Excessive Deficit Research Articles

The Effect of Excessive Glenhumeral Internal Rotation Deficit on Subacromial Joint Space and Forward Scapular Posture among Baseball Pitchers

Objectives:Baseball pitchers frequently present with varying levels of glenohumeral internal rotation deficits (GIRD) in their throwing arms when compared to their non-throwing arms. However, excessive bilateral differences in internal rotation motion have been associated with several shoulder pathologies including both subacromial and internal impingement. Additionally, patients diagnosed with subacromial impingement commonly present with decreased subacromial joint space and increased forward scapular posture. These characteristics have not been, as of yet, evaluated and associated to those pitchers who present with excessive GIRD. The purpose of this study was to determine if a group of baseball pitchers with excessive GIRD have differences in subacromial joint space and forward scapular posture when compared to a control group.Methods:Twenty-five asymptomatic professional baseball pitchers with excessive GIRD were matched with 25 pitchers with acceptable levels of GIRD. Excessive GIRD was classified as an amount greater than 10% of the total arc of motion (i.e. dominant shoulder total arc=160°; 0.10x160°=16°; excessive GIRD=>16°). A digital inclinometer was used to measure glenohumeral internal and external rotation range of motion with participants in a supine position and their scapula stabilized. Diagnostic ultrasound was used to measure the distance of the subacromial joint space with the throwing arm resting at the side of the participant’s body (0° abduction). Bilateral forward scapular posture was assessed with each participant standing against a wall and then the distance between the wall and their anterior acromion was measured using the double square technique. The bilateral difference between these measurements was used to determine the amount of forward scapular posture for the throwing arm. Separate t-tests were run to determine significant differences between groups (p<0.05).Results:Results are summarized in Figure 1. The total arc of motion and GIRD for the excessive group was 153.7°±13.4° and -23.5°±5.1°, and 160.5°±16.1° and -3.6°±9.0° for the acceptable level of GIRD group. The excessive GIRD group presented with significantly less subacromial space (9.4mm±2.6 mm) than the control group (11.1mm±2.4 mm) (p=.02). The excessive GIRD group also had significantly more forward scapular posture (10.8mm±11.0 mm) of their throwing arm than the acceptable level of GIRD group (3.9mm±8.8 mm) (p=.01).Conclusion:We found that baseball pitchers with higher levels of GIRD had less subacromial space and more forward scapular posture in their throwing arms compared to pitchers with acceptable levels of GIRD. Our findings suggest that increased GIRD may be a precursor to pathologies associated with decreased subacromial space and forward scapular posture such as subacromial impingement. We suggest that players identified with excessive GIRD perform shoulder strengthening and stretching exercises designed to improve scapular positioning.

The Stabilizing Expenditure Rule in Poland—Simulations for 2014–2040

The stabilizing expenditure rule (SER) imposed on the general government (GG) sector in Poland has been in force and binding since 2014. According to this rule, approximately 90 percent of GG expenditure is allowed to grow, at the most, in line with the real medium-term GDP, and the maximum expenditure growth rate is lowered if there is excessive debt or deficit, or the GG balance does not meet the medium-term objective. A series of stochastic simulations has been constructed that allows for the assessment of how the SER will affect the most important public finance indicators in the period between 2014 and 2040. In addition, this article analyzes the consequences of the lowering of debt thresholds in the SER’s correction mechanism due to the pension system reform implemented in Poland in 2014, and the amendment to the formula in 2015, and predicts how the fiscal reaction function may change after the introduction of the SER in Poland.

Evolution of EU public sector financial accounting standardisation: critical events that opened the window for attempted policy change

This paper analyses agenda-setting for EU policy change in respect to public sector accounting harmonisation, adopting the garbage can model for its theoretical framework. It utilises qualitative research methods to determine what caused the window of opportunity to open, why it led to a proposal for compulsory public sector accounting standardisation for member states and why the International Public Sector Accounting Standards were not adopted by the EU. It concludes that harmonised accrual accounting is likely to be only a minor instrument of EU fiscal governance and its Excessive Deficit Procedure aiming to prevent governments running structurally unbalanced public finances.

