text:
Guitar Hero World Tour owners thirsty for new content can drink in Oasis' latest, as Activision has made Dig Out Your Soul available as downloadable content. What can you look forward to?
In addition to the Oasis tracks already released for World Tour, fake rockers can now jam to "The Turning," "I'm Outta Time," "(Get Off Your) High Horse Lady," "Falling Down," "To Be Where There's Life," "Ain't Got Nothin'," "The Nature of Reality" and "Soldier On." During loading screens, you can slur incomprehensibly and brawl with your siblings for added realism.
Dig Out Your Soul's remaining tracks "Bag it Up," "Waiting for the Rapture" and "The Shock of the Lightning" have been previously available.
The full album will set you back US$18.99 (1520 Microsoft Points), depending on your hi-def console of choice. Individually, tracks are priced at $1.99 (160 Microsoft Points, 200 Wii Points).
Oasis' own Noel Gallagher didn't outright say the new tracks are "better than two goblins trying to fuck a donkey up the arse with a laser beam," but we think it's safely implied.


text:
Your Reality Check session has expired.
Go to:
Kiron Interactive (Pty) Ltd is licensed (licence number: 11572) and regulated by the United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) for UK persons playing in the United Kingdom. Peer-to-peer skills games, where prizes of money's worth may be won, fall under the ambit of the UKGC for UK players. All game activity by players from elsewhere in the world, where such skills games are not regulated under any local regulation, do not fall within the UKGC licence. We do, however, operate the game according to the principles of the UKGC regulation for all players.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Posts: 1572
Joined: Tue Sep 17, 2013 11:12 pm
Interest in Deeper Arkham?
And with strange aeons even death may die.
-H.P. Lovecraft
DEEPER ARKHAM will be Part 3 of my Arkham Saga: a "weird New England" setting, centered around the Lovecraft-inspired town of Arkham and surrounding locales such as Dunwich, Innsmouth, and Kingsport. Get ready for tales of horror, haunted houses, dark sorcery, spirit-crushing human insignificance, and sanity-squashing Great Old Ones from beyond space and time!!!
Our rules set will be the Delving Deeper Online Reference Rules (available for free right here: http://ddo.immersiveink.com/dd.html ). My strong preference is to play rules-as-written and not introduce additional house rules, except as they prove absolutely necessary.
If you've never gamed with me before and want to see what you'd be in for, have a peek at The Deep Arkham Show: http://odd74.proboards.com/board/25/mus ... eep-arkham
Those of you who participated in Deep Arkham will have the option to carry over your existing PC (fully healed, and perhaps with one or two minor tweaks that we can discuss by PM) or to create a new PC from scratch; your choice.
Based on player feedback and my own impressions as DM, Deeper Arkham will slightly differ from Deep Arkham as follows: more dungeon delving, more action, less town time, less politics, less sandbox style, more railroad style, higher challenge level, higher PC mortality rate, fewer TV tropes, and better record-keeping by the DM. (For example, I will be instituting a public google spreadsheet for keeping careful track of xp, treasure, rations, torches/oil, encumbrance, etc.)
Special thanks to waysoftheearth for generously agreeing to host our continuing adventures here on the official Delving Deeper forums!
Our first adventure will be The Cabin In The Woods, in which PC's travel to the haunted forest west of Arkham to investigate the abandoned (?) home of the Carter family. Is anyone interested?


text:
SUR BAHER, West Bank - The Israeli army has begun widespread demolitions in the West Bank on the edge of East Jerusalem.
International condemnation and protests by Palestinians have been ignored as Israeli forces began pulling apart buildings near a military barrier on Monday, according to the Reuters Thomson news agency.
Hundreds of Israeli soldiers brought bulldozers into the area while police held off protesters. The village being targeted is Sur Baher, which Israel captured in the 1967 Six-Day War.
Reuters said Israeli forces cut through a wire section of the barrier in Sur Baher under cover of darkness early on Monday, and began clearing residents from the area.
Floodlights lit up the area as dozens of vehicles brought helmeted security forces into the village, the news agency said.
After first light, mechanical diggers began destroying a two-storey house as soldiers moved through several floors of a partly constructed multi-storey building nearby.
"Since 2:00am they have been evacuating people from their homes by force and they have started planting explosives in the homes they want to destroy," Hamada Hamada, a community leader in Sur Baher told Reuters on Monday.
The work was filmed and photographed by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists who had mobilized to try and stop the demolition.
Israel's Supreme Court ruled in June that the structures violated a construction ban. The deadline for residents to remove the affected buildings, or parts of them, expired on Friday, the Reuters report said.
Some Sur Baher residents said they would be made homeless.
Jamie McGoldrick, the United Nations humanitarian coordinator, and other UN officials called on the Israeli authorities last week to halt the demolition plans. They said 17 Palestinians faced displacement from the plans to level 10 buildings, including dozens of apartments.
The demolitions however have the approvavl of the Israeli Supreme Court which ruled unanimously in favor of demolition. "The petitioners took the law into their own hands when they began and continued building structures without receiving a special permit from the military commander," the court found.


text:
Harvey Norman will sell LG's Google Nexus 4 smartphone outright and on selected Optus plans from 1 February, it was announced today.
The 16GB model of the Nexus 4 will be sold outright for $496. It will also be available on a range of Optus mobile plans at "selected" Harvey Norman stores.
The Nexus 4 initially went on sale through Google's online Play Store back in November, but stocks were exhausted in less than an hour.
The 8GB model Nexus 4 sold for $349 when it was available online and the 16GB model retailed for $399.
"The response in Australia has been overwhelmingly positive on Google Play already, and we know our Harvey Norman partnership will create even greater demand," said LG Australia's General Marketing Manager, Lambro Skropidis, in a media statement today.
Harvey Norman will sell the Google Nexus 4 on eight Optus plans. Available plans start at $35 per month over 24 months ($15 per month handset repayments + $20 Optus plan) and range up to $130 (no handset repayments on the $130 Optus Timeless plan).
The Google Nexus 4 requires no monthly handset repayments on the $60 Optus plan, which includes $650 worth of calls, unlimited SMS and 1.5GB of data per month.
Google's current Play Store page notes that the company is "out of inventory" and stock hasn't been replenished since the device initially sold out. The company has refused to clarify if or when the Nexus 4 will go back on sale in the Australian Play Store.
The outright price of the Nexus 4 through Harvey Norman is $97 more expensive than Google's Play Store, though online customers in Australia are charged $19.99 for shipping.
The Nexus 4 can be pre-ordered on Harvey Norman's website with a free in-store pickup or a delivery fee of $6.95 for most Australian locations.


text:
Charles Perrault (12 January 1628 – 16 May 1703) was a French author who laid foundations for a new literary genre, the fairy tale, and whose best known tales, often derived from pre-existing folk tales, include Le Petit Chaperon rouge (Little Red Riding Hood), La Belle au bois dormant (Sleeping Beauty), Le Maître chat ou le Chat botté (Puss in Boots), Cendrillon ou la petite pantoufle de verre (Cinderella), La Barbe bleue (Bluebeard), Le Petit Poucet (Hop o' My Thumb), Les Fées (Diamonds and Toads), La Marquise de Salusses ou la Patience de Griselidis (Patient Griselda), Les Souhaits ridicules (The Ridiculous Wishes), Peau d'Âne (Donkeyskin) and Riquet à la houppe (Ricky of the Tuft). Perrault's most famous stories are still in print today and have been made into operas, ballets (e.g., Tchaikovsky's Sleeping Beauty), plays, musicals, and films, both live-action and animation.
