Future Commitments Research Articles

Foreign Aid, Democratization, and Civil Conflict: How Does Democracy Aid Affect Civil Conflict?

It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. We argue that one of the key factors that “shelters” some democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of democracy aid. Democratizing states that receive high levels of democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries that receive little or no external democracy assistance. During democratic transitions, the central authority weakens and uncertainty about future political commitments and promises among domestic groups increases. Democracy aid decreases the risk of conflict by reducing commitment problems and uncertainty. Using an instrumental variables approach that accounts for potential endogeneity problems in aid allocation, we find empirical support for our argument. We conclude that there is a potential path to democracy that ameliorates the perils of democratization, and democracy assistance programs can play a significant positive role in this process.

Unconventional Fiscal Policy at the Zero Bound

When the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates binds, monetary policy cannot provide appropriate stimulus. We show that, in the standard New Keynesian model, tax policy can deliver such stimulus at no cost and in a time-consistent manner. There is no need to use inefficient policies such as wasteful public spending or future commitments to low interest rates. (JEL E12, E43, E52, E62, H20)

Robots with Biological Brain

The term robotics comes from robots. Many governments, commercial and individual bodies are working in the area of Robotics due to its importance in defence, personal and commercial uses. Much research has been put on it, but we could not succeed to a satisfactory level. In this area a small success is also seems as an achievement. But seeing the future commitments of robotics, we are in a need of perfect working robots. Robots are combination of machine plus human intelligence. Where the computer part is concerned; robots are always appreciated as timings of actions are fast; calculations are accurate, remote access is there. But we fail when we see the human part of these robots. Reason is very simple we want to constitute artificial brain into these robots and we cannot constitute something which infect we don't know. When biological science do not claim to have proper in depth working knowledge of brain how we can constitute it with the help of semiconductors and capacitors. Well, indeed it is a problematic challenge that must be sorted out. With this paper I am proposing the idea of combining robotics with biological brains, as artificial DNA's are recently added into our inventions and recent biology is not far away to produce artificial brains.

Accountability for public expenditure under Building Schools for the Future

This paper examines the disclosure and reporting of expenditure under the UK government's Building Schools for the Future programme. The study finds that there is little detailed and useful financial reporting, and the public's right to know under Freedom of Information Act 2000 is very limited. The lack of such information makes it difficult to understand where public money is going, how it is being used and the extent of future commitments and liabilities, thereby preventing an informed public debate about the financing of public policy.

One Casualty of Global Economic Crisis: Uncertain Finances for HIV/AIDS Programs

IN LESS THAN A DECADE, IMPOSSIBILity turned the corner into reality. Infusions of cash and technical support from international donors, as well as growing political will in some developing countries, have provided lifesaving antiretroviral drugs to an estimated 5 million people living with HIV/ AIDS in resource-poor regions. But now the global HIV/AIDS community must find a way to turn yet another corner by maintaining those 5 million patients on antiretrovirals and offering the drugs to millions more in the midst of a persistent global economic crisis. Even though the downward economic spiral began nearly 2 years ago, AIDS officials say the impact on international donors’ ability to meet funding and treatment goals for the next 4 to 5 years still is not clear. In 2008, the last full year for which data on funding commitments and actual disbursements are available, international donors promised US $8.7 billion for HIV/ AIDS programs. They delivered $7.7 billion. The gap between promises made and promises kept was substantially smaller in 2008 than in recent years. For example, international donors had committed to $6.6 billion in 2007 but paid $4.9 billion; in 2006, commitments totaled $5.6 billion compared with $3.9 billion paid out. International donors’ commitments in 2009 were nearly the same as in 2008, said Paul DeLay, MD, deputy executive director of the programme branch at the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS), which compiles the data. “But that’s because of money that was already in the pipeline,” he noted. Release of data on disbursements in 2009 is expected to coincide with the XVIII International AIDS Conference in Vienna, Austria, in July. For 2010, DeLay said, all commitments for HIV/AIDS, including funds from international donors, private sources such as philanthropic foundations, and the countries themselves, total about $16 billion. But UNAIDS has estimated that about $25 billion is needed this year to meet HIV/AIDS needs in lowand middle-income countries. “I don’t think that within the year we’ll be able to catch up; that’s about 35% to 40% that we still need to go,” he said. “When we ask [international donors] about future commitments, because of political implications, the donors are a little hesitant to give us real numbers,” he added. A couple of exceptions are Italy and Ireland, which have informed UNAIDS that they will reduce assistance they provide for global HIV/AIDS programs. “I’m struck by the realities of how long this economic crisis has lasted and we still don’t understand the longterm implications,” DeLay said. “The damage done to developing countries or the resilience of developing countries—we still don’t understand that.” WORLD’S MAJOR PLAYERS The 2 largest international donors for global HIV/AIDS programs are the United States, which provided about 51%, and the United Kingdom, about 13%, of the $7.7 billion paid out in 2008. The President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), which was initiated in 2003 by former US President George W. Bush, and the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which was created in 2002, provided the kick-start needed to provide antiretrovirals and to scale up health care capacity in developing nations. Since its inception, PEPFAR has provided about $32 billion, including $5 billion for the Global Fund and $950 million for tuberculosis programs. The Global Fund acts as a financier that takes in donor pledges and awards grants to support services in developing nations. Awards from the Fund represent about 20% of all HIV/AIDS funding from donor countries. Their results are impressive. The Global Fund, since its beginning, has disbursed funds that provide antiret-

