Public Investments and Class Gaps in Parents’ Developmental Expenditures

Families and governments are the primary sources of investment in children, providing access to basic resources and other developmental opportunities. Recent research identifies significant class gaps in parental investments that contribute to high levels of inequality by family income and education. State-level public investments in children and families have the potential to reduce class inequality in children’s developmental environments by affecting parents’ behavior. Using newly assembled administrative data from 1998 to 2014, linked to household-level data from the Consumer Expenditure Survey, we examine how public-sector investment in income support, health, and education is associated with the private expenditures of low- and high-SES parents on developmental items for children. Are class gaps in parental investments in children narrower in contexts of higher public investment for children and families? We find that more generous public spending for children and families is associated with significantly narrower class gaps in private parental investments. Furthermore, we find that equalization is driven by bottom-up increases in low-SES households’ developmental spending in response to progressive state investments of income support and health, and by top-down decreases in high-SES households’ developmental spending in response to universal state investment in public education.

Informal Settlement Upgrading and the Rise of Rental Housing in São Paulo, Brazil

Rental housing was historically a minimal feature of urban informality. Now it is surging amid municipal attempts to “upgrade” informal settlements in São Paulo, Brazil. Drawing upon a mixed-methodological study of two favelas on São Paulo’s east side, we analyze how cycles of upgrading shape informal rental housing at the urban, community, block, and parcel levels, providing detailed comparative data for 2010–2020. Our findings suggest that rental housing redevelopment can increase precarity in urban living, but is an important source of low-income housing in already built-up and “consolidated” settlements where access is declining. Our study emphasizes the need for scholars, policy makers, and planners to further explore the praxis of informal renting and rental housing, which can be effective conduits for channeling public investments across consolidated informal settlements and into individual dwellings.

A New Airport in Mexico: Feasibility of Socialist Style Infrastructure in a Private Capital Economy

This paper is based on the positive correlation between projects of infrastructure developed by the government, and the indicators of general well-being of populations in adjoining areas where such constructive changes have been effected. To study the multifactorial effects of the development of a welfare state, we have studied the economic projections associated with the construction of AIFA (Felipe Angeles International Airport), a new airport in Mexico, which was undertaken completely as a government-funded project and developed as a national infrastructure project by the military establishment. Information on projected investments and downstream investments and local employment from the Secretary of Agrarian Development and Tourism (SEDATU) and the Secretary of Public Finances (Forbes) for the new airport AIFA are compared and analyzed with similar projects in other privately developed infrastructure projects and their calculated impact in order to suggest how well-being (achieved through such indices as employment and the generation of micro-enterprises) would pan out for the economy in the State of Mexico, where the new public-funded projects are envisioned. Projections based on available information suggest that the construction of a public infrastructure module can be achieved under economic constraints, focusing on lower spending from the public budget; however, there is a lack of information and transparent policy decisions to indicate growth for entrepreneurs in the local economy, and neither any projected information on opportunities of further private or public investments associated with the airport. A socialist-style public investment project, engineered by the state military, may need more transparency and engagement on behalf of entrepreneurs.

State support for agricultural sector: challenges and development prospects

Nowadays agricultural production is experiencing certain difficulties that negatively affect the profitability of agricultural organizations. Despite all the efforts of the state and its attempts to support agricultural producers, one can observe a decrease in production volumes of some types of products, as well as a lack of high-tech equipment. These challenges can be solved by improving the tools and by methods of regulating the activities of agricultural organizations. The implementation of new state control scientific approaches, primarily financial and credit, informative consulting and personnel issues of agricultural sector, will help overcome negative trends. The priority task of strengthening the state stimulating role in control of inter-farm relations in the regional agricultural sector is state support for the development of peasant (farm) households and cooperation in agriculture, while maintaining the existing level of support for medium and large agricultural. The article presents an assessment of the effectiveness of public investments in the development of agriculture on the example of the Chuvash Republic, which indicates a decrease in the effectiveness of the selected forms of support for the agricultural sector. There is a growing need to develop new tools to stimulate the innovative development of the agro-industrial complex.