Perrault was born in Paris to a wealthy bourgeois family, son of Pierre Perrault and Paquette Le Clerc. His brother, Claude Perrault, is remembered as the architect of the severe east range of the Louvre, built between 1665 and 1680. Charles attended the best schools and studied law before embarking on a career in government service. He took part in the creation of the Academy of Sciences as well as the restoration of the Academy of Painting. When the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles-Lettres was founded in 1663, Perrault was appointed its secretary and served under Jean Baptiste Colbert, finance minister to King Louis XIV. He married Marie Guichon, age 19, in 1672, who died in 1678 after giving birth to a daughter. The couple also had three sons. When Colbert died in 1683, he stopped receiving the pension given to him as a writer.
He was a major participant in the French Quarrel of the Ancients and the Moderns (Querelle des Anciens et des Modernes), which pitted supporters of the literature of Antiquity (the "Ancients") against supporters of the literature from the century of Louis XIV (the "Moderns"). He was on the side of the Moderns and wrote Le Siècle de Louis le Grand (The Century of Louis the Great, 1687) and Parallèle des Anciens et des Modernes (Parallel between Ancients and Moderns, 1688–1692) where he attempted to prove the superiority of the literature of his century.


text:
Boston Bruins® NHL® Return Address Label
- Exclusive label designs only available here
- Self-adhesive labels are easy and convenient to use
- Use for envelopes, packages and to personalize books, file folders, CDs, more
- Labels come in easy-to-use flat sheets (quantity 150)
NHL®-Licensed Boston Bruins® Address Labels Celebrate Your Bruins®
Make all your mailing envelopes, holiday cards and more into vibrant tributes to your hockey all-stars with these officially-licensed Boston Bruins® address labels! Each exciting label design pairs your personal information with the team logo against a field of black or the alternate logo with a yellow border. Plus, you'll find these Bruins® hockey fan labels are amazingly practical too, arriving in a set of conveniently self-sticking labels. They're perfect for hundreds of jobs, so don't wait! Celebrate your favorite hockey team with these Boston Bruins® mail labels - order now!
NHL LOGO and the NHL Shield are registered trademarks of the National Hockey League. All NHL logos and marks are NHL team logos and marks depicted herein are the property of the NHL and the respective teams and may not be reproduced without the prior written consent of NHL Enterprises, L.P. ©NHL 2011. All Rights Reserved.
Order by Phone: 1-866-900-0617
Processing fee applies. Se habla Español.


text:
Strong pitching core key to White Sox future
DETROIT -- White Sox general manager Rick Hahn spoke with the Chicago media for a little more than five minutes prior to Wednesday's game with the Tigers at Comerica Park.
At no time did he use the words rebuild, reshape, retool or reload. In fact, Hahn stayed absolutely true to his word in saying nothing about the trade rumors swirling around his team or the direction he has in mind for this group.
While this substandard year amid a steady run of contention for the White Sox has sparked talk of wholesale team changes, the emphasis on pitching will not be altered. And when trying to figure out who the South Siders might move, remember they already have a pretty solid staff in their midst for 2013 and beyond.
"If you look at who we have under control right now going forward on the pitching staff, you see Chris Sale, and Jake [Peavy] is signed for next year," Hahn said. "You'll have John Danks even further away from surgery, which traditionally once a pitcher comes off of shoulder surgery, 18 months out is usually when they get back to full strength, which would put John closer to Opening Day next year even though he has performed great so far.
"Jose Quintana is blossoming into fulfilling a lot of his potential. And there are guys in the system, and [Hector] Santiago and [Dylan Axelrod] have done a nice job, and other guys coming who can round out a pretty solid starting rotation. That doesn't even get to the bullpen with [Addison] Reed and [Nate] Jones and the guys who have thrown well down there.
"We do feel that you have to start with the pitching," Hahn said. "You are going to compete in this league with the pitching, and we do feel we have the nucleus under control for a while going forward that is going to help us compete. The bulk of our struggles this year have been on the offensive side. That's something we are going to have to improve."
In order to improve and possibly even get younger on the offensive side, Hahn might deal one of his top pitching chips. It's unlikely he will gut a deep commodity that other teams often overpay for, and the White Sox also won't put themselves in position to rush prospects into filling needs possibly opened by trades.
"We're not going to rush guys up because there is an opening at position X," Hahn said. "We aren't going to put our best guy in the system in the big leagues because there's a need.
"We'll have to be careful these guys develop at their natural pace. We tend to be aggressive and give guys opportunities as soon as they prove they can handle it. But when a guy is going to make that jump to helping us in Chicago is going to be dictated by more their personal development case as opposed to our need."


text:
I'm sorry I missed this when it first came out, but better late than never. This is a great review from the website Om Nom Nomnivore.
This book is quite bluntly, amazing. Chad has done such a good job in demystifying the whole world of professional-grade cutlery. The entire book is written to be the ultimate guide for foodies. Chad's point of view is entirely biased toward the enthusiast cook who just needs to know what they're talking about regarding the single most important tool in the kitchen.
Read the rest of the review here: "An Edge in the Kitchen" on Om Nom Nomnivore. Thanks, LazySumo!


text:
Finding an Internship in France: A "Food for Thought" Approach
I have to say, that I've never been much of a fan of boats.
Scratch that.
I really dislike boats.
Scratch that again.
I downright despise boats of all kinds—ferries, canoes, cruises, kayaks, barges, rafts and yes, even those Parisian tourist transit vessels otherwise collectively known as "Batobus."


