Official Figures Research Articles

Retiring Employees, Unretired Debt: The Surprising Hidden Cost of Federal Employee Pensions

Ottawa provides its employees with defined-benefit pensions that promise relatively generous benefits to a large current and former workforce. Being largely unfunded, these plans require future taxpayer support. They also create taxpayer risk because the economic value of the benefits they will provide can fluctuate by tens of billions of dollars annually. Current accounting practices understate this burden and the risks these plans create for taxpayers and, potentially, for the employees themselves. Official figures on the current cost of these plans and their accumulated obligations are based on notional interest rates that are too high for this kind of commitment. Since pension promises are guaranteed by taxpayers and indexed to inflation, the appropriate rate for discounting the value of future payments should be the yield on federal-government real-return bonds (RRB), which for years has been much lower than the assumed rate in official figures. Correcting this distortion would produce a fair-value estimate of $245.9 billion for Ottawa's unfunded pension liability at the end of 2016/17 – around $27,000 per family of four and $96 billion higher than the reported number. Because the unfunded pension liability is part of Ottawa’s debt, applying this fair-value adjustment raises the net public debt from the $631.9 billion reported at the end 2016/17 to an adjusted $727.9 billion. Recent federal pension reforms raised participants’ share of the funding costs for these plans: for the main Public Service Plan, the reforms aimed at a 50:50 split between contributions from participants and contributions from the government as employer. Still, using notional interest rates that are higher than the appropriate ones means that the reported costs of these plans – and, therefore, the contribution rates that determine participants’ shares – are too low. Even the higher employee contributions anticipated by the reforms would leave the taxpayers’ true share far above 50 percent. A fair-value approach to the current service cost would ensure that participants and taxpayers share equally the actual cost of accruing benefits. Even 50:50 sharing of federal pensions’ actual costs as they accrue would leave taxpayers exposed to fluctuations in the value of previously earned benefits. Ottawa could protect taxpayers from this risk by capping employer contributions at a fixed share of pensionable pay. To relieve taxpayers of their current sole responsibility for risks in the federal plans, Ottawa would need to switch to a different type of plan with benefits based not only on salary and years of service but also on the plans’ funded status. Such plans, already common in much of the provincial public sector, have a variety of labels – shared-risk and target-benefit are two common ones. Their common feature is that when things do not go as expected, the plan sponsor and the employees share the costs and benefits of the new reality. More economically meaningful reporting of the plans’ benefit values and their cost to taxpayers would foster improvements in Canada’s retirement saving and income system generally. And it would foster reforms that would provide federal employees with better-funded pensions and taxpayers with protection against risks too few know they face.

The Unreliability of Merchandise Trade Statistics

This article contends that merchandise trade statistics are insufficiently reliable for accurate economic analysis and informed trade policy decisions. The official trade figures analysed for this article appear to be significantly overvalued. Re-exports combined with re-imports caused both world import and export data to be exaggerated by as much as 20%. Import data was further inflated, and bilateral export data was unreliable even between developed countries. Compared with official figures, the article’s case study estimates that the US merchandise trade deficit is nearly 20% less with China, nearly double with Mexico, and over triple with Canada.

On measuring economic growth from outer space: a single country approach

This article proposes a simple statistical approach to combine nighttime light data with official national income growth figures. The suggested procedure arises from a signal-plus-noise model for official growth along with a constant elasticity relation between observed night lights and income. The methodology implemented in this paper differs from the approach based on panel data for several countries at once that uses World Bank ratings of income data quality for the countries under study to produce an estimate of true economic growth. The new approach: (a) leads to a relatively simple and robust statistical method based only on time series data pertaining to the country under study and (b) does not require the use of quality ratings of official income statistics. For illustrative purposes, some empirical applications are made for Mexico, China and Chile. The results show that during the period of study there was underestimation of economic growth for both Mexico and Chile, while official figures of China over-estimated true economic growth.

