Slovakia's Surge: The New System's Impact on Fiscal Decentralisation

Slovakia's transition history long paralleled that of the Czech Republic, but the former adopted bold new reforms early in this decade. This article is a comparative treatment of fiscal decentralisation since 1993 and more recent reforms of public administration, the two efforts representing the foundation of the New System. Czech experience is invoked simply to provide an appropriate benchmark for the evaluation of Slovakia's New System introduced in 2004, including the 19% ‘flat tax’ and other striking measures in local public finance.

The second focus of the article is on the macroeconomic impact of the New System. It is too early to perceive what its long-term effects will be, so this treatment is more tentative. But because one would like to know whether Slovakia's return to an economic growth path is actually a result of the New System and whether this recent growth will persist, these issues are given some consideration.     

Farm size,land yields and the agricultural production function: An analysis for fifteen developing countries

The paper analyzes the relationship between factor inputs, land yields and labor productivity for farms of different size on the basis of FAO farm management data for 15 developing countries. For all but three countries a strong negative correlation is found between farm size on the one side, and factor inputs and yields per hectare on the other. The fitting of unconstrained production functions to the above data suggests that in only few cases the decline in yields for increasing farm size can be attributed to decreasing returns to scale. The higher yields observed in small farms are mainly to be ascribed to higher factor inputs and to a more intensive use of land. Therefore, where conspicuous labor surpluses exist, the superiority of small farming provides solid arguments in favor of land redistribution. Such an agrarian reform would determine higher output, higher labor absorption and a more equitable income distribution, thus contributing in a decisive manner to the alleviation of rural poverty. The paper also provides estimates of cross-sectional production functions for the 15 countries analyzed. Empirical relations are found between the output elasticities of land, labor and intermediate inputs and physical indicators of their scarcity. The paper concludes by proposing a simple method for deriving a long-term production function for agriculture.     

A survey of cross-sectional and time-series literature on factors affecting child welfare

This paper reviews the literature on the socio-economic determinants of child welfare. Cross-sectional evidence is first analysed. The relevant literature is subdivided into four groups of studies depending on the main factors influencing child welfare: demographic; related to family circumstances; related to health care and sanitation; and economic. The very few time-series studies on this subject are then examined. While the existing literature does not allow definitive conclusions to be drawn on the predominance or relative importance of these four sets of factors, this paper identifies three related research areas for which particularly severe gaps seem to emerge and for which additional investigation appears necessary. These are: over-time studies, studies for low-income, high-mortality countries of Africa, for middle-income countries and for high-income, high-mortality countries, and studies measuring impact on the basis of indicators of welfare other than infant mortality rates.     

Did the 2008–2009 Food and Financial Crises Affect Child Mortality? The Case of Sub-Saharan Africa

We estimate an aggregate model of child mortality on a panel of 40 African countries over the period 1995–2007. This model is then used to assess the impact of the 2008–2009 food and financial crises on child mortality, by comparing the number of child deaths computed under a “business-as-usual scenario” with those computed under the actual 2008–2009 “crisis scenario”. According to the simulation results, the 2008–2009 food price rise and recession caused a statistically non-significant additional 27,000 child deaths. However, if the 2008–2009 changes in other determinants of child mortality are factored in, the number of child deaths declined by 15,000. This unexpected result is explained by the fact that the effects of the rise in domestic food prices and the recession were offset in most of the region by the protective effect on the under-five mortality rate of a surge in food production, and by a rise in public expenditure on and foreign aid to the health sector.     

The Impact of Liberalisation and Globalisation on Within-country Income Inequality

The paper reviews changes in within-country income inequalityover the last forty years, with particular attention to theyears of 1980–2000, against the background of the inequalityshifts intervened during the globalisation of 1870–1914.Withincountry inequality appears to have risen to differentextents in two thirds of the 73 countries analysed, overturningin several cases prior trends towards lower inequality. Forthe majority of the countries analysed, the paper rejects thehypotheses that such rise is due to a worsening of the traditionalcauses of inequality, such as high land concentration and inequalityin education, or to technological changes. Most of the recentsurge in income polarisation would appear to be related to thepolicy drive towards domestic deregulation and external liberalisation,though the specific impact of each policy instrument appearto vary considerably. (JEL D31, F02)     

Transition and Long-Term Growth: Conventional Versus Non-Conventional Determinants

MOCT-MOST: Economic Policy in Transitional Economies -     

Risk cultures and dominant approaches towards disasters in seven European countries

This paper builds upon the risk culture concept started with Mary Douglas’ and Aaron Wildavsky’s seminal work on risk and culture. Based upon the empirical results of a qualitative sociological study on sociocultural factors affecting risk perception and crisis communication in seven European countries, a theoretical model, illustrating how differences in disasters framing imply diverse approaches to risk and disaster management, is suggested. According to this framework, culturally bounded assumptions and conventions strongly influence how communities make sense of risks and hazards and how these communities consider some ways of dealing with disasters more appropriate than others. The framework suggested in this article distinguishes between risk cultures of a given society, which do not necessarily respond to nation states. In order to explain differences in how cultures deal with risks and disasters, and to define the main features of our typology, three main interrelated dimensions have been selected: disaster framing, trust in authorities and blaming. By analyzing differences and similarities in how people perceive and interpret disasters, as well as to whom the responsibility for risk prevention and crisis management is attributed, in seven European countries, three specific ideal types of risk cultures emerged: state-oriented risk culture, individual-oriented risk culture and fatalistic risk culture. Implications for crisis management and communication in case of a disaster will be addressed for each of these risk cultures.