192 research outputs found
The legal framework for private sector development in a transitional economy : the case of Poland
No full textThe economies of Central and Eastern Europe are in the midst of a historic transition from central planning and state ownership to development of a market-driven private sector. This transition requires comprehensive changes in"rules of the game"- including the legal framework for economic activity. A market economy presupposes a set of property rights and a system of laws or customs that allow the exchange of those rights. The legal framework in a market economy has at least three basic functions: defining the universe of property rights; setting the rules for entry into and exit from productive activities; and setting the rules of market exchange. These legal tasks are accomplished by areas of law such as: company, foreign investment, bankruptcy, contract and competition law. Poland has a rich legal tradition dating from pre-socialist times, which was suppressed but not eliminated during its forty years of socialism. This tradition is being revised as the country moves toward a private market economy. The current legal framework in Poland closely follows other continental jurisdictions and has a clear and reasonable internal logic. Many of the laws are old, but most are flexible enough to permit a wide range of modern, market-oriented activity. Property law, however, remains a"jungle". The wide discretion and general lack of precedent create tremendous legal uncertainty that is sure to hamper private sector development.Environmental Economics&Policies,Banks&Banking Reform,Municipal Housing and Land,Legal Products,Land and Real Estate Development
Antennas re-clustering and target handoff for multiple radars system
No full textWidely distributed multiple radar systems have been shown to offer enhanced localization performance. With smaller radar footprint, the ability to employ larger number of transmit and receive antennas opens new opportunities. In previous research, a subset selection scheme has been proposed for antenna clustering that minimizes the number of transmit and receive antennas required to achieve a preset accuracy performance. The study indicated that some transmit and receive antenna pairs contribute more than others to the localization performance. This thesis concentrates on handoff techniques that enable the transition of target tracking from one antenna cluster to another. As a target moves in an area covered by a grid of multiple radars, its relative position with respect to an existing tracking antenna cluster (or antenna subset) is changing, affecting the accuracy capabilities of the existing antenna cluster. Thus, at some point, there is a need to update the antenna cluster, keeping a useful antenna subset while replacing other antennas with ones that will keep localization accuracy within a given range. Re-clustering methods are proposed to address target handoff within antennas belonging to a larger grid. Low complexity re-clustering algorithms are proposed for handoff purposes which enable a constrained replacement of antennas. These fast approximation algorithms are based on the optimization of the Cramer Rao bound (CRB) and constrained by the number of antennas that may be replaced at any given time. It is shown that this method performs close to optimal and can be implemented in a decentralized fashion.M.S.Includes bibliographical referencesby Sadiq Jabba
How Indonesia's monetary policy affects key variables
No full textThe objective of this paper is to examine the determination of interest rates, inflation and nominal exchange rates in Indonesia, and investigate the role of monetary policy in affecting these variables. In the short term, monetary policy can be used to protect domestic interest rates from the destabilizing influence of speculative capital flight. In the long run, monetary policy can help lower domestic nominal interest rates by maintaining low inflation and dampening expectation about depreciation. The potential for reducing interest rates through monetary expansion is limited. Domestic inflation is partly a monetary phenomenon but structural factors also affect it. The effects of international inflation are immediate and strong; the effects of wage pushes are smaller and less immediate. Inflation can be reduced to some extent by slowing the growth of money - which strengthens the secondary influence of a slower crawling exchange rate. A managed float is appropriate for maintaining a competitive exchange rate, given the gap between world and domestic inflation caused by structural and monetary factors. Real depreciation of the exchange rate will be necessary to compensate for unanticipated decline in oil income (from lower than expected oil prices).Economic Theory&Research,Economic Stabilization,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Banks&Banking Reform
International transfer pricing : the Australian approach and lessons for Canada
No full textIn response to developments in international trade and an increased focus on international transfer-pricing issues, Canada’s minister of finance announced in the 1997 budget that the Department of Finance would undertake a review of the transfer-pricing provisions in the Income Tax Act. On September 11, 1997, the Department of Finance released draft transfer-pricing legislation and Revenue Canada released revised draft Information Circular 87-2R. The legislation was subsequently amended and included in Bill C-28, which received first reading on December 10, 1997. The new rules are intended to update Canada’s international transfer-pricing practices. In particular, they attempt to harmonize the standards in the Income Tax Act with the arm’s-length principle established in the OECD’s transfer pricing guidelines. The new rules also set out contemporaneous documentation requirements in respect of cross-border related-party transactions, facilitate administration of the law by Revenue Canada, and provide for a penalty where transfer prices do not comply with the arm’s-length principle. The Australian tax authorities have similarly reviewed and updated their transfer-pricing practices. Since 1992, the Australian commissioner of taxation has issued three rulings and seven draft rulings directly relating to international transfer pricing. These rulings outline the selection and application of transfer pricing methodologies, documentation requirements, and penalties for non-compliance. The Australian Taxation Office supports the use of advance pricing agreements (APAs) and has expanded its audit strategy by conducting transfer-pricing risk assessment reviews. This article presents a detailed review of Australia’s transfer-pricing policy and practices, which address essentially the same concerns as those at which the new Canadian rules are directed. This review provides a framework for comparison of the approaches adopted in the two jurisdictions. The author concludes that although these approaches differ in some respects, ultimately they produce a similar result. Both regimes set a clear standard to be met by multinational enterprises in establishing transfer prices. Both provide for audits and penalties in the event of noncompliance. And both offer the alternative of an APA as a means of avoiding transfer-pricing disputes with Australian and Canadian tax authorities
Real Australian teachers : working in an Australian Islamic school
No full textThe only teachers who work at Al Sadiq College in Sydney\u27s south-west are Australian teachers, but they and their students experience cultural prejudice as a daily fact of life. This article describes the experiences of the author, principal of Al Sadiq College, and implications of the cultural bias for Australia. The author argues that the danger for the nation is that a \u27conflicted identity\u27 with its alienation, marginalisation, and suspicion will destabilise the students\u27 sense of belonging. [Author abstract, ed
How can Indonesia maintain creditworthiness and noninflationary growth ?
