Fiscal Sustainability When Time is on Your Side

With a favourable demographic profile, a budget balance currently in surplus and gross government debt under 60 per cent of GDP, Ireland would appear to be an economy with time on its side before any concerns about fiscal sustainability arise. In this paper, it is argued that favourable baseline prospects, nevertheless, provide no less a challenge for public finance management than dealing with poor baseline prospects. Two long-term policy options - reducing the debt and prefunding future pension liabilities - with a direct impact on the public finances are discussed. Both raise important issues for government and have implications for the financial and monetary system that need careful consideration. It is pointed out that member states face disincentives under EU fiscal rules to initiating public pensions prefunding schemes. The dynamics of fiscal sustainability in a fast-growing economy such as Ireland are also considered. It is argued that the EU fiscal rules may limit the attainment of the optimal growth path of an economy, particularly in economies where significant government investment may be warranted. With a wide range of growth rates and stage of development experiences in prospect across member states in future years, it is important that the fiscal rules be assessed as to whether they cater successfully for the diversity of investment requirements and public finance prospects in the EU.

Measuring Structural Budget Balances in a Fast Growing Economy: The Case of Ireland

The most popular method of measuring structural budget balances is the “gaps plus elasticities” approach. Abtract: In this paper, it is argued that the idiosyncratic features of an economy need to be accounted for properly when seeking to achieve good estimates of structural budget balances using this method. The first step in this approach involves measuring the economy’s potential output in order to identify an output gap that indicates the economy’s cyclical position. There are two main approaches to measuring potential output - a production function approach and a trend smoothing approach. The paper highlights how estimates of potential output growth can vary quite considerably between these two approaches in an economy such as Ireland due to the manner in which the high mobility of productive factors can impact on the production function approach and in how very high recent growth rates impact on the trend smoothing approach. The second step of the gap plus elasticities approach requires measuring the sensitivity of revenue and expenditure items to the output gap in the form of an elasticity. In the standard estimation procedure, these elasticities are generally assumed to remain constant over the cycle. Evidence from Ireland, however, suggests that an assumption of constant elasticity values is unlikely to be plausible in practice. On the contrary, cyclically-sensitive fiscal policy will introduce time-variance into elasticity measures. There may be a need, therefore, to assess and quantify the significance and consequences of time variance in elasticity measures and its implications for structural budget balance estimation.

Mis-Designing the UK Electricity Market

electricity auctions, regulation

Niacin therapy and the risk of new-onset diabetes: a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials

Objective Previous studies have suggested that niacin treatment raises glucose levels in patients with diabetes and may increase the risk of developing diabetes. We undertook a meta-analysis of published and unpublished data from randomised trials to confirm whether an association exists between niacin and new-onset diabetes. Methods We searched Medline, EMBASE and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, from 1975 to 2014, for randomised controlled trials of niacin primarily designed to assess its effects on cardiovascular endpoints and cardiovascular surrogate markers. We included trials with ≥50 non-diabetic participants and average follow-up of ≥24 weeks. Published data were tabulated and unpublished data sought from investigators. We calculated risk ratios (RR) for new-onset diabetes with random-effects meta-analysis. Heterogeneity between trials was assessed using the I2 statistic. Results In 11 trials with 26 340 non-diabetic participants, 1371 (725/13 121 assigned niacin; 646/13 219 assigned control) were diagnosed with diabetes during a weighted mean follow-up of 3.6 years. Niacin therapy was associated with a RR of 1.34 (95% CIs 1.21 to 1.49) for new-onset diabetes, with limited heterogeneity between trials (I2=0.0%, p=0.87). This equates to one additional case of diabetes per 43 (95% CI 30 to 70) initially non-diabetic individuals who are treated with niacin for 5 years. Results were consistent regardless of whether participants received background statin therapy (p for interaction=0.88) or combined therapy with laropiprant (p for interaction=0.52). Conclusions Niacin therapy is associated with a moderately increased risk of developing diabetes regardless of background statin or combination laropiprant therapy