text:
There are many people who get Youtube Tremont Lending advances when emergencies arise in order to keep the household working until next pay period. Always take the time to do proper research before signing for any loan. Use the tips
Who Is Tremont Lending | Acquire money right NOW?. Income Today. What You Need To Know About Dealing With Payday Cash Advances
Who Is Tremont Lending need not be a topic that you have to avoid. Read on for some information that could help you understand the process and what is involved. This article will help you choose what is right for
Who Owns Tremont Lending | Require Get Cash in Right away. Make an application for Cash. Expert Advice For Getting The Payday Loan That Suits Your Needs
Being unable to come up with the money you need can cause real problems for you. Fortunately, there ways you can get your hands on cash right away. The most common method to get money quickly is by using Who
What Is Tremont Lending | $100$1000 Effortless Funds Fast Mortgage loan inside Fast Period. Apply for Loan Now. How To Use Payday Loans Safely And Carefully
Are you currently stuck in a financial jam? Do you need money in a hurry? If so, then a What Is Tremont Lending might be useful to you. A payday loan can ensure that you have enough money when you
What Are The Fees For Tremont Lending | Cash Advance throughout Rapidly Occasion. Get Quickly Mortgage Today. Advice For Choosing The Right Payday Loan
When you have a financial emergency, you can get stressed out to no end. You'll need assistance to relieve yourself of this burden. If cash advance What Are The Fees For Tremont Lending are something you are pondering, continue reading
Reviews On Tremont Lending | Searching for $100-$1000 Payday On the web. Apply Cash Today. Tips For Finding Reputable Payday Loan Companies
Reviews On Tremont Lending cash advances need not be a topic that you have to avoid. Take heed of the suggestions you will find ahead. Thankfully, you'll be ready to get the loan you require after reading this article. The
Support Tremont Lending | As much as $1000 Communicate Funds. Use Quickly Request Today. Payday Loan Tips That Will Help You Out Financially
It's a matter of fact that Support Tremont Lending have a bad reputation. Everybody has heard the horror stories of when these facilities go wrong and the expensive results that occur. However, in the right circumstances, cash advances can possibly
Reviews For Tremont Lending | Pay day loans around $1000. Obtain Fast Bank loan Currently. Thinking About Getting A Payday Loan? Read These Tips First
Everyone could use a bit of financial help, especially in today's economy. If you discover you are suddenly in need of extra cash fast, a Reviews For Tremont Lending might be your best option. Like with any other financial commitment,
Reviews About Tremont Lending | Simple Cash On the internet Approximately $1000 Immediately. Apply Funds Nowadays. Great Tips With Regards To Cash Advance Loans
Are you having trouble paying a bill right now? Do you need a few more dollars to get you through the week? A Reviews About Tremont Lending may be what you need. If you don't know what that is, it
Promo Code For Tremont Lending | Find Cash Advance as much as $1000. Sign up for Quick cash These days. Key Considerations For The Use Of Payday Loans
Are you in a financial bind and in need of extra money? While cash advances are quite the trend, are they right for your situation? If you need money quickly and your credit is less than perfect, this type of


text:
I didn't even have to pay a penny 'cause I got it from a lucky draw. See, if anyone had noticed recently, Mr. Ian Rush from the legends of Liverpool FC came down to Cheras last weekend to do some publicity thing for Y&Y group (which is currently handling the development of '1Shamelin' shopping mall, an up-class shopping complex in the heart of Cheras). I was there to attend his media conference (basically I sneaked in hahaha. Here are the photos!!!). After the conference, Mr. Rush came out to greet the fans and signed autographs for the mass visitors that braved the rain. Yes, the rain. And the event was an open-air event which had limited cover. But a lil' rain aint gonna stop me from seeing of one the most prolific and greatest strikers to grace the green grass of English football. And after a 30 minute aqua treatment for my hair and body, I finally got my signature from him. I even got him to sign my company name card just for fun. HA!!!! Check it out below:
Hhhmmmm, looks abit like Mr. Bean....
Mind you, I'm a Man Utd fan, but I'm open-minded about these things. Even if it's Steven Gerrard or Didier Drogba coming down to KL, I'll try to attend if I can. 'Cause, you see, when will another opportunity pop up to see these guys in real life? Close to zilch. So, even if it's an old hack like Ian Rush or a cocky German like Jens "I'm too good to be on the bench even I'm 37 years old" Lehmann, I'll be there if time permits. Heck, I'm a football fan, not just a Man Utd fan, and it's my duty to support these guys dammit!!!!
Anyway, putting my football emo aside for a minute, let me tell you how fortunate I was with the lucky draw. There were in fact other jerseys to be won such as Frank Lampard's signed jersey, Michael Owen's jersey and of course the C. Ronaldo jersey. Lampard's & Owen's was won through playing games, which I didn't participate ('cause, you know me, I malu lah). Ronaldo's was won through a lucky draw, and out of a few hundred people there, I was the lucky one. VERY LUCKY ONE because to be eligible for the draw, a person needs to fill out this card and each person has unlimited entries. I saw kids and enthusiastic fans filling up card after card, so serious with sweat and discussion, I thought these guys were voting for the next President of the Inter-Galactic Universe. But I only filled up 2 cards. The first card was when I entered the event, and the second one, honestly I didn't even bother to fill up until a sudden jolt in my consciousness that screamed: "FILL UP A SECOND CARD". I duly obeyed the voice from my Lord of Screaming Consciousness and took a card from a lady, filled it up with an ink pen (which the name got blotched. That pen was all I got from my friend). Gave the card to an event girl that was on the way to submit the final entries, and 10 minutes later, Mr. Ian Rush took the liberty to conduct the lucky draw and BAAAAAAAAM!!!! There was total confusion. Total bedlam from the organizers because the card Mr. Rush took out had a blotched name on it. After a few tries with his Welsh tongue trying to guess the name on the card, he uttered a few words along the lines of 'Raymond' and instantly I knew it was me. I rushed up the stage like a striker sensing a goal, pounced on the opportunity to claim my prize and screamed that the name is indeed me, and scored when Mr. Ian Rush shook my hand with congratulations. The cameras went wild, the crowd clapped (although there was some boo-ing from some sections of the crowd. You know how they are), and I thanked my lucky stars for filling up that second card.
From the excitement, I forgot to give my camera to my friend for picture taking while I accepted the prize. So, no picture of me and Mr. Ian Rush with the Ronaldo jersey. DAMMIT!!! But there was an individual photo session later and I took a picture with him anyway, which was this blog's top photo above.
After Mr. Rush left, there was more activities such as fire-eaters a.k.a. flame throwers a.k.a. breath so bad flame can spew out from his mouth, an exhibition of football wonder kids (10 year old kids doing perfectly timed step-overs and ball balancing skills. Amazing. What milk do their mama's give them??!!!), a dancing performance and clowns. Well that's all I saw because at around 10pm the rain started to fall again and I left the place feeling not just happy, but relieved.
I felt relieved because finally this year, something good and fortunate has happened to me. Let me tell you, throughout this year, some really bad and weird things occurred to me which I find not just annoying, but to the point of total ridicule. I mean, take for example in the month August. Within this one month, my PS2 stopped working for some weird reason; my hand phone short circuited from, according to the technician, "a mass intake of water into the phone board which resulted in circuitry malfunction". I mean, WTF, since when I took my phone for a swim?? You think I miss my calls so much until I can't let it go even when I was in the pool?? And last but not least, my car. My right-side door got slammed by a motorcyclist, my front bumper got knocked by another motorcyclist and my back bumper got hit my a guy in a car while I was paying toll. Paying toll for sweet sake, my car is not even moving and it got hit!!! AARRGGHHHH!!! Anyway, that's another story. And all this incidents happened in the month of August. Just imagine. Sigh.
So, with this fortunate win, I felt like a big burden has been lifted from my shoulders and I felt that finally, the entire world is not against me. I guess Fortune & the Gods has not forgotten me yet…


text:
This weekend I have a special treat for you guys. Flavorful and delicious Shredded Beef Nachos. The recipe for the shredded beef comes from Epicurious and originally, Texas Cooking.
While the ingredient list may seem a little long, it is broken up into three sections. The marinade for the meat, the ingredients added and simmered with the meat until it is falling apart, then the garnishes to serve it. It is amazing with a spiciness that isn't overwhelming but still packs a little bit of a bite. Ready for the recipe?
Shredded Beef Nachos
Makes several servings
- ¼ cup Worcestershire sauce
- Juice of two limes
- 1 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tsp ground cumin
- 1 tsp chili powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ tsp black pepper
- ½ cup vegetable oil or olive oil
Shredded Beef (Machaca):
- 2-3 lb Chuck Roast or Skirt Steak, trimmed and cut into lb portions.