Intramuscular maintenance treatment with ultra-high-dose long-acting injectable aripiprazole in an elderly patient suffering from chronic refractory schizophrenia: A case report

Long-acting injectable (LAI) aripiprazole is increasingly appreciated in the course of a maintenance treatment of schizophrenia due to efficacy in delaying – and decreasing relapse, and low rates of feared side effects. In line with the prescribing information, the maximal starting – as well as maintenance dose was restricted to 400 mg following a 26-day interval between the single doses.We present a 72-year-old female inpatient (66 kg) with an acute exacerbation of chronic refractory schizophrenia, exhibiting primarily positive symptoms including excessive persecutory delusions, self-care deficit, poor insight and insufficient adherence to continuous intake of oral medication. Since she developed a post-injection syndrome after an accidental intravascular administration of olanzapine LAI 405 mg, the antipsychotic treatment was switched to aripiprazole LAI 300 mg once monthly. Due to insufficient clinical response, aripiprazole LAI was gradually increased up to 1200 mg per month under continuous plasma level monitoring. Here, 2 single injections of aripiprazole LAI 300 mg were delivered into both gluteal muscles concurrently, every 14 days.Consequently, we observed a clinically meaningful improvement (a total-score reduction from 111 to 75 on the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale), as well as no objectifiable side effects, assessed by “The Dosage Record Treatment Emergent Symptom Scale” and “The Barnes Akathisia Rating Scale”, despite multi-morbidity and rather advanced age of the patient.Our safe experience with applying the almost threefold higher monthly dose over 12 weeks may encourage researchers to further investigate the efficacy, tolerability as well as handling of highly dosed aripiprazole LAI in refractory schizophrenia.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

Debate: Accounting for macroeconomic surveillance in Europe

The limitations of the European macroeconomic surveillance system became apparent during the global financial crisis. Particularly problematic was the misreporting of Excessive Deficit Procedure (E...

2016 External Sector Report

After narrowing in the aftermath of the global financial crisis and remaining broadly unchanged in recent years, global imbalances increased moderately in 2015, amid a reconfiguration of current accounts and exchange rates. Shifts in 2015 were driven primarily by the uneven strength of the recovery in advanced economies, the redistributive effects of the sharp fall in commodity prices, and tighter external financing conditions for emerging markets (EMs). A relatively stronger U.S. outlook led to a further appreciation of the USD and a depreciation of the yen and the euro. The sharp decline in commodity prices, reflecting both supply shocks and concerns about rebalancing and growth in China, brought about a significant redistribution of income from commodity exporters to importers, and a weakening of commodity exporters’ currencies. Meanwhile, heightened global risk aversion, contributed to softer capital inflows and depreciation pressures in many EMs. This moderate widening of current account imbalances was largely driven by systemic economies. Surpluses in Japan, the euro area and China grew, supported by improved terms of trade and currency depreciation, while the current account deficit in the U.S. widened amid the steep appreciation of the USD. These widening imbalances were only partially offset by narrowing surpluses in large oil exporters and smaller deficits in vulnerable EMs and some euro area debtor countries. Similarly, excess imbalances expanded in 2015. External positions in the U.S. and Japan moved from being broadly in line with fundamentals to being “moderately weaker” and “moderately stronger”, respectively. This was partly offset by a further narrowing of excess deficits in vulnerable EMs and euro area debtor countries. Meanwhile, excess surpluses persisted among the larger surplus countries, some of which remain “substantially stronger” than fundamentals (Germany, Korea). Currency movements since end-2015 helped to partially reverse the trends observed last year, although market volatility following the result of the U.K. referendum to leave the European Union have led to a strengthening of the USD and yen along with a weakening of the sterling, euro, and EM currencies. The implications for external assessments going forward, especially for the U.K. and the euro area, remains uncertain and will likely depend on how the transition is managed and on what new arrangements are adopted. With output below potential in most countries, and limited policy space in many, balancing internal and external objectives will require careful policy calibration. In general, a more balanced policy mix that avoids excessive reliance on policies with significant demanddiverting effects is necessary, with greater emphasis on demand-supportive measures and structural reforms. Surplus countries with fiscal space have a greater role to play in supporting global demand while reducing external imbalances. Global collective policy action, especially if downside risks materialize, would also help address global demand weakness while mitigating its effects on external imbalances.