ISTH/SSC bleeding assessment tool: a standardized questionnaire and a proposal for a new bleeding score for inherited bleeding disorders.

ISTH/SSC bleeding assessment tool: a standardized questionnaire and a proposal for a new bleeding score for inherited bleeding disorders.

The Cult of Domesticity, Southern Style

The Cult of Domesticity, Southern Style Charles F. Irons (bio) Scott Stephan . Redeeming the Southern Family: Evangelical Women and Domestic Devotion in the Antebellum South. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2008. ix + 304 pp. Appendix, notes, bibliography, and index. $44.95. White women in the nineteenth-century South, as they have in most times and places throughout American history, constituted a majority of the membership in most churches. Even though these women were willing to make multiple trips to the sanctuary per week when preaching was available, they nonetheless lived out most of their lives outside of the walls of the church. Churchgoing white women not only spent most of their time at home, but they also made the household the site of many of their most significant religious experiences. Within domestic spaces, women tested their future spouses' religious commitments, strove to build marriages based on Biblical ideals, raised children to receive the faith, and guided loved ones through death from this world to the next. In Redeeming the Southern Family, Scott Stephan offers an intimate portrayal of the ways in which women took on these spiritual challenges. Stephan, with his focus on domestic devotion, helps to explain why so many white Southern women frequented congregations in which the male leadership preached about the importance of retaining racial and gender hierarchies. In this way, he contributes to the flowering of scholarship in response to Ann Braude's insistence that in order "to understand the history of religion in America," where most adherents across traditions have historically been female, "one must ask what made each [religious] group's teachings and practices meaningful to its female members." This call is especially meaningful in the context of the U.S. South, for most scholars of the region have characterized white practitioners of "Southern religion" (by which they, like Stephan, generally mean evangelical Protestantism) as more concerned with maintaining racial and gender hierarchies than their Northern counterparts. Beth Barton Schweiger and Cynthia Lynn Lyerly helped to prepare the way for Stephan's contribution to this discussion, both with their own excellent work and with their explicit call for scholars, in Schweiger's words, to delineate more clearly "the power that mattered in southern churches and in the lives of Protestant women."1 Stephan answers this charge by demonstrating [End Page 253] the sorts of spiritual power that white Southern Protestant women wielded within their households. "As women struggled to redeem their families," he suggests, "they found their taxing work uniquely meaningful, offering historians an explanation for women's persistent domination of antebellum southern evangelical congregations in spite of the clergy's rhetorical celebrations of male authority" (p. 7). Profoundly influenced by scholars such as Steven Stowe and Robert Orsi, who have emphasized the "lived experience" of everyday people, Stephan turns to the private papers of Southern women—instead of congregational or denominational records—for information about their religious commitments. As Stephan himself points out, "this approach limits [his] ability to address issues of class and race"; for those women who left substantial collections of letters and/or diaries also tended to be among the most affluent (p. 13). Indeed, within his relatively small sample of twenty-one core families, eight of the women were married to Protestant clergymen, and none claimed African descent. Some readers will doubtless raise questions about the small number of families in the study and their elite status. To Stephan's great credit, however, he is as transparent about his sources as it is possible to be; a detailed appendix contains descriptions of the principal families, supplemented in many places by records from the federal census (pp. 233-39). Readers therefore have a very clear sense of the book's evidentiary base and may judge for themselves just how far down the region's socioeconomic ladder Southern women experienced spiritual empowerment in the ways that Stephan describes. Of greater interest to this reviewer than the size or status of Stephan's sample, which is more or less of a problem in most social histories, is his decision to leave Southern churches on the margins of his study. Only in the first chapter does he bring in the institutional church, and...