Air Transport Demand Forecast to Making the Regional Aviation Sustainable in Northeast of Brazil

Both researchers and Government Agencies see aviation as an important driver for regional development and national integration. Thus, this sector has been a matter of concern for the government who has ways to stimulate the aero activity. The Regional Aviation Development Program (PDAR) has been currently under development implemented in Brazil. This program foresees public investments in airport infrastructure and operational subsidies for airlines to enhance the sector operation and increase the number of locations served by regional aviation. This paper presents a model for estimating passenger demand potential through multiple linear regression to cover the great majority of the federative units (states) of Pernambuco, Paraíba, Rio Grande do Norte, Ceará, and Piauí in the northeast of Brazil. Subsequently, localities are suggested to optimize the resources of the PDAR, and we concluded that it is likely that there are regions with higher demand potential than some regions, which are already served by the airlines. Hence, we assumed that by strategically directing investments to specific localities, companies operate without subsidies, which in turn can be directed to airlines used to integrate the country. This making regional aviation more sustainable leading development to isolated localities, and thus efficiently contributing to reducing the Brazilian social inequality.

NATIONAL RECOVERY AND RESILIENCE PLAN EUROPEAN FUNDS MULTIPLIER ROLE AND POSSIBILITIES OF MINISTRY OF NATIONAL DEFENCE INVOLVEMENT IN THE PROCESS

This paper aims at expressing the manner in which the Ministry of National Defence (MoND) can benefit from direct support, efficient and significant financial support for the implementation of sustainable reforms and public investments, as provided in the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (NRRP).The situation triggered by COVID-19 brings about new awareness in Romania and among all the EU member states, through the economic-financial crisis, jobs crisis, health, education, research, innovation and digitalization crisis, which has an impact on the drop of revenues both at European and international level. We must agree that such pandemics should find us prepared and that the investments should be planned well beforehand, similarly to the creation of an army. The defence of a state requires costs, and the financial support allocated to the defence sector is visible in the results of the foreign and economic policy of Romania. From this perspective, the MoND has prepared a series of proposals included in a number of reforms and investments documents. Such reforms and investments are absolutely necessary to Romania and represent essential contributions to the NRRP.

The OpenNeuro resource for sharing of neuroscience data

The sharing of research data is essential to ensure reproducibility and maximize the impact of public investments in scientific research. Here we describe OpenNeuro, a BRAIN Initiative data archive that provides the ability to openly share data from a broad range of brain imaging data types following the FAIR principles for data sharing. We highlight the importance of the Brain Imaging Data Structure (BIDS) standard for enabling effective curation, sharing, and reuse of data. The archive presently shares more than 600 datasets including data from more than 20,000 participants, comprising multiple species and measurement modalities and a broad range of phenotypes. The impact of the shared data is evident in a growing number of published reuses, currently totalling more than 150 publications. We conclude by describing plans for future development and integration with other ongoing open science efforts.

STUDIUM GMINY JAKO KIERUNKOWY PLAN ZAGOSPODAROWANIA PRZESTRZENNEGO

The municipality’s study should be a legal act of an internal nature, binding the units subordinate to the commune council and the head of the commune within the scope of the undertaken investments and protection activities in the land. The study should define, first of all, the location of public investments, protected areas and zones, as well as the type of permissible development, binding when drawing up local plans and any other legal acts, both internal and generally applicable, determining the conditions for using the land. Thus, the study would become a plan to control spatial development.

The Cost-Benefit Fallacy: Why Cost-Benefit Analysis Is Broken and How to Fix It

Most cost-benefit analyses assume that the estimates of costs and benefits are more or less accurate and unbiased. But what if, in reality, estimates are highly inaccurate and biased? Then the assumption that cost-benefit analysis is a rational way to improve resource allocation would be a fallacy. Based on the largest dataset of its kind, we test the assumption that cost and benefit estimates of public investments are accurate and unbiased. We find this is not the case with overwhelming statistical significance. We document the extent of cost overruns, benefit shortfalls, and forecasting bias in public investments. We further assess whether such inaccuracies seriously distort effective resource allocation, which is found to be the case. We explain our findings in behavioral terms and explore their policy implications. Finally, we conclude that cost-benefit analysis of public investments stands in need of reform and we outline four steps to such reform.

Twenty Years of Common Agricultural Policy in Europe: A Bibliometric Analysis

The last few years have been marked by the increasing attention paid by policymakers to agricultural policies. Within this scenario, the Common Agricultural Policy represents one of the main initiatives developed by the European Commission to enhance the agricultural sector. Academics have actively contributed to the debate through empirical studies in order to evaluate the main strengths and weakness related to the public investments made by the European Commission. However, despite the relevance of the topic, the scientific debate is characterized by a high degree of fragmentation caused by the involvement of academics with different scientific backgrounds. Building on this evidence, this paper aims to contribute to the scientific debate on Common Agricultural Policy through a bibliometric analysis. The findings reveal the existence of three independent and complementary research clusters.