Debating the ‘Evolution of Accounting Equation’: A Cross-Case Analysis Approach

This paper is an interrogation of the applicability of the recently introduced ‘new form of accounting equation’ and a ‘dynamic approach to accounting for capital structure’ (JFA 2013: 1(44) 55-63). It explicates the issues related to the methodological foundations at the base of the model specification and the estimated parameters. It goes on to conduct a cross-case analysis methodological approach to the same set of empirical data as a triangulation process. The outcomes confirm that the provided empirical evidence is not sufficient to demonstrate the pegging of the rate of change of equity and liabilities with respect to the change of assets to 36% and 64% values respectively. Rather this paper’s findings indicate that in the long term companies have used retained earnings and reserves to expel debt as a strategy to keep their debt levels low, except for firms with accumulated losses or excessive deficit. This paper also finds that firms have maintained certain debt levels but not maintained the logic suggested by the pay-off theory, and that the perking order was demonstrated through long-term adjustment process. This paper concludes that the new form of accounting equation is not pragmatically viable. The paper proceeds to make a contribution by developing a predictive dynamic model for capital structure based on lagged variables.

Fiscal Delegation in a Monetary Union with Decentralized Public Spending

This paper studies the effects of delegating control of sovereign debt issuance to an independent authority in a monetary union where public spending decisions are decentralized. The model assumes that no policy makers are capable of commitment to a rule. However, consistent with Rogoff (1985) and with the recent history of central banking, it assumes that an institution may be designed to have a strong preference for achieving some clear, simple, quantitative policy goal. Following Beetsma and Bovenberg (1999), we show that in a monetary union where a single central bank interacts with many member governments, debt is excessive relative to a social planner’s solution. We extend their analysis by considering the establishment of an independent fiscal authority (IFA) mandated to maintain long-run budget balance. We show that delegating sovereign debt issuance to an IFA in each member state shifts down the time path of debt, because this eliminates aspects of deficit bias inherent in democratic politics. Delegating to a single IFA at the union level lowers debt further, because common pool problems across regions’ deficit choices are internalized. The establishment of a federal government with fiscal powers over the whole monetary union would be less likely to avoid excessive deficits, because only the second mechanism mentioned above would apply. Moreover, the effective level of public services would be lower, if centralized spending decisions are less informationally efficient

The impact of the ESA 2010 on statistics of the general government sector

The author presents the importance of the new European System of National and Regional Accounts (ESA 2010) for statistics of the general government sector. She pays particular attention to the development of data for the excessive deficit procedure. The article explains the methodological changes made to the studies in this field parallel to the ESA 2010. It discusses, among others, issues related to defining the deficit and debt of the general government, as well as the determination of a new way registering transfer of liabilities of pension schemes. It also presents the impact of new methodological guidelines for the relationship of deficit and debt to GDP in the Member States of the European Union.