Reputation concerns in aid conditionality

This paper analyzes the conditions under which reputation concerns induce donors and recipients to respect conditional aid contracts. Donors enforce conditionality if the benefits of improving compliance in future contracts thanks to a tougher reputation exceed the costs of resisting disbursement pressure. The level of conditionality enforcement is optimal if all the costs and benefits of reputation building are internalized by the decision maker. This condition is not satisfied at the World Bank and the IMF, where enforcement is decentralized to country departments which do not internalize the benefits of a tough reputation on other departments. Recipients comply with conditionality if the costs of implementing conditionality are lower than the benefits of securing tranche release thanks to compliance and obtaining future contracts thanks to a good reputation for compliance. Reputation concerns increase recipients’ incentives to comply only if there is some uncertainty on future aid commitments, which is true for successive single-tranche contracts, but not for multi-tranche contracts.

Previous Commitments and Future Promises: The Relationship between Military Capacity, Alliance Reliability, and Future Alliance Potential 1950-2005

In a recent article, Gibler examines how previous alliance violations affect future alliance potential during a leader’s tenure among dyads (2008). Gibler shows reputation plays a role, however his models do not consider how power and democracy serve as mediating influences on the reputation effects of alliance violation. We argue his theoretical argument fails to address the effects of constraints on involuntary defection from security commitments. Involuntary defection arises from two different but endogenous sources: 1) a lack of tangible military resources and 2) a lack of sufficient domestic support among the principal veto players to fulfill the commitment. Rationalists argue the effects involuntary defection on reputation should be treated differently when considering future cooperation (Chayes & Chayes 1995; Langlois & Langlois 2004). Our interest is in how state reputations, as opposed to leader reputations, are affected by alliance violation with respect to future alliance formation when states violate alliances due to constraints. Thus, we pose the following question: What effects do democracy, military capacity, and previous alliance violation have on future alliance potential for states? Though a crisp set analysis (Ragin 1989, 2000), we examine the effects of reputation, power, and democracy on future alliance commitments on a sample of 60 states in the modern era.

Scientific literacy, pleasure and aesthetics: the collaborative virtual worlds that Galileo could not foresee

AbstractWe present the various activities and infrastructure dedicated to educational scientific and technological outreach of the MCT/Laboratório Nacional de Astrofísica, Brazil and how useful they are in diminishing the scientific illiteracy of the layman, the young, the senior citizens and the handicapped. We also explore the future endeavors and commitments that scientists and educators are to face in order to bring enlightenment.

Changing reasons for public–private partnerships (PPPs)

This article considers the micro- and macro-economic benefits and costs of PPPs and some implications of implementing new international accounting standards. If public sector financial costs are forced to move ‘on balance sheet’, then there are likely to be impacts on the use in PPPs by governments and other public bodies. This may move the basis of PPP choice towards a more level playing-field with other financing sources, potentially give a more realistic measure of future public commitments and liabilities and reduce incentives to use PPPs for budget enlargement. There may be a refocusing upon the potential efficiency gains of PPPs and a reduction in their use, in some cases.