- 1 Large Texas Sweet Onion (yellow onion) diced
- 2 Chipotle peppers in adobe sauce + 1 spoonful of sauce
- ½ green bell pepper diced
- 4 cloves of garlic, minced or pressed
- 1 Fresh Jalapeno Pepper, minced
- 1 14oz can diced tomatoes or tomatoes with green chilies
- ¼ cup beef broth
- 1 Tb dried oregano
- 1 Tb ground cumin
- 1 teaspoon hot pepper sauce such as Tabasco
- salt and pepper to taste
- Vegetable oil for searing the beef
1. For the marinade, combine all the ingredients in a bowl then whisk them to form an emulsion. Add the beef making sure every piece is evenly coated. Cover and refrigerate.
2. Marinate the beef overnight in a bowl in the refrigerator. Before preparing, drain thoroughly and allow meat to come up to room temperature for about 30 minutes.
3. In a large soup pot, heat a few tablespoons of oil over medium-high heat until very hot. Sear the beef a few pieces at a time to develop a rich brown color on all sides as well as on the bottom of the pan. Do this in several batches if the pot is too crowded.
4. When all the beef is browned nicely and removed from the pan, add the onions, peppers, and garlic to the hot pan. Saut for a few minutes then add the remaining ingredients to the pan along with the beef. Bring to a boil, scraping the browned bits off the bottom of the pan. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer slowly for about 2 hours. The meat should be very tender and should easily fall apart when pricked with a fork.
5. Remove from heat, remove meat to a cutting board and shred with a pair of forks. Return to the pot and bring to a simmer, uncovered. Reduce the liquid until very thick, almost dry. At this point, adjust the seasoning with salt, pepper, and whatever additional heat you want to add if any.
For serving:
- tortilla chips
- shredded cheese (whatever kind you like)
- sliced jalapenos
- sour cream
1. Put down a layer of tortilla chips. Spoon the shredded beef and juices over the chips. Top with garnishes and serve.
Recipe from Texas Cooking


text:
Hello, I'm now working on a rule system, hopefully to provide support for bi-directionally mapping with a variant which has a sub-dialect of RIF-BLD ( http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/BLD). Specifially, we mean this sub-dialect to be obtained from RIF-BLD by removing support for (1) equality formulas in the rule conclusions (while still allowing them in conditions); and (2) function constant (aka functor). As well, we mean this variant to be obtained from RIF-BLD by adding support for (1) negative atom in the rule conditions; and (2) aggregation (like COUNT in SQL) in the rule conclusions. Not surprisingly, such a rule system appears as Datalog, while thanks to the two-argument directive Import of RIF-BLD, we would provide support PROFILE of OWL DLP where OWL DLP < OWL DL cf. RIF Profiles of Imports ( http://www.w3.org/2005/rules/wiki/SWC#Profiles_of_Imports). So far, we prefer to adopt our existing sysntax for internal rule processing, and when exported, the RIF-BLD syntax would also be provided. For a light-weighted version, we follow the simplest EBNF path of RIF-BLD, and below is an example. RULE ::= CLAUSE CLAUSE ::= Implies Implies ::= ATOMIC ':-' FORMULA Now, my understanding is that, for RIF aims to interchangeability, we are allowed to keep our internal rule processing with output of (valid) RIF documents. Once external other RIF documents arise, our system needs to normalize them for our internal rule processing. Back to our bi-directional mapping with a variant which has a sub-dialect of RIF-BLD, as shown in the attached here-we-are.jpg, we feel free to interchange ours, i.e., Rule System #1, with other Rule System #2 and #3. However, for the rest, such as Rule System #4 - #8, each has a bi-directional mapping with another variant which has another sub-dialect of RIF-BLD, we are confused by how much we could interchange between ours and others. Is it intersection of two RIF-BLD sub-dialects? Note that such an intersection of two RIF-BLD sub-dialects is not necessarily the RIF core. Even worse, for Rule System #9 - #15 in RIF-PRD, is the interchangeability ensured by intersection of our RIF-BLD sub-dialect and their RIF-PRD sub-dialect? If so, then I am afraid that we, by ourselves, have to specify a lot RIF-BLD sub-dialects and RIF-PRD sub-dialects for interchangeability among RIF-aware rule systems. Such a solution, of course, does not take (as much as possible) advantage of RIF existing specifications. Most possibly, i misunderstood something, and I appreciate a lot for your suggestions. btw: the attached here-we-are.jpg is what i copied from "The state of the Semantic Web" (http://www.w3.org/2008/Talks/0307-Tokyo-IH/Slides.pdf) with my homework done at Page 54.
(image/jpeg attachment: here-we-are.jpg)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.4.0 : Friday, 17 January 2020 17:06:58 UTC


text:
Herschel and Planck launcher declared fit for launch
The Ariane 5 that will loft Herschel and Planck into space has been declared ready for launch following the conclusion of the Launch Readiness Review held on 9 May and a close-out review held on 12 May. The launch is scheduled for 15:12 CEST on 14 May.
This provides formal authorisation by Arianespace for launch on 14 May 2009.


text:
Serviços Personalizados
Links relacionados
- Citado por Google
- Similares em Google
South African Journal of Economic and Management Sciences
versão On-line ISSN 2222-3436
versão impressa ISSN 1015-8812
S. Afr. j. econ. manag. sci. vol.15 no.2 Pretoria Jan. 2012
Fiscal regime changes and the sustainability of fiscal imbalance in South Africa: a smooth transition error-correction approach
Samuel S Jibao; Niek J Schoeman; Ruthira Naraidoo
Department of Economics, University of Pretoria
In addition to the conventional linear cointegration test, this paper tests the asymmetry relationship between fiscal revenue and expenditure, by making a distinction between the adjustment of positive (budget surplus) and negative (budget deficit) deviations from equilibrium. The analysis uses quarterly data for South Africa. The paper reveals that government authorities in South Africa are more likely to react more quickly when the budget is in deficit than when in surplus, and that the stabilisation measures used by government are fairly neutral at low deficit levels; that is, at deficit levels of 4 per cent of GDP and below. We conclude that the assumption that adjustment towards equilibrium is always present and of the same strength under all circumstances, is not valid in the case of fiscal data on South Africa; and that that fiscal sustainability in South Africa has been attained at the expense of a reduction in the ratio of expenditure to GDP on education, and a relatively constant ratio of expenditure to GDP on health. The paper noted that a priori one would expect that such a decline in the allocations to sectors which could stimulate growth and which in turn could generate future revenue, may pose a threat to the accumulated fiscal space. In South Africa the main fiscal challenge, therefore, is to find ways through which the recent gains in fiscal solvency can be consolidated.
Key words: smooth transition error correction model; nonlinearity; government inter-temporal budget constraint; and fiscal sustainability
1 Introduction
Developments which followed the sub-prime crisis have led to renewed debate on fiscal sustainability: the massive degree of fiscal intervention, with corresponding increases in deficits and debt, are a concern. From a fiscal perspective, maintaining a stable long-term relation between expenditures and revenues is one of the key requirements for a stable macroeconomic environment and a sustainable economy. Sustainability, in general, concerns current and expected policies. If economic agents do not expect current and future policies to operate within the inter-temporal budget constraint, then the fiscal process would be unsustainable and government insolvency possible.