Greek fiscal crisis and measures to safeguard financial stability

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to present measures and policies followed during the Greek fiscal crisis to safeguard financial stability. Design/methodology/approach – Greece since 2009 was subjected to the Excessive Deficit Procedure and a government debt crisis due to the arrival of the global economic crisis leading to a major economic and banking crisis. Two huge bailout loans and programs helped Greece avoid default. However the second bailout loan and participation of banks in the Private Sector Involvement caused losses to the banking system that amounted to €37.7 billion. To deal with the prospect of potential bank failure Bank of Greece the central bank in cooperation with national and international authorities developed many strategies to safeguard financial stability such as cash management and liquidity operations establishment and operation of Greek Financial Stability Fund (GFSF) institutional framework for recapitalization and resolution of credit institutions. Findings – The first step was to support bank liquidity pressures. In the face of these pressures the Eurosystem’s monetary policy operations provided lending to euro that ended 2010 and accounted to €97.6 billion. The second step was to establish a legal and regulatory framework for bank resolution and assess funds needed to recapitalize banks through stress tests and diagnostic assessments. Results showed that during 2012–2014 the Greek banking sector would require approximately €40.5 billion for strengthening its capital base of which €27.5 billion corresponded to the four “core banks”. Bank of Greece and GFSF managed to complete a €48.2 billion bank recapitalization in June 2013 of which the first €24.4 billion was injected into the four biggest Greek banks. In return Bank of Greece received a number of shares in those banks which it can now sell again during the upcoming years. The third step of policies was to implement resolution and restructuring measures. From October 2011 to March 2014 12 banks resolved through the new legal and regulatory framework under either a transfer order (order to transfer assets and liabilities to a transferee credit institution) or establishment of a bridge bank. All policies succeeded to safeguard Greek financial stability and restore bank losses that resulted from Greek public debt “haircut”. Originality/value – To the best of the author’s knowledge this is the first paper examining this issue.

Report from Cyprus: An Overview of Cyprus MoU The Essential Business Law Reforms

This country report aims at providing an overview of the business law reforms required by the Cyprus Memorandum of Understanding (hereinafter ‘MoU’). It will focus on the most important provisions of the Cyprus MoU, which demand various business law reforms. Thus, readers will acquaint themselves with the most important reforms that are currently taking place in Cyprus business law. This paper will cite the relevant parts of the Cyprus MoU and of other important documents, in order to provide a clear and succinct overview of these developments. This brief country report does not aspire to provide a detailed analysis of all business law reforms brought by the Cyprus MoU and will not comment or analyse comprehensively the wide range of legal issues arising from the Cyprus financial crisis. It is necessarily a high-level summary.In 2013, the European Debt Crisis also took place in the Republic of Cyprus. The sources of the Cyprus sovereign debt crisis were the overexpansion of the Cyprus banking sector, ineffective supervision, regulatory problems, excessive public deficits and the ‘haircut’ of the Greek State bonds in a previous bailout agreement. The Cyprus government concluded a bailout agreement with the Eurogroup, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality (MoU) was signed subsequently.

Report from Cyprus: An Overview of Cyprus MoU – The Essential Business Law Reforms

This country report aims at providing an overview of the business law reforms required by the Cyprus Memorandum of Understanding (hereinafter ‘MoU’). It will focus on the most important provisions of the Cyprus MoU, which demand various business law reforms. Thus, readers will acquaint themselves with the most important reforms that are currently taking place in Cyprus business law. This paper will cite the relevant parts of the Cyprus MoU and of other important documents, in order to provide a clear and succinct overview of these developments. This brief country report does not aspire to provide a detailed analysis of all business law reforms brought by the Cyprus MoU and will not comment or analyse comprehensively the wide range of legal issues arising from the Cyprus financial crisis. It is necessarily a high-level summary.In 2013, the European Debt Crisis also took place in the Republic of Cyprus. The sources of the Cyprus sovereign debt crisis were the overexpansion of the Cyprus banking sector, ineffective supervision, regulatory problems, excessive public deficits and the ‘haircut’ of the Greek State bonds in a previous bailout agreement. The Cyprus government concluded a bailout agreement with the Eurogroup, the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund. A Memorandum of Understanding on Specific Economic Policy Conditionality (MoU) was signed subsequently.