Do government transfers reduce poverty in China? Micro evidence from five regions

This paper estimates urban and rural poverty rates across five Chinese province-level administrative regions (Shanghai, Liaoning, Guangdong, Henan and Gansu) using representative household survey data from the China Family Panel Studies survey. The types of government transfer payments that households in poverty received and the ability for such payments to lift them from poverty are also assessed. Consistent with published estimates from China's National Bureau of Statistics, the results highlight substantial disparities in poverty rates between provinces in 2014. Nevertheless, for each province, the poverty rates estimated from the survey data were notably higher than the official figures. Although the problem of rural poverty continues to be a significant focus of Chinese policymakers, the results suggest that the poverty rate was higher in urban than in rural areas in most provinces. This partly owed to the higher cost of living in urban China, which is captured in the poverty lines defined for this analysis. In 2014, the most common types of government transfer received by households in poverty were agricultural subsidies or social assistance - principally the dibao. Regarding the latter, the results suggest some improvement in payment targeting in rural areas between 2012 and 2014, but the majority of dibao recipients in most provinces still had income above the defined poverty line in 2014. Furthermore, across all provinces, the vast majority of households living below the defined poverty line did not receive social assistance at that time.

INFLUENCE OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGES OF THE STATE CADASTRAL ASSESSMENT ON THE TAXATION OF THE REAL ESTATE

In article the institutional changes which have happened in the state cadastral assessment and their influence on the taxation of real estate objects are considered. Increase in tax assignments due to change of the state cadastral assessment in the Penza region is according to official figures predicted.

Impact of vaccine stock-outs on infant vaccination coverage: a hospital-based survey from South Africa.

National population-based immunization coverage surveys provide data for validating official administrative coverage figures. However, these costly and logistically challenging surveys are conducted infrequently. This hospital-based records review determined coverage of birth-dose vaccines, fully immunized under 1-y-old coverage (FIC) of 12- to 59-mo-old children; and the reasons for missed vaccinations. Rotavirus surveillance in South Africa is based on under-5-y-old children being treated for diarrhoea, and includes photocopying the official vaccination document and collecting data on reasons for missed vaccinations. These data were captured from all 508 records collected from 2011 to 2014, and subjected to descriptive statistical analysis. Bacille Calmette Guérin coverage was 99%; oral polio vaccine birth dose (OPV(0)) coverage was 99%. Coverage for 12- to 59-mo-olds ranged from 75% for the pneumococcal conjugate vaccine third dose to 99% for OPV(0). Several instances of subsequent doses being recorded without prior doses being received resulted in a FIC of 55%. In total, 207 vaccinations were missed by 88 children. Vaccine stock-outs were responsible for 62% of missed vaccinations. Efforts to improve vaccine stock management at facility and district levels should be implemented, and should include vaccinator training and supervision to eliminate vaccine stock-outs and missed vaccination opportunities.

Asset recovery in the fight against corruption in Vietnam: problems and perspective

The paper analyses legal provisions and results of asset recovery in Vietnam in the recent years. By using official Government figures and comparing them with requirements under United Nations Convention against Corruption (UNCAC), this paper demonstrates the shortcomings of the legal processes and procedures for recovery of stolen assets in Vietnam. The problems faced by Vietnam in this area mainly resulted from the fact that although the country has numerous substantive and procedural laws on anti-corruption, an appropriate strategy for anti-corruption has been wrongly identified by Vietnamese law makers and practitioners. Accordingly, not much thought has been given to asset recovery, which has been globally recognized as the most effective way to deter corruption. Besides, law enforcement in Vietnam is also another big concern. Therefore, there is no significant progress in asset recovery in Vietnam in the short-term, though the country is revising the law against corruption in a comprehensive manner.

An Estimate of Severe and Chronic Fungal Diseases in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Our work aimed to generate a preliminary estimation of severe and chronic fungal diseases in the Republic of Kazakhstan with a model proposed by LIFE (Leading International Fungal Education). Calculations were carried out on data from 2015. Published results of studies of mycoses in Kazakhstan were identified; in the absence of national data from the scientific literature, the frequency of life-threatening and serious mycoses in defined groups of patients at risk from other countries were taken into account. We also used analogous estimations of mycoses in the Russian Federation. We estimate that 300,824 patients (1.7% of the population) were affected by severe and chronic mycotic diseases. There were an estimated 15,172 cases of acute mycoses, notably tinea capitis in children (11,847), Pneumocystis pneumonia and invasive candidiasis, and 285,652 of chronic fungal diseases. The most frequent were chronic recurrent vulvovaginal candidiasis (273,258 cases) and chronic pulmonary aspergillosis (6231). There is uncertainty about the prevalence of asthma in adults; the official number is 12,478 patients, but a prevalence estimate of 1.47% from a WHO consortium yields a prevalence of ~170,000 affected. We have used the official figures to generate the prevalence of fungal asthma, but it is likely to be a significant underestimate. Conclusion: Results of investigation indicate significant prevalence of severe and chronic mycoses in the Republic of Kazakhstan.