Several of the empirical studies on fiscal sustainability, however, focus on the time series behaviour of tax revenues and expenditures, as well as debt series, to investigate whether the behaviour of these series is consistent with the inter-temporal budget balance. The empirical results of these studies vary depending on the sample period and the methodology used. In the United States, Cunado, Gil-Alana, and Perez de Gracia (2004), Hamilton and Flavin (1986), and Trehan and Walsh (1988) failed to reject the inter-temporal budget balance, whilst Hakkio and Rush (1991), Wilcox (1989) and others rejected it. Empirical investigations into government's inter-temporal fiscal solvency constraints in East Asia have also been documented (see for example, Baharumshah & Lau 2007). Based on time series analysis and quarterly data over three decades, Baharumshah and Lau (2007) found evidence of sustainable fiscal finances in Thailand and South Korea, whilst the Philippines and Malaysia demonstrated only 'weak sustainability'. Baharumshah and Lau (2007) showed that in Singapore, revenue was growing at a faster rate than government spending.
In South Africa, issues of fiscal sustainability received greater attention in the 1980s and 1990s following a growing public debt/GDP ratio. In the early 1980s, the South African economy became a closed economy following the economic sanctions by the international community. As a way of alleviating the effect of the sanctions, the said economy became highly subsidised by the government. The government introduced the industrial decentralisation programme which amounted to direct and indirect subsidies for the establishment of large industrial companies. In addition, because the government was involved in proxy wars in and around South Africa, government expenditure increased significantly during the same period (Caner & Schoeman, 2006). Increased government expenditures and debt service forced the government to increase taxation to finance future expenditure. The period beginning in the early 1980s and ending with the transition to a new constitutional and political environment was therefore marked by increasing government expenditures and taxation, with fiscal deficit increasing to 6.8 per cent in 1993.
In the earlier and mid-1990s, therefore, several researchers argued that fiscal policy was unsustainable in South Africa (Roux, 1993; Van der Merwe, 1994; Schoeman, 1994; Cronje, 1995). Roux (1993) argued that the South African government would be able to finance higher social expenditure only if economic growth improved; otherwise, debt-financed increases in social expenditure would cause an increase in the public debt/GDP ratio. Van der Merwe (1994) argued that fiscal policy in South Africa is unsustainable due to the large gap between real interest rates and real economic growth as well as the relatively large size of the deficit. Schoeman (1994) also warned that as long as government runs a large deficit in the face of a real interest rate that exceeds the real economic growth, the public debt/GDP ratio would tend to explode.
Consistent with the findings of the various researchers in South Africa, the South African economy has embarked on broadly three phases of fiscal reform since 1994.
From 1994 to 1996, following a period of recession and a rapid rise in the budget deficit, Government's Reconstruction and Development Programme was phased into departmental plans and budgets, and a comprehensive reprioritization of public expenditure was undertaken (Manuel, 2004). The average budget deficit stood at 4.3 per cent of GDP and government debt was approaching 50 per cent of GDP by 1994.
A period of fiscal consolidation from 1997 to 2000 saw the introduction of medium term expenditure planning, substantial investment in tax reform and revenue administration capacity, and efficient coordination of fiscal and monetary policy. The budget deficit declined to 3.0 per cent of GDP, public debt relative to GDP declined from 49.7 per cent in 1994 to 44.4 per cent in 2000 and average borrowing costs decreased sharply, providing room for government to spend more on social services and infrastructure.
From 2001 to 2008, the government of South Africa adopted a more prudent fiscal stance. The fiscal deficit as a percentage of GDP declined from an average of 4.6 per cent from 1992 to 19991 to an average of 1.3 per cent from 2001 to 2005, and thereafter recorded a budget surplus in 2006 and 2007 of 0.3 per cent and 0.7 per cent of GDP respectively2.
Although government had achieved a substantial reduction in its budget deficit target, from 6.8 per cent of GDP in 1993 to 0.6 per cent in 2008, the scenario has meanwhile changed again (see Budget Review, 2010), mainly due to the slowdown in the world economy, which also affected the revenue base of the South African economy. However, the policy of fiscal prudence during the period 2003 to 2008 resulted in a substantial decline in real debt service cost, while the real growth rate of the economy increased considerably. Nevertheless, there still exist a gap between the real debt service cost and the real growth rate since the former exceeds the latter.3 Furthermore, it appears that public debt and budget deficit reductions have been achieved at the expense of a relative reduction in service delivery expenditure, as is evident in the reduction in the ratio of education expenditure to GDP from an average of 6.21 per cent during the period 1990 to 1999, to an average of 5.6 per cent during the period 2000 to 2008; and a reduction in health expenditure relative to GDP to an average of 2.84 percent between 2000 to 2008 from 1990 to 1999 average of 2.93 per cent.4
In most of the studies recorded in the literature on fiscal measures to address the solvency condition, researchers have either tested for linear stationarity in the total government deficit series or tested for linear cointegration between total government spending and total tax revenues. To the best of our understanding, few researchers have used non-linear techniques to quantify the adjustment process of fiscal and other macroeconomic variables towards the long-run equilibrium (Van Dijk & Franses, 1997; Hansen & Kim, 1996; Kunst, 1992 & 1995; Dwyer, 1996; Swanson, 1996; Cipollini, 2001). In South Africa in particular, no study has tested whether the error-correction process used in the respective studies is linear. Instead, previous studies have assumed that the adjustment process driving the variables toward equilibrium is linear; i.e. adjustment towards equilibrium is always present and of the same strength under all circumstances. In this study the authors want to point out that there are situations in which the validity of this assumption might be questioned (Van Dijk & Franses, 1997).
The authors therefore apply an extension of the linear inter-temporal budget constraint rule of fiscal sustainability to a regime-switching framework, where the transition from one regime to the other occurs in a smooth way. The switching between regimes is controlled by the state of the fiscal balance. This feature of the smooth transition model allows us to test the ability of high against low budget deficits or surpluses to best describe the non-linear dynamics of fiscal policy in South Africa.
Following the introduction, Section II presents sustainability criteria as obtained from the literature. Section III provides the estimation procedures, with both linear and non-linear specifications; Section VI presents the results from the estimations and the last section summarises and concludes.
2 Sustainability criteria
The most straightforward way to assess the fiscal sustainability position is to start from a government's inter-temporal budget constraint. The budget constraint looks at the long-run relationship between government revenue and expenditure (that covers the total government spending on goods and services, transfer payments and interest on debts). For simplicity, assume that budget deficits are financed using bonds with a maturity of one period. This implies that the government faces the budget constraint as shown in equation one:
where G is government expenditure, r is the one-period real rate of interest, R is government revenue and B is the stock of debt. Iterating equation (1) forward yields the government's inter-temporal budget constraint:
We assume that the real interest rate is stationary with unconditional mean given by r and also that the growth rate of the real supply of bonds, on average, is equal to or lower than the average rate of interest (Hamilton & Flavin, 1986; Haug, 1995). With these assumptions, we can have the following expression:
The above equation (3) states that the debt stock, when measured in present value terms, vanishes in the limit. By definition, it excludes Ponzi financing; that is, the government is not 'bubble'-financing its expenditure by issuing new debt to finance the deficit. This is equivalent to saying that the deficit is sustainable if and only if the stock of debt held by the public is expected to grow no faster than the mean real rate of interest, which is viewed as a proxy for the growth rate of the economy (Baharumshah & Lau, 2007).
Following equation (3), the inter-temporal budget constraint, equation (2), can be rewritten as:
The inter-temporal budget constraint, under the no-Ponzi scheme rule, imposes restrictions on the time series properties of government expenditure and revenue given by the right hand side of equation 4. This will be stationary, as long as government expenditure, revenue and the stock of debt are all stationary in first differences. Specifically, if Gt are Rt I(1), they will be cointegrated, implying that there exists an error-correction mechanism pushing government finances towards the levels required by the inter-temporal budget constraint (Baharumshah & Lau, 2007).