Turkey's Economic Fragility, Foreign Capital Dependent Growth and Hot Money

Despite a decade of strong growth, mainstream economists and financial markets have recently escalated their discussion of Turkey's economic ‘fragility’. Contrary to their focus on ‘excessive current account deficits’, the key to understanding Turkey's condition is the foreign capital inflows that facilitate and promote these deficits, and the extent of hot money in the inflows. This paper documents this central fragility and its current explosion. It also contributes to the debate with a detailed economic and operational definition of hot money in Turkey, not present in the existing literature.

2015 External Sector Report

After narrowing modestly in 2013, the global scale of current account imbalances, and of excess imbalances, held steady in 2014. Over the last several years, while the country composition of imbalances has rotated somewhat, overall there has been little progress on reducing excess imbalances. Excess deficits narrowed in some cases, but widened in others; progress on reducing excess surpluses has stalled. An unfinished policy agenda to reduce excess imbalances remains. Efforts by both surplus and deficit economies would be mutually reinforcing and support growth. Several significant recent developments will affect external positions in 2015: sharply lower oil prices, cyclical divergence and different monetary policies among the major economies, and related currency movements. Those developments do not overturn the previous pattern of excess imbalances and associated policy agenda, but they will have significant effects and raise new issues.

An empirical analysis of the sustainability of Ghana's trade deficits

Trends in the trade balance of Ghana show a consistent and excessive deficit in the Ghanaian economy (but for brief episodes of surpluses). The key concern regarding this trend is that Ghana could be on the path of insolvency as they build up excessive net foreign debt from financing the trade gap with capital inflows. Using the inter-temporal budget constraint model of Husted (1992), this study assesses the sustainability of Ghana's trade deficits via a test of the country's inter-temporal budget constraint. Employing time series data of Ghana for the period 1983-2012 and using the bounds testing approach to cointegration under the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model, the study found the existence of a long-run relationship between Ghana's exports and imports. The results of the Wald's restriction test imposed on the long-run parameter indicate that Ghana fails to satisfy the sufficient condition for sustainability of its trade deficits. The study also established the existence of a bidirectional causality between Ghana's exports and imports both in the short run and the long run. The overall conclusion drawn from the study is that Ghana fails to satisfy its international budget constraint and that its trade deficits are unsustainable.

A view of fiscal consolidation results in the European Union

The EU28 reduced its governments’ deficit by 0.3 percentage points compared with 2013, but its general government debt rose by 1.3 percentage points. Croatia is one of seven Member States contributing to the growth of general government deficit and debt in the EU. The Eurostat's news release, issued on 21 April 2015, contains new data on government finance for the period 2011-2014. The data are based on a new methodology for calculating government deficit and debt (in accordance with ESA 2010), used under the excessive deficit procedure.

The Long Term Negative Relationship Between Public Deficit and Structural Unemployment: An Empirical Study of OECD Countries (1980–2009)

With the new European fiscal compact, fiscal rules requiring balanced budgets net of the annual cyclical component have been introduced to limit growth in the ratio of debt to GDP. The objection may arise that such rules would have an adverse effect, especially in the long run on employment and growth. We test the unemployment proposition by investigating, with a panel of 22 OECD countries (1980–2009), the relationship between the non-accelerating inflation rate of unemployment (NAIRU) as the dependent variable, and fiscal policy indicators such as underlying net lending of government as a percentage of potential GDP (UNLG/pot.GDP), and general government total receipts as a percentage of GDP, controlling for additional variables. We find that both UNLG/pot.GDP and the increase in fiscal burden may be relevant in increasing the NAIRU in the long run. High budget deficits not only do not reduce unemployment, but also aggravate it in the long run. Results are robust to the presence of cross sectional correlation. These results suggest that deficits in excess of that allowed by the cyclical budget balance increase structural unemployment. Since high taxes appear to have the same effect, the EU fiscal compact, with respect to the structural employment objective, needs to include a rule on tax burden limits. Further analysis should test whether exogenous causes of high NAIRU have an impact on budget deficits.

Governmental budgetary reporting systems in the European Union: is the accounting basis relevant for the deficit reliability?