PHENOMENON OF FAILED STATE AND REFUGEE/IMMIGRATION PROBLEM: ANALYSIS ON SYRIA EXAMPLE

There have been several essays written on failed state in the recent years. One of the significant reasons of that much intense interest on the issue is the anxiety that failed states constitute a threat for strong and stable states. Successful/failed state typologies are improved in studies; the characteristics of it are determined; failed states are classified and defined among themselves; and preventive strategies are developed on reconstruction of state. However, studies have not put emphasize on filed and especially the stated collapsed in this process and rush of immigrants up to date. The objective of this study is to contribute to the scientific studies by discussing the example of Syria. Turkey is directly affected by rush of immigrants and/or migration caused by failed states and collapses of states during this while. According to official figures, the number of the immigrants coming from Syria, being in the state of collapse, is approximately about 3 million. Together with other immigrants coming from Middle East states experiencing collapse, the number of the refugees coming to Turkey has reached five million. Probable connections between the collapse of state institutions, the factors leading to this and rush of immigrants caused by it will be discussed in this study in theoretical sense. Failed states are the ones that lost their domination of land on their pieces of lands partially or wholly. Due to the authority gap occurred, terrorist organizations use those lands as a base as they can move easily in these territories. Terrorist organizations apply severe violence towards public and try to terrorize them by implementing criminal incidents (kidnapping, rape, blackmailing etc.) and compel them to give all kinds of support and even to migrate. As a natural conclusion of this process, people leave their countries to find saver places for themselves. In this respect, the factors weakening or causing to collapse of the level of stateness and tactics and strategies that terrorist organizations apply to force civil society to migrate are tried to be discussed herein.

Corrected US opioid-involved drug poisoning deaths and mortality rates, 1999-2015.

Most prior estimates of opioid-involved drug poisoning mortality counts or rates are understated because the specific drugs leading to death are frequently not identified on death certificates. This analysis provides corrected national estimates of opioid and heroin/synthetic opioid-involved counts and mortality rates, as well as changes over time in them from 1999 to 2015. Data on drug poisoning deaths to US residents from 1999 to 2015, obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Multiple Cause of Death (MCOD) files, were used with the drugs involved in fatal overdoses imputed when not identified on the death certificates. The official CDC figure that 33 091 drug deaths involved opioids in 2015 is an undercount, with the actual number being approximately 39 999. Corrected counts and rates of any opioid and heroin/synthetic opioid-involved drug deaths are 20-35% higher in every year than reported figures. The corrections almost always raise the changes estimated to have occurred since 1999, with the largest differences observed in 2011 for any opioids (5677 deaths and 1.7 per 100 000) and in 2015 for heroin/synthetic opioids (3228 deaths and 1.0 per 100 000). However, percentage growth since 1999 is sometimes slower when based on corrected rather than reported fatality data, and with sensitivity to the choice of base years. Death certificate reports understate the prevalence of and changes over time in opioid and heroin/synthetic opioid-involved drug mortality in the United States. Adjustments imputing the drugs involved for cases where none are identified on the death certificates are likely to provide more accurate estimates.

How can big data enhance the timeliness of official statistics?: The case of the U.S. consumer price index

The daily consumer price index (CPI) produced by the Billion Prices Project (BPP CPI) offers a glimpse of the direction taken by consumer price inflation in real time. This is in contrast to the official U.S. CPI, which is compiled monthly and released with an average of a three-week delay following the end of the reference month. A recent body of research contended that the movements of online prices are representative of those of offline retail prices, making the BPP CPI a natural candidate for accurately improving the timeliness of the official CPI. We assess the predictive content of the BPP CPI using a variety of MIDAS models that accommodate data sampled at different frequencies. These models generate estimates that remain robust to the variety of time periods considered and, by the standard of the existing literature, contribute to a significant upgrade in the forecast accuracy of official consumer price inflation figures. The paper then sketches the broad implications of BPP CPI for the consumer price statistics maintained by national statistics offices and discusses how the proposed improvement in the timeliness of the official CPI fits in this perspective.