A Chinese commitment to commit: can it break the negotiation stall?

Preparatory talks to the next round of negotiations seem to indicate that a comprehensive agreement to mitigate climate change will not be easily attainable, despite the intentions of the US administration and the high expectations surrounding the Copenhagen meeting. One key reason is to what extent fast growing economies, and especially China, should take actions to reduce their growth of emissions. This paper argues that a turning point for international negotiations on climate change could be achieved if China were to agree on carbon obligations in the future. Results from modelling work suggest that the optimal investment behaviour is to anticipate the implementation of a climate policy by roughly 10 years, and that thus future commitments—if credible—could lead to significantly earlier steps towards carbon mitigation. If fast growing economies, and foremost China, believe in the long term objective of global stabilization of carbon concentrations, it might be economically rationale to sign on future targets, provided developed countries take on immediate action. Such a provision could be beneficial for both the developing and developed world.

Democracy Aid, Democratization and Civil Conflict: How Does Aid Affect Civil Conflict?

It has been suggested that democratizing states are prone to civil wars. However, not all democratizing states experience domestic political violence. This paper investigates this puzzle. We argue that one of the key factors that “shelters” democratizing states from domestic political violence is the receipt of external democracy aid. States that receive democracy assistance are less likely to experience civil conflict than countries with no or little external democracy assistance. During democratic transitions, the central state weakens and uncertainty about future political commitments and promises increases. Democracy aid reduces the risk of conflict by bolstering state strength and reducing commitment problems and uncertainty. Using an instrumental variable approach that accounts for potential endogeneity problems, we find strong empirical support for our argument. We conclude that there is a potential path to democracy that ameliorates the perils of democratization and democracy assistance programs can play a significant positive role in this process.

Interactions of Reduced Deforestation and the Carbon Market: The Role of Market Regulations and Future Commitments

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) has been proposed as a potentially inexpensive and plentiful source of emission abatement to supplement other longterm climate policies. However, critics doubt that REDD credits are environmentally equivalent to domestic emission reductions, and suggest an excess supply may disrupt carbon markets. In this context, we investigate the economic implications of emissions market regulations and future emissions reduction commitments, as well as uncertainties in REDD credit supply. Numerical simulations with a multi-country equilibrium model of the global emissions market show unrestricted exchange of REDD units reduces the international carbon price by half and cuts Annex I compliance costs by roughly one third. Restricting supply or demand of REDD credits reduces price impacts, but comes at the cost of economic efficiency. Alternatively, Annex I reduction commitments could be increased by almost two thirds at constant carbon prices. While REDD provides large economic benefits for tropical rainforest regions, any REDD policy scenario also reduces wealth transfers to traditional CDM host countries through increased competition on the supply-side of the carbon market.

Smooth and Predictable Aid for Health: A Role for Innovative Financing?

This paper presents evidence that aid flows to the health sector are volatile in terms of observed outcomes and uncertain in terms of making and delivering future commitments. The aid is therefore poorly suited to fund recurrent costs associated with achieving the Health Millennium Development Goals, particularly funding of Primary Health Care (PHC) facilities that are key to achieving maternal and child health goals. Recent aid financing innovations have begun to address some of the inadequacies of the health aid architecture through more stable and long-term financing for health. These represent a small though rising share of aid. Additional financing mechanisms that could contribute to more stable and predictable flows are proposed in the context of funding integrated PHC: (1) smoothing of irregular aid commitments through securitization of aid receivables; (2) health endowment funds; (3) a swing donor facility; and (4) a health debit card for financing shortfalls. To be effective, these mechanisms would need to complement ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of interactions between donors and recipients in the disbursement of aid through greater transparency in aid transactions and mutual accountability in defining aid objectives.