When reporting to Eurostat for the purpose of deficit assessment, EU member states follow National Accounts (NA) rules, specifically the European System of National and Regional Accounts. However, the information reported is gathered from Governmental Accounting (GA), namely budgetary reporting. Consequently, several adjustments are needed when translating data from GA into NA, including those concerning the accounting basis – in some countries GA budgetary balance is already accrual-based while in others it is still cash-based. This research aims to analyse adjustments derived from different accounting bases adopted in GA and NA, demonstrating their diversity and materiality and the consequences for EU member states’ deficit/surplus reliability. It analyses cash-accrual adjustments to be made in Central Government data, using a few EU countries and data from the respective Excessive Deficit Procedure notifications covering the years 2005 to 2010. The main findings show that cash-accrual adjustments are more diverse and tend to be material in relation to the final deficit/surplus, in countries still adopting cash-based budgetary reporting in GA, raising questions concerning the reliability of the deficit/surplus they report. Points for practitioners This article contributes to a better understanding of the accounting basis differences for the convergence process between GA and NA, allowing for more reliable and informative budgetary reporting to be reached from both micro and macro perspectives. It highlights how important it is that GA moves from cash to accruals, namely concerning budgetary accounting and reporting systems. The diversity and materiality of accounting basis adjustments are important starting points for the development of a common framework to deal with these adjustments, and this is to be learned by policy-makers, especially accounting standard-setters and statistics agencies.

Distribution of limited irrigation water based on optimized regulated deficit irrigation and typical metheorological year concepts

Under limited availability of irrigation water during the growing season, farmers must avoid a premature depletion of this resource that may lead to a sizeable decrease in yield. Four levels of net irrigation availability were considered for an onion (Allium cepa L.) crop cultivated in Castilla-La Mancha region (Spain): 1.0 INref (typical net irrigation requirements in the area: 743.3mm); 0.9 INref; 0.8 INref; and 0.7 INref. The available amount of irrigation water was distributed during the growing period by combining the modified optimized regulated deficit irrigation (ORDI) [which determines the actual evapotranspiration (ETa) and maximum evapotranspiration (ETm) ratios (ETa/ETm) per growing stage that maximize yield for a certain amount of irrigation water] and the typical meteorological year (TMY) methodologies. So, optimized irrigation schedules that reach the optimized ETa/ETm ratios per stage and yields were calculated for three TMYs (dry, intermediate, and wet) obtained from a 54-year climatic series (1951–2004). The six months before sowing of each year were analysed to determine if that period was dry, intermediate, or wet. The yield obtained for each level of irrigation availability and the corresponding TMY was considered as the forecasted yield for the current year. Optimized irrigation schedules were corrected during the growing period by replacing the daily climatic data of the TMY by those of the current year. At the end of each growing stage, optimized irrigation schedules were recalculated taking into account the real amount of irrigation water available for the following periods and the forecasted climatic conditions. The effect of this methodology on final yield was simulated by MOPECO (economic optimization model for irrigation water management) during 8 seasons (2005–2012). As a result, onion yields at harvest were approximately 5.1% lower than the forecasted yield at the beginning of the growing period for the different availabilities of irrigation water. As a consequence of premature depletion of irrigation water, only 3 of 24 analysed scenarios reached excessive deficit during the last stage.

Assessment of Public Procurement Policy Implementation in the Educational Sector (A Case Study of Takoradi Polytechnic)

Public Procurement Act 663 of 2003 has experienced a number of reviews and amendments since independence and have mostly been characterised by huge contractual payment arrears, corruption, delay in delivery of contracts, unsustainable foreign debts and excessive budget deficits. To address these and many other challenges, the Ghana Public Procurement Act 663 (2003) was promulgated and assented on 31 st December, 2003. Ten years down the line, compliance has become a major challenge in the implementation of the Act among public institutions in Ghana. This precipitated the conduct of this study to find out whether Takoradi Polytechnic fully complies with the provisions of the Act, and if so, are there any challenges that inhibit the smooth implementation of procurement activities.