There is now a considerable body of literature on decentralization in diverse national contexts. Ascertaining factors that drive local accountability and performance have been the key concerns of these studies. Diverse ethodological instruments and approaches have been used—from large-n...

The objective of the paper is to provide an estimative of the impacts that changes in international prices of agricultural commodities will have on income distribution and poverty in Brazil. To do so, a Social Accounting Matrix is constructed and applied, using a Leontief- Miyazawa type model...

This paper studies the causes and consequences of political centralization and fragmentation in China and Europe. We argue that the severe and unidirectional threat of external invasion fostered political centralization in China while Europe faced a wider variety of smaller external threats and...

There has been consideration of alternative social security financing methods throughout the world during the last two decades. One alternative adopted in several countries is the privatization of so-called pay-as-you-go financing systems. The purpose of this study is to estimate social benefits...

Banking structure is redesigned to make India a fully digital nation and to usher in 100% E-governance. Application of this new restructured banking system:- Banking is expanded so that taxation, tax collections, tax enforcement, tax compliance, registration departments, pass port offices, land...

Two salient features of modern economic growth are the rise in aggregate savings rates and the steady increase in life expectancy. This paper links these processes, showing that under certain conditions economic theory supports the hypothesis that increased longevity leads to higher aggregate...

Regular annuities provide payment for the duration of an owner's life-time. Period-Certain annuities provide additional payment after death to adesignated beneficiary provided the insured dies within a certain period after annuitization. It has been argued that the bequest option offered by the...

Data from Stability Programs (European Countries) and from Us Congress Budget Office and Us Bureau of Census are collected to investigate the burden each worker will have to bear in the future in order to finance pension and health care provisions. If the private side of the system is based,...

Individuals behave with choice probabilities defined by a multinomial logit (MNL) probability distribution over a finite number of alternatives which includes utilities as parameters. The salient feature of the model is that probabilities depend on the choice-set, or domain. Expanding the...

In-depth analysis of problems confronting both the U.S. budget and job market, while presenting a logical remedy for each dilemma. Problems addressed include the growing entitlement spending caused by increased lifespan since passing Medicare and Social Security, military spending on overseas...