No full textDespite external shocks, Indonesia has maintained creditworthiness through swift adjustment. Indonesia's flexible economic management and clear policy signals have lent stability to the economy, in contrast to the stop and go reforms, uncertainty, and constant debt renegotiations in many high debt countries. The authors use an econometrically estimated macroeconomic model to analyze open economy adjustment in Indonesia - particularly the interaction between the exchange rate, the interest rate, growth, and debt - and to analyze future policy changes in light of Indonesia's objectives for growth, external debt, and inflation.Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Macroeconomic Management,Economic Stabilization,Banks&Banking Reform
Reassuring teens [Book reviews]
No full textIn this article, the following books are reviewed: "Camels Can Make You Homesick and Other Stories" by Nazneen Sadiq, "I Was a 15-Year-Old Blimp" by Patti Stren, "Sandy" by Nancy Freeman and "Storm Child" by Brenda Bellingham
A scalable framework for stylometric analysis of multi-author documents
No full textThis is an accepted manuscript of a chapter published by Springer in Database Systems for Advanced Applications. DASFAA 2018. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 10827 on 13/05/2018, available online: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91452-7_52
The accepted version of the publication may differ from the final published version.Stylometry is a statistical technique used to analyze the variations in the author’s writing styles and is typically applied to authorship attribution problems. In this investigation, we apply stylometry to authorship identification of multi-author documents (AIMD) task. We propose an AIMD technique called Co-Authorship Graph (CAG) which can be used to collaboratively attribute different portions of documents to different authors belonging to the same community. Based on CAG, we propose a novel AIMD solution which (i) significantly outperforms the existing state-of-the-art solution; (ii) can effectively handle a larger number of co-authors; and (iii) is capable of handling the case when some of the listed co-authors have not contributed to the document as a writer. We conducted an extensive experimental study to compare the proposed solution and the best existing AIMD method using real and synthetic datasets. We show that the proposed solution significantly outperforms existing state-of-the-art method
Promoting growth in Sri Lanka : lessons from East Asia
No full textSri Lanka's weak economic performance, although compounded by the civil war and budgetary imbalance, largely reflects the following: 1) a stop-and-go pattern of policy reform, because of political constraints - even though the results of reform were generally positive; 2) weak economic management, resulting in high inflation and a high fiscal and balance of payments deficit; 3) poor management of public spending; 4) mixed performance in exchange-rate management, with periods of substantial overvaluation; 5) financial policies that (despite recent improvements) hamper efficient financial intermediation; 6) prolonged trade protection, followed by selective trade liberalization; 7) continued distortion in agricultural policies; 8) inflexible labor markets and, despite Sri Lanka's outstanding track record on human development, problems with the quality of the labor force. To address a substantially unfinished policy agenda, Sri Lanka needs to intensify efforts to peacefully resolve civil conflict. There is also a need to squarely address its macroeconomic imbalances, involving a sharp reduction in the fiscal deficit, a cutback on public spending and redefinition of spending priorities, improvement of cost recovery for public services, and continuing to improve the management of the exchange rate. In trade policy, eliminate most quanitative restrictions, further reduce tariff protection, simplify the tariff structure, and, possibly, reform customs (to reduce leakage and abuse). Rationalize employment, exit, and bankruptcy regulations and procedures. The authors recommend improvement in communications between government and the private sector. It is necessary for the financial sector to become more competitive by legislating banking reform, giving state-owned banks more autonomy and putting private commercial banks on an equal footing with the two state banks, with the ultimate goal of privatizing the state banks, and also strengthen the supervision of banking. Also in the financial sector the authors have identified a need for privatization in insurance and pension funds to strengthen the capital market. Several aspects of the agricultural sector need to be revamped. Primarily, privatization of the estate plantations, perhaps through long-term management contracts and the gradual sale of share in assets; reduced trade protection; implementation of land reform; strengthen agricultural support; and possibly support rural financing institutions. Lastly, the authors suggest an end to government controls on hiring, firing, and wage setting as well as rationalization in civil service employment decisions.Labor Policies,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Decentralization,Banks&Banking Reform,Banks&Banking Reform,Economic Theory&Research,Environmental Economics&Policies,Achieving Shared Growth,Inequality
Fiscal policyfor managing Indonesia's environment
No full textThe objective of this paper is to examine the role of fiscal policy in the management of Indonesia's environment. The aim is to develop a framework that will allow an examination of possible fiscal instruments and their relevance to Indonesia's context. It is important to note that fiscal policy is one possible area of policy intervention. Regulatory policies would also continue to play a major role. A comprehensive environmental management strategy will need to be based on a balanced combination of regulatory and fiscal policy instruments. Furthermore, a critical element underlying the successful implementation of this strategy will be the availability of an appropriate institutional mechanism. The paper provides an overview of Indonesia's key environmental issues followed by the framework for fiscal policy instruments. The Indonesian Government's progress on environmental management policies is examined briefly to provide background for the discussion of possible fiscal policy options. Finally, the paper provides a summary and conclusions.Water Conservation,Forestry,Water Resources Assessment,Environmental Economics&Policies,Water and Industry
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