Public Investment and Fiscal Adjustment in Latin American Countries
Martner and Tromben consider the solutions which may reverse the decline of public investment occurred in Latin American countries in recent decades. The paper examines public investment trends and notes that in fiscal consolidation episodes there has been a bias against public investment – although this cannot be generalised to all countries. In some countries, the fall in public investment has taken alarming dimensions. The paper evaluates the solutions which can fill the infrastructure gap without endangering fiscal sustainability. It evaluates the golden rule and the broad adoption of the accounting principles of the Government Finance Statistics Manual. However, both these solutions present some problems in the Latin American context. Martner and Tromben also evaluate the exclusion of public enterprise operations from fiscal targets, in line with EU practice, and the role of Public Private Partnerships. They stress the importance of fiscal frameworks based on structural indicators, which can limit the need for painful fiscal consolidations. Finally, they examine the possibility to expand the role of multilateral development banks.
Public infrastructure investment and fiscal sustainability in Latin America: incompatible goals?
Latin American countries exhibit a significant gap in infrastructure stocks, due to low and in many cases inefficient public investment, which is furthermore not compensated by private sector projects. In this paper we analyse trends in public and total infrastructure investment in six large Latin American economies, in the light of fiscal developments since the early eighties. We argue that post-crisis fiscal frameworks, notably fiscal rules which are increasingly popular in the region, should not only consolidate the recent progress towards debt sustainability, but also create the fiscal space to close these infrastructure gaps. These points are illustrated in a detailed account of recent developments in the fiscal framework and public investment in the Peruvian case. Les pays d'Amerique latine presentent une lacune importante dans les stocks d'infrastructure, a cause des faibles et nombreux cas d'investissements publics inefficaces, ce qui n'est compensee par les projets du secteur prive. Dans ce document, nous analysons les tendances publiques et total d'investissement des infrastructures dans six grandes economies latino-americaines, a la lumiere de l'evolution fiscal depuis les annees quatre vingt. Nous soutenons que les cadres de post-crise fiscales, notamment les regles fiscales qui sont de plus en plus populaire dans la region, devrait non seulement consolider des progres recemment accomplis vers la viabilite de la dette, mais aussi de creer l'espace budgetaire pour combler ces lacunes dans l'infrastructure. Ces points sont illustres dans un compte detaille de l'evolution recente dans le cadre fiscal et l'investissement public dans le cas du Perou.
The development of biological systematics : Antoine-Laurent de Jussieu, nature, and the natural system
A reevaluation of the history of biological systematics that discusses the formative years of the so-called natural system of classification in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Shows how classifications came to be treated as conventions; systematic practice was not linked to clearly articulated theory; there was general confusion over the "shape" of nature; botany, elements of natural history, and systematics were conflated; and systematics took a position near the bottom of the hierarchy of sciences.