Assuming that the transversality condition for the budget constraint holds and the limit term in equation (3) is zero, we arrive at the following cointegrating relationship as shown in equation 5 (Hakkio & Rush, 1991);
Where 'dlev't and 'dlexp't are the differenced revenue- to- GDP and expenditure-to- GDP variables in the current period. A priori, we expect a positive and significant relationship between government expenditure-to-GDP and its revenue-to-GDP. To choose the lag lengths, we follow the suggestions of Terasvirta (1994) by considering a number of test statistics on the error correction model (VECM) specifications; and Cipollini (2001) by using the likelihood ratio sequential tests on the residuals. Using the information criteria, the Schwarz Information Criterion and the Hannan-Quinn Information Criterion (HQ) suggest lag length of 3, whilst the Akaike Information Criterion (AIC) and the Final Prediction Error (FPE) suggest lag length 5. However, like Cipollini (2001) we chose lag 8 as the optimal lag length since this lag order gives evidence of homoscedastic and serially independent residuals.
3 Specification and estimation techniques
In this paper, our empirical estimation involves the following steps: (i) testing for stationarity of the variables; (ii) testing for cointegration and estimation of the cointegrating relation; (iii) testing for non-linearity of the adjustment process; and (iv) estimating and evaluating of the smooth transition error correction model.
3.1 Linear estimation techniques
We carry out three different tests for the order of integration which are: the Augmented Dickey-Fuller (1981), the Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin (1992) and the Phillips-
Following Martin (2000), the deficit is 'strongly' sustainable (strong solvency) if and only if the I(1) process of R and G are cointegrated and β =1. The deficit is only 'weakly' sustainable if R and G are cointegrated and 0<b<1 (see Trehan & Walsh, 1988; Quintos, 1995). The linear model estimated in this paper, after eliminating insignificant lags, is specified as:
Perron (1988) tests. The Dickey-Fuller and Phillips-Perron tests have as their null hypothesis that the dynamics of the respective series are characterised by a unit root. The Kwiatkowski, Phillips, Schmidt and Shin test, on the other hand, is based on the null of stationarity. The use of three tests is justified since Phillips and Perron (1988) and Zivot and Andrews (1992) have demonstrated that the Augmented Dickey-Fuller test has low power in the presence of a structural break.
We consider those cointegration tests that are most popular among researchers: the residual-based test suggested by Engle and Granger (1987) and the Likelihood Ratio test introduced by Johansen (1991). Given a bivariate case (for simplicity) with no deterministic regressors, the residual-based test for cointegration is performed via the two-step procedure of Engle and Granger (1987). That is, we first estimate the cointegration regression as specified in equation (7) using ordinary least square (OLS) and second, test for the presence of a unit root in the regression residuals.
Johansen (1991) advocates a test for cointegration by testing the rank r of p by applying likelihood ratio tests to test the significance of the squared partial canonical correlations between and yt-1 denoted and which can be obtained by solving a generalised eigenvalue problem. The authors use trace tests to test H0:r = r0 against the alternative hypothesis H1:>- r0+1 for r0 = 0,1.
This paper considers both non-parametric and parametric tests for linearity. The non- parametric test follows Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (1987). It tests the null hypothesis of independence and identically distributed variables against an unspecified alternative. The Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (1987) test cannot test chaos directly, but only non-linearity, provided that any linear dependence has been removed from the data (e.g. using traditional ARIMA-type models or using first differences). The Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (1987) statistics are, therefore, different from other non-parametric test statistics since these focuses mainly on either the second- or third-order properties of x2. The basic idea of the Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (1987) test is to make use of a 'correlation integral' popular in chaotic time series analysis. Given a kdimensional time series and observations , define the correlation integral as:5
where Id (u,V)is an indicator variable that equals one if , and zero otherwise, and where is sup norm. The null hypothesis of the BDS test is that the series is linear and the alternative hypothesis is that the time series is non-linear after removing any linear dependence from the data, either by using ARIMA-type models or taking the first difference of the series. This test statistic has a standard normal limiting distribution.
The parametric test for linearity follows Teräsvirta (1994) who suggests a method of approximating the transition function by a Taylor expansion about the null of linearity g = 0. The linearity test involves estimating an auxiliary regression by OLS:
The original null hypothesis of linearity, H0: y = 0 is equivalent to the hypothesis that all coefficients of the auxiliary regressors are zero i.e.H'0:f1=f2=f3=0. For details on the LM-type test for this hypothesis, see Van Dijk et al. (1997). To select the most appropriate lag of zt to use as transition variable, the test should be carried out for a number of different values of d, say d = 1 ...D. If the linearity is rejected for several values of d, the one with the smallest p-value is selected as the transition variable; see Van Dijk et al. (1997).
3.2 Non-linear estimation technique
If the linearity hypothesis is rejected, we can estimate a non-linear model using non-linear least squares (NLS). In this paper, we apply the smooth-transition threshold models (Granger & Teräsvirta, 1993; Teräsvirta, 1994; Teräsvirta, (1998) which allow for smooth transition between regimes of behaviour and thus generalise the threshold autoregressive model (TAR). The other strength of the smooth transition model is that it is theoretically more appealing than the simple TAR models that impose an abrupt switch in parameter values. An abrupt switch only happens if all agents act simultaneously. Additionally, the STR model allows different types of market behaviour depending on the nature of the transition function. In particular, the logistics function allows differing behaviour depending on whether deviations from equilibrium are positive or negative, whilst the exponential function allows differing behaviour to occur for large and small deviations regardless of sign (see McMillan, 2004). Following McMillan, the STR model is given by equation 9 below:
where F(ut-d) is the transition function and ut-d the transition variable. The logistic function is given as follows, with the full model thus referred to as a logistic STR (or LSTR) model:
which allows a smooth transition between the differing dynamics of positive and negative deviations, where y is the smoothing parameter and G the transition parameter. This function allows the parameters to change monotonically with ut-d. As g → ∞, F(ut-1) becomes a Heaviside function, and equation 9 reduces to a TAR model. As g --> 0, equation 9 becomes a linear model of order p.
The second type of asymmetry, which distinguishes between small and large equilibrium errors, is obtained when f (ut-d) is taken to be the exponential, with the resulting model referred to as the exponential STR (or ESTR) model and ESTECM for a bivariate model:
Equation 9 results in gradual changing strength of adjustment for larger (both positive and negative) deviations from equilibrium. It implies that the dynamics of the middle ground differ from those of the larger deviations. This model is therefore only able to capture nonlinear symmetric adjustment. A possible drawback of this choice for the transition function is that both if g → 0 or g → ∞ , the model becomes linear. This can be avoided by using the 'quadratic logistic function' as proposed by Jansen and Teräsvirta (1996).
In this case, if g → 0, the model becomes linear, whilst if g → ∞, the function F(.) is equal to 1 for
The STR model is estimated using the nonlinear least squares; however, in the LSTR model, a large g results in a steep slope of the transition function at G, thus a large number of observations is required to estimate g accurately. Furthermore, convergence of g may be slow, with relatively large changes in g having only a minor effect upon the shape of the transition function. To get around this problem, Granger and Teräsvirta (1993) and Teräsvirta (1994) proffer scaling the smoothing parameter g by the standard deviation of the transition variable, and by the variance of the transition variable in the case of ESTR (see McMillan, 2004).
