求型与环境型创新政策组合功能呈协同互补性特征，供给型和环境型创新政策组合功能呈竞争性特征；④基础创新能力在创新政策工具对创新质量的影响中发挥完全中介作用，技术创新能力在创新政策工具对创新数量的影响中发挥完全中介作用。     

中国省域科技特派员制度实施绩效评估

2016年5月《国务院办公厅关于深入推行科技特派员制度的若干意见》发布实施，但其实施效果如何有待验证。构建科技特派员制度实施绩效评估指标体系，利用改进熵值法和官方统计数据，对中国省域科技特派员制度实施绩效进行实证评估，并对评估结果进行聚类分析。结果表明，中国大多数省份科技特派员制度实施绩效水平较低；根据实施科技开发项目、形成利益共同体、服务农民情况、推广服务和扶贫成效5个绩效评估维度，可以将中国内地31个省份划分为5种类型；即使是总绩效水平较高的地区，在科技特派员制度实施绩效方面也存在一些短板。     

Substantial effect of voluntary policy interventions on aircraft ground handling safety

Managing safety and health matters require comprehensive policy intervention to change the existing culture in the ground handling operations and reducing the safety performance outcomes. This study aims to investigate the relationship between safety culture and safety performance outcome with voluntary policy intervention as the moderating effect of the relationship. The study employed a quantitative method through a survey instrument, which was participated by 423 ground handling workers from six international airports in Malaysia. The results indicated seven hypotheses in direct relationships have positive association between safety culture and safety performance construct. While for moderator relationships, there were five hypotheses found to be statistically significant and supported. The presence of voluntary policy interventions were found to be beneficial or detrimental elements for the insignificant relationships of the study. The ground handling organisation is expected to utilise these results by strengthening their organisation safety culture and prioritise safety and health matters over demand and cost.