НОВЫЕ НАПРАВЛЕНИЯ В ПОЛИТИКЕ ФРАНКОФОНИИ

The paper considers the main stages, directions and modern changes in the policy of Francophonie. The role of the language factor in French foreign policy is analyzed in detail. Special attention is paid to the relationship between the policy of Francophonie and immigration to France. Student migration as a promising direction in the policy of Francophonie, its advantages and disadvantages are explored. The main directions of the policy to attract foreign students to French universities and research centers are thoroughly discussed in the paper. The debates on the adoption of the Higher Education and Research Law in May 2013 (the Fioraso Act) are also considered. New trends in the policy of Francophonie are defined, including the expansion of the francophone education system through teachers’ training, teaching different subjects in French, and modernization of the French language learning programs with emphasis on professional education and adaptation to the modern labor market. The article pays attention to one of the latest notable tendencies in the transformation of French as a language of culture and art into a business language. The data for the current situation regarding the expansion of French language in the world, as well as various approaches to the topic of Francophonie in the main 2017 presidential elections candidates’ programs in France are presented. The latest official figures of the Observatory of French language for the expansion of French language in the world are given. It is concluded that the prospects for Francophonie are largely determined by cultural and language politics in France, the contradiction between the official policy of Francophonie and the real competition between French and English, the attitude towards both languages, their usage by the country’s government as well as in science, culture and education of France.&nbsp

OFFICIAL BOLIVIAN TRADE STATISTICS (1910-1949): LANDLOCKNESS AND THE LIMITS OF A STANDARD ACCURACY APPROACH

AbstractThis paper aims to evaluate the accuracy of official Bolivian foreign trade statistics. Results show large discrepancies between Bolivian records and those of its main trade partners during the First World War. Whereas the gap decreased thereafter, it stayed particularly high in the case of exports. This seems to be explained by mistakes in the geographical assignment by the trade partners rather than by an overvaluation of official Bolivian figures. This suggests that landlockness may have had a significant negative effect on the accuracy of trade statistics from the, a priori, more reliable countries. The study also helps to revisit the debate concerning the effect that tin exploitation had on the rest of the Bolivian economy during the first half of the 20th century.

Cuarto Congreso Latinoamericano y Octavo Congreso Boliviano de Mastozoología

El Cuarto congreso Latinoamericano y el Octavo congreso Boliviano de Mastozoología se llevó a cabo en la ciudad de La Paz entre el 10 y el 13 de julio de 2018 y fue el escenario en el cual confluyeron investigadores de toda la región con el fin de dialogar en torno a la conservación e investigación de los mamíferos. De acuerdo con cifras oficiales, más de 200 personas provenientes de toda la región se reunieron en un congreso que, como se pronosticaba, se destacó por losexcelentes conferencistas magistrales que hicieron parte de las 8 sesiones abordadas, por la diversidad de temáticas que fueron presentadas en cada uno de los simposios generados, y sobre todo por su excelente organización de la mano del comité encargado, de los voluntarios, y del apoyo logístico.

Who cannot access education? Difficulties of being a student for children from Syria in Turkey

ABSTRACTAccording to the latest official figures, more than 3 million Syrians are residing in Turkey under the status of temporary protection, and more than 50% of these are under 18 years old. The number of children from Syria between 5 and 14 years of age is 677,217 and 315,000 for the 15–19 age group, meaning that more than 1 million children are at a school age. According to the temporary protection status, children from Syria have the right to access education, including preschool education in Turkey. However, the percentage of registered children in schools varies 15–30% and this ratio is significantly lower outside of the camps. After the introduction of new regulations, more registration is expected. In this article, we focus on the factors that determine being out of school for children from Syria living in Turkey. We use the findings of the fieldwork conducted for the Baseline Assessment Study for an NGO in Turkey as a basis in order to understand the current situation. Our data comprise 541 interviews conducted in Şanlıurfa and Hatay, two cities where Syrians form a significant portion of the population, in February and March 2016. According to the findings, providing support to families with the lowest incomes, those families who have more than four children and those parents with the lowest education will increase children’s access to school, which definitely contributes to their overall well-being.