4 Data discussion
The data used to estimate the model suggested in this paper consists of the South African national government receipts and expenditures, expressed as ratios of GDP. The data, obtained from the Quarterly Bulletin published by the South African Reserve Bank, are quarterly, and seasonally adjusted, from 1960:1 to 2008:4 (see Figures 1a and b). All variables have been expressed as a percentage of GDP and converted into their natural logarithmic form. We use revenue and expenditure ratios to GDP since government authorities are mainly concerned with the dynamics of the different budget items relative to the overall size of the economy (see Hakkio & Rush, 1991; Cipollini, 2001). The cointegrating relationship between the two variables is also shown in Figure 1c.
5 Empirical results
The Augmented Dickey-Fuller (1981) and Phillips-Perron (1988) unit root tests as well as the Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (1992) stationarity tests for both series are reported in Table 1. We note that the null of a unit root cannot be rejected on the basis of Augmented Dickey-Fuller (1981) and Phillips-Perron (1988) for both series. This result is supported by the Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (1992) test as this test rejects the null of stationarity for both series. There is no ambiguity in the order of integration; therefore we use the first differences of the series in our study. The Granger Causality test (see Table 2) gives an indication of a unidirectional causality from expenditure to taxes, i.e. supports the expenditure dominance hypothesis, implying that in South Africa budget developments are mainly determined by government spending.6 A residual-based test of cointegration as suggested by Engle and Granger (1987) and the likelihood ratio test introduced by Johansen (1991) show evidence of a long-run relation between the two variables of interest (Fig.1c).
We test the hypothesis that the co-integrating vector is (1, -1). Since the p-value is not significant at the conventional levels we cannot reject the null hypothesis that the restrictions are binding (see Table 3), implying that during the sample period, fiscal policy in South Africa, consistent with the intertemporal condition of sustainability, was sustainable.
The fitted linear conditional error-correction model for revenue to GDP is shown in Table 6, column 1. The linear model seems quite satisfactory, with the post-estimation residual tests indicating normality but with evidence of heteroscedasticity. The LM-tests reject the null of no serial correlation. It may be that these significant test values are caused by neglected non-linearity (Van Dijk et al., 2002).
5.1 Linearity testing and model selection
We carry out the Brock-Dechert-Scheinkman (1987) test on a series of estimated residuals to check whether the residuals are independent and identically distributed; i.e. whether the residuals from our linear model has any non- linear dependence in the series after the linear model has been fitted. Table 4 indicates that all the test statistics are significantly greater than the critical values. Thus, we should reject the null hypothesis of independent and identically distributed series/variables. The results strongly suggest that the time series in our model are non-linearly dependent, which is one of the indications of chaotic behaviour.
We also consider a parametric test, the Escribano and Jorda (EJ hereafter) (2001) linearity LM test. The null hypothesis in this test, H0, is that the series follows a stationary linear process. The computation of the test is carried out using the F- version, which is an asymptotic Wald test.
Computing the LM-type test statistics, and setting delay variable (d) equal to 1 through 8, it is seen that linearity is rejected for d =1, 2, 6 and 8 at the 5 per cent level of significance. But given that d = 6 has the smallest p-value, we select it as the delay variable (see Table 5). This implies that in South Africa it takes 6 quarters or one and a half years for fiscal policy changes to be effective.
This is not uncommon, as fiscal policy issues require legislature procedures, which take time. Deciding between the transition functions can be done by a short sequence of tests nested within H0. This testing is motivated by the observation that if a logistics alternative is appropriate, the second-order derivative in the Taylor expansion (8b) is zero (see Van Dijk & Franses, 1997). The null hypothesis to be tested is as follows:
Granger and Teräsvirta (1993) suggest carrying out all three tests, independent of rejection or acceptance of the first or second test, and using the outcomes to select the appropriate transition function. The decision rule is to select an exponential STR function only if the p-value corresponding to H02 is the smallest, and select the logistic function in all other cases. Table 5 shows that at d = 6, the logistic representation of the data is the most preferred.
5.2 LSTECM estimation
Having established a non-linear relationship we now estimate the parameters of the LSTECM by using the non-linear least squares (NLS) technique. Two LSTECM models are fitted, one is general and the other is fitted after parameter reduction (see Table 6, columns 3 and 4); this is obtained by removing the insignificant coefficients. The model estimated is specified as:
where the weight F is modelled as follows:
The parameter g which determines the smoothness of the transition regime is set at 10; and the threshold is computed to be at 0.04. As stated earlier, the delay variable (d) is computed to be at 6 quarters, i.e. one and a half years. We also follow Granger and Terävirta (1993) and Teräsvirta (1994) in making g dimension-free by dividing it by the standard deviation ofσ ecmt-d. As the surplus grows larger, ecmt-d → ∞ F → 1. As the budget deficit grows increasingly larger, ecmt-d → -∞, F → 0. When F → 0 implying (1- F) = 1, i.e. a budget deficit, the relevant parameters are a summation over a and b.
The results from estimating model equation (13) are presented in Table 6. Table 6 columns 3 and 4 report the non-linear least square estimates of our models. Tests of the residuals show no residual autocorrelation, no serial correlation, no non-normality of residuals and, finally, no heteroscedasticity. The Akaike information criterion shows that the non-linear model (i.e. model 3) is a better fit than the linear model. The error-correction terms are of the expected signs and statistically significant and show that the adjustment process to equilibrium is faster when the government budget is in deficit than in surplus. In short, y >0 government authorities are likely to react more quickly when the budget deficit exceeds 4 per cent of GDP, since it will create concern for the achievement of fiscal sustainability. The one-and-a-half-year reaction delay (i.e. d = 6) combined with a relatively smooth switch from one regime to the other g =10, can be explained in terms of the political-institutional processes (see Cipollini, 2001). Fiscal laws and regulations are drafted, through a budget document, and tabled to parliament for approval before implementation, a process that could be time consuming. The empirical result shows that a 1 percent increase in the government budget deficit (the transition variable) implies variation in the transition function that is larger (i.e. a stronger policy maker reaction) than the corresponding 1 per cent increase in a budget surplus,7 showing that in this phase the South African government becomes more concerned about solvency or fiscal sustainability. However, it appears that fiscal sustainability in South Africa has been attained at the expense of a reduction in the ratio of expenditure to GDP on education, and a relatively constant ratio of expenditure to GDP on health, during the deficit and surplus fiscal regimes (see Figures 2 and 4). Whilst the ratio of expenditure to GDP on these sectors were declining both during the budget deficit and surplus regimes, expenditure to GDP on social protection and public order and safety increased in both regimes (see Figures 3 and 5). This result is supported by the negative correlation between the thresholds (i.e. budget deficit and surplus regimes) and the trend of education and health expenditure to GDP (see Tables 7a and b). A priori one would expect that such a decline in the allocations to sectors which could stimulate growth and which in turn could generate future revenue, may pose a threat to the accumulated fiscal space.8
6 Summary and conclusion
This paper has tested the asymmetry relationship between revenue and expenditure, by making a distinction between adjustment of positive (budget surplus) and negative (budget deficit) deviations from equilibrium. It uses quarterly data on South Africa. Our findings suggest that fiscal policy over the sampled period has been sustainable, since the historical processes in South Africa are consistent with the inter-temporal government budget constraint. Of more importance, our findings show that the assumption that adjustment towards equilibrium is always present and of the same strength under all circumstances, is not valid in the case of fiscal data on South Africa.