Stereoselective method to quantify bupropion and its three major metabolites, hydroxybupropion, erythro-dihydrobupropion, and threo-dihydrobupropion using HPLC-MS/MS

Bupropion metabolites formed via oxidation and reduction exhibit pharmacological activity, but little is known regarding their stereoselective disposition. A novel stereoselective liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) method was developed to separate and quantify enantiomers of bupropion, 4-hydroxybupropion, and erythro- and threo-dihydrobupropion. Liquid-liquid extraction was implemented to extract all analytes from 50 μL human plasma. Acetaminophen (APAP) was used as an internal standard. The analytes were separated on a Lux 3 μ Cellulose-3 250×4.6 mm column by methanol: acetonitrile: ammonium bicarbonate: ammonium hydroxide gradient elution and monitored using an ABSciex 5500 QTRAP triple-quadrupole mass spectrometer equipped with electrospray ionization probe in positive mode. Extraction efficiency for all analytes was ≥70%. The stability at a single non-extracted concentration for over 48 h at ambient temperature resulted in less than 9.8% variability for all analytes. The limit of quantification (LOQ) for enantiomers of bupropion and 4-hydroxybupropion was 0.3 ng/mL, while the LOQ for enantiomers of erythro- and threo-hydrobupropion was 0.15 ng/mL. The intra-day precision and accuracy estimates for enantiomers of bupropion and its metabolites ranged from 3.4% to 15.4% and from 80.6% to 97.8%, respectively, while the inter-day precision and accuracy ranged from 6.1% to 19.9% and from 88.5% to 99.9%, respectively. The current method was successfully implemented to determine the stereoselective pharmacokinetics of bupropion and its metabolites in 3 healthy volunteers administered a single 100mg oral dose of racemic bupropion. This novel, accurate, and precise HPLC-MS/MS method should enhance further research into bupropion stereoselective metabolism and drug interactions

Localization transitions in non-Hermitian quantum mechanics

We study the localization transitions which arise in both one and two dimensions when quantum mechanical particles described by a random Schr\"odinger equation are subjected to a constant imaginary vector potential. A path-integral formulation relates the transition to flux lines depinned from columnar defects by a transverse magnetic field in superconductors. The theory predicts that the transverse Meissner effect is accompanied by stretched exponential relaxation of the field into the bulk and a diverging penetration depth at the transition.Comment: 4 pages (latex) with 3 figures (epsf) embedded in the text using the style file epsf.st

Possible Ni-Rich Mafic-Ultramafic Magmatic Sequence in the Columbia Hills: Evidence from the Spirit Rover

The Spirit rover landed on geologic units of Hesperian age in Gusev Crater. The Columbia Hills rise above the surrounding plains materials, but orbital images show that the Columbia Hills are older [1, 2]. Spirit has recently descended the southeast slope of the Columbia Hills doing detailed measurements of a series of outcrops. The mineralogical and compositional data on these rocks are consistent with an interpretation as a magmatic sequence becoming increasingly olivine-rich down slope. The outcrop sequence is Larry s Bench, Seminole, Algonquin and Comanche. The "teeth" on the Rock Abrasion Tool (RAT) wore away prior to arrival at Larry s Bench; the data discussed are for RAT brushed surfaces

On Meaningful Human Control in High-Stakes Machine-Human Partnerships

Our team at the Summer Institute was diverse in both skills (including technical computer science, cognitive science, systems innovation, and radiology expertise) and career stage (including faculty, graduate students, and a medical student). We were brought together at the ‘pitch’ stage by a mutual interest in human-machine partnerships in complex, high-stakes domains such as healthcare, transport, and autonomous weapons. We began with a focus on the topic of “meaningful human control” – a term most often applied in the autonomous weapons literature, which refers broadly to human participation in the deployment and operation of potentially autonomous artificial intelligence (AI) systems, such that the human has a meaningful contribution to decisions and outcomes