Getting the Measure of Money: A Critical Assessment of UK Monetary Indicators

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Bank of England’s reliance on faulty indicators has led to suboptimal policy decisions and masked what is actually happening in the economy. The introduction of quantitative easing (QE) in 2009 has made the money supply relevant again and made a discussion about alternative money supply measures of direct policy significance. Unfortunately, Bank of England figures have proved misleading and subject to major alterations. This book argues in favour of measures such as MZM and Divisia money, which attempt to find a middle ground between narrow and broad measures. It introduces a new and publicly available measure, MA, based on an a priori approach to defining money as the generally accepted medium of exchange. Central bankers are right to alter monetary policy in light of changes in the demand for money (i.e. velocity shocks), but they also need to recognise the potential for their own actions to be the cause of such shocks. In particular, central banks are ‘big players’ who can weaken confidence by generating regime uncertainty, and this played a major role in the 2008 financial crisis. While increased attention to uncertainty by economists should be welcomed, we should also be wary of attempts to measure it. From 1999 to 2006 the Consumer Prices Index (CPI) systematically underreported the inflationary pressure in the UK. More attention should be given to indices that include asset prices. GDP figures available at the time understated the severity of the 2008 recession, but also understated the strength of the recovery. GDP is flawed as a measure of well-being, of economic growth and even of economic activity. We get a fuller picture if we include intermediate consumption (or business-to-business spending), which is known as ‘Gross Output’ (GO). GO for the UK is typically two times bigger than GDP and more volatile. Unfortunately, official figures are only published on an annual basis and with a significant lag.

Gender Pay Gap: 2018 Briefing

The official calculation for the 2018 gender pay gap is at a record low of 8.6% for full-time workers, with a negligible gender pay gap for women aged 22-39. This gap increases later in life, with evidence from the United States that the bulk of the pay gap is a result of time taken off to raise children. Calculations that put the pay gap above 8.6% are achieved by moving further away from like for like comparisons between typical men and women in the workplace. The Equal Pay Day campaign relies on a figure 5.1 percentage points higher (or nearly 60% greater) than the official figures by using the mean rather than the median of the Office for National Statistics data, thereby giving more weight to the highest earners. Furthermore, claims that it will take more than 50 years to close the gender pay gap use an even higher starting point, assume a slower rate of progress than has recently been achieved, and fail to take account of likely changes as different cohorts move through the age distribution.

In Search of Fluctuations: Another Look at China's Incredibly Stable GDP Growth

China’s official real GDP growth has held surprisingly stable in recent years. As national GDP figures influence both policy analysis and political decisions, the GDP growth rate of the massive Chinese economy has also great international implications. Taking the nominal GDP growth and price index data as given and experimenting with alternative deflators, this paper attempts to track missing fluctuations in real GDP growth in recent years. Based on the constructed growth series, real GDP growth decreased during 2015–2016 and picked up in 2017. Growth has been again decelerating this year. Furthermore, the constructed growth rate seems to be well below the recent official figures. Data available at https://www.bofit.fi/en/monitoring/statistics/china-statistics/.

The Balkan route: towards an assessment of the impact of migration in Serbia and Croatia

SEER Journal for Labour and Social Affairs in Eastern Europe , Seite 219 - 236

Deductions and counter-deductions in South Africa

The real economy as a concept has taken root not only in highly developed economies but also in those characterized by “the rapid growth of aspiration accompanied by massive incorporation of people into the current market economy, through the expansion of indebtedness and financial devices … [and] the impossibility to pay,” where plural and shifting scales coexist (Neiburg and Guyer, this volume), and where there “is interplay between different units of measure and scales” (Neiburg 2016: 82). This plurality, in the South African case, means official figures fail to capture the true extent of borrowing and lending and the way state salaries and grants serve as collateral for apparently informal loans. Attempts to regulate or improve the situation, aimed at controlling “reckless lending,” have problematized the debtor as unaccustomed to the idea of repayment. Rather than being excluded from the mainstream economy, however, debtors are in danger of being wholly incorporated into it—but with the disadvantage ...