The Impact of Uncertain Commitments

Integrated wealth management implies individualized risk control. The <i>discretionary wealth approach</i> is used to calculate a better risk-aversion relationship for trade-offs between expected return and risk based on the investor’s extended balance sheet, inclusive of present values of future financial commitments. We can improve it by taking into account the uncertainty with which the particular investor’s discretionary wealth is estimated. Present values of retirement spending, taxes on unrealized capital gains and estates, and potential bequests and charitable contributions may be more usefully regarded as probability distributions than as point estimates. An example shows how uncertain future lifespan results in a more conservative portfolio, reducing in this case the optimal stock allocation from 80% to 73% to 64% as we make successive improvements in analysis. <b>TOPICS:</b>Wealth management, retirement, portfolio construction

Simulating effects of land use changes on carbon fluxes: past contributions to atmospheric CO2increases and future commitments due to losses of terrestrial sink capacity

Simulating effects of land use changes on carbon fluxes: past contributions to atmospheric CO₂increases and future commitments due to losses of terrestrial sink capacity

US Presidential War Powers: Legacy Chains in Military Intervention Decisionmaking

Using the events leading to the War Powers Resolution of 1973 and its subsequent impact on US military interventions as an empirical example, this article elaborates the notion of `legacy chains'. Expanding on the general notion of policy legacies, the discussion describes the effects that post-World War II US military interventions have had on each other through the policy legacies left by each in turn. The argument allows that military intervention legacies have their strongest impact on decisionmaking for an immediately subsequent intervention but can also leave durable impressions on the institutional context, which, after being modified by subsequent military interventions, constitute `legacy chains'. These legacy chains are path-dependent processes, in that their institutional embodiments follow `increasing returns' logics and will remain in place until the structure of returns changes, usually due to a `critical shift'. In response to a series of perceived abuses of presidential war powers following World War II, the War Powers Resolution sought to ensure congressional participation in future commitments of US forces to hostilities. It has not done so. The lasting legacy of the War Powers Resolution is an unintended consequence of the way it was formally institutionalized. Presidents, following the letter of the resolution, have designed post-War Powers Resolution military interventions to either be short (so the 60-day mandatory reporting period specified in the resolution ends with a fait accompli) or popular, so that public and congressional opinion are sufficient to ensure approval of the operation, either before it starts or once underway. While the actual legacy of the War Powers Resolution is not what was intended at its inception, it is unlikely to be formally changed until a future (hypothetical) abuse of war powers sufficiently egregious to break through its institutional inertia.

Analysis of supply contracts with commitments and flexibility

AbstractIn this article we address an important class of supply contracts called the Rolling Horizon Flexibility (RHF) contracts. Under such a contract, at the beginning of the horizon a buyer has to commit requirements for components for each period into the future. Usually, a supplier provides limited flexibility to the buyer to adjust the current order and future commitments in a rolling horizon manner. We present a general model for a buyer's procurement decision under RHF contracts. We propose two heuristics and derive a lower bound. Numerically, we demonstrate the effectiveness of the heuristics for both stationary and non‐stationary demands. We show that the heuristics are easy to compute, and hence, amenable to practical implementation. We also propose two measures for the order process that allow us to (a) evaluate the effectiveness of RHF contracts in restricting the variability in the orders, and (b) measure the accuracy of advance information vis‐a‐vis the actual orders. Numerically we demonstrate that the order process variability decreases significantly as flexibility decreases without a dramatic increase in expected costs. Our numerical studies provide several other managerial insights for the buyer; for example, we provide insights into how much flexibility is sufficient, the value of additional flexibility, the effect of flexibility on customer satisfaction (as measured by fill rate), etc. © 2008 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Naval Research Logistics, 2008

Turnover, Transaction Costs, and Time Horizons

This article explores the consequences that local government institutions and turnover among local government officials have for local borrowing. We outline how turnover affects choices in policy arenas involving public and private sector actors, long-term obligations, or future commitments. Turnover creates political uncertainty that alters the time horizons of local leaders as well as the transaction costs involved in the floating of bond issues. Empirical analysis of city borrowing patterns in the late 1980s provides evidence that turnover of council members and managers in council—manager cities increases municipal debt burdens. However, turnover of chief administrative officers in mayor—council cities is associated with less city borrowing.