Results from the study also reveal that government authorities are likely to react more quickly when the budget is in deficit than when in surplus, implying that the South African government becomes more concerned about solvency or fiscal sustainability in the case of the former. This adjustment could be prone to social shock, as trend expenditure on education and health to GDP has been on a decline over this period of fiscal solvency. We note, however, that what the paper has presented is to flag some important concern that may require further investigation. The authors have the intention to investigate in detail, in one of the follow-up papers, the effect of government expenditure changes and even tax policy changes that have brought about fiscal sustainability, on the economy's performance. We intend using a Dynamic General Equilibrium Model (DSGE) to investigate the impact of spending cuts on important issues such as education and health and also to assess the impact of tax cuts on the economy.
1 Fiscal balance as a percentage of GDP recorded 6.8 per cent in 1993.
2 Averages are calculated by the authors using data from the Reserve Bank of South Africa online historical data
3 See Burger and Fourier, 2004.
4 Although in nominal terms allocations have increased in the case of social services, like health and education.
5 See Tsay (2005).
6 The authors recognise that Granger causality is different from a test for exogeneity (Enders, 2004). Whilst exogeneity of one variable, say, expenditure, means that it is not affected by contemporaneous values of the remaining variables (taxes, debt, etc), Granger causality refers only to the effects of past values of those variables on the current value of expenditure. Our causality result reported only gives an indication of the relationship which is not firmed, because it is not the focus of the paper. Studies have shown that causality amongst variables is highly sensitive to the methodologies used, choice of variables, the frequency of the data, and the sample period (see Ndahiriwe & Gupta, 2007).
7 Figures 6 and 7 shows the state dependent speed of adjustment over time.
8 This hypothesis, however, requires further investigation.
BAHARUMSHAH, A.Z. & LAU, E. 2007. Regime changes and the sustainability of fiscal imbalance in East Asian countries. Economic Modelling, 24:878-89. Available online at: www.sciencedirect.com. [ Links ]
BROCK, W.A., DECHERT, W. & SCHEINKMAN, J. 1987. A test for independence based on the correlation dimension. Working Paper, University of Wisconsin at Madison, University of Houston and University of Chicago. [ Links ]
BURGER, P. & FOURIER, F.C. 2004. Sustainable fiscal policy and economic stability: theory and practice. Edward Elgar Publishing. [ Links ]
CANER, S. & SCHOEMAN, N.J. 2006. The effect of taxation on the growth of employment in the underground economy in South Africa. International Journal of Economic Studies. Also available online at www.bilkent.edu.tr. [ Links ]
CIPOLLINI, A. 2001. Testing for government intertemporal solvency, a smooth transition error correction model approach. The Manchester School, 69:643-655. [ Links ]
CRONJE, A. 1995. Deficit financing and the public debt in South Africa. Discussion Paper Series, No.2, the Budget Project. Cape Town: University of Cape Town, School of Economics. [ Links ]
CUNADO, J., GIL-ALANA, L.A. & PEREZ DE GRACIA, F. 2004. Is the US fiscal deficit sustainable? A fractionally integrated approach. Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, 56(6):501-526. [ Links ]
DICKEY, D.A. & FULLER, W.A. 1981. Likelihood ratio tests for autoregressive time series with a unit root. Econometrica, 49:1057-1072. [ Links ]
DWYER, G.P., LOCKE, P.R. & YU, W. 1996. Index arbitrage and nonlinear dynamics between the S&P 500 futures and cash. Review of Financial Studies. Oxford University Press for Society and Financial Studies, 9(1):301-332. [ Links ]
ENGLE, R.F. & GRANGER, C.W.J. 1987. Co-integration and error correction: representation, estimation and testing. Econometrica, 55:251-276. [ Links ]
ESCRIBANO, A. & JORDA, O. 2001. Testing nonlinearity: decision rules for selecting between logistic and exponential STAR models. Spanish Economic Review, 3(3):193-209. [ Links ]
GRANGER, C. & TERÄSVIRTA, T. 1993. Modelling nonlinear economic relationships. London Oxford Economic Press. [ Links ]
HAKKIO, C.S. & RUSH, M. 1991. Is the budget deficit 'too large' Economic Inquiry, 29:425-429. [ Links ]
HAMILTON, J.D. & FLAVIN, M.A. 1986. On the limitations of government borrowing: a framework for empirical testing. American Economic Review, 76:808-819. [ Links ]
HANSEN, G. & KIM, J.R. 1996. Nonlinear cointegration analysis of German unemployment, mimeo, Institute of Statistics and Econometrics, Christian Albrecht University. [ Links ]
HAUG, E. 1995. Has the federal deficit policy changed in recent years? Economic Inquiry, 33(11):104-118. [ Links ]
JOHANSEN, S. 1991. Estimation and hypothesis testing of cointegration vectors in Gaussian vector autoregressive models. Econometrica, 59:1551-1580. [ Links ]
JANSEN, E.S. & TERÄSVIRTA, T. 1996. Testing parameter constancy and super exogeneity in econometric equations. Oxford Bulletin of Economic and Statistics, 58(4):735-765. [ Links ]
KUNST, R.M. 1992. Dynamic patterns in interest rates: threshold cointegration with ARCH. Working Paper, Institute of Advanced Studies, Vienna. [ Links ]
KUNST, R.M. 1995. Determining long-run equilibrium structures in bivariate threshold autoregressions: a multiple decision approach. Working Paper, Institute of Advanced Studies Vienna. [ Links ]
KWIATKOWSKI, D., PHILLIPS, P.C.B., SCHMIDT, P. & SHIN, Y. 1992. Testing the null hypothesis of stationary against alternative of a unit root: how sure are we that economic time series have a unit root? Journal of Econometrics, 54:159-178. [ Links ]
MARTIN, G.M. 2000. US deficit sustainability: a new approach on multiple endogenous breaks. Journal of Applied Econometrics, 15:83-105. [ Links ]
MANUEL, T. 2004. Longer term fiscal policy issues in South Africa. Paper presented at the Bureau for Economic Research 60th anniversary conference, Somerset West, 18 November 2004. [ Links ]
MCMILLAN, D.G. 2004. Non-linear error corrections: evidence for UK interest rates, The Manchester School, 72(5):1463-6786; 626-640. [ Links ]
NDAHIRIWE, K. & GUPTA, R. 2007. Temporal causality between taxes and public expenditures: the case of South Africa. University of Pretoria Working Paper: 2007-09. [ Links ]
PHILLIPS, P.C.B. & PERRON, P. 1988. Testing for unit root in time series regression. Biometrika, 75:335-346. [ Links ]
PHILLIPS, P.C.B. & OULIARIS. 1990. Asymptotic properties of residual based tests for cointegration. Econometrica, 58:165-193. [ Links ]
QUINTOS, C.E. 1995. Sustainability of the deficit process with structural shifts. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, 13:409-417. [ Links ]
ROUX, A. 1993. The public debt: a medium-term perspective. The South African Journal of Economics, 61(4):324-333. [ Links ]
SCHOEMAN, N.J. 1994. Public debt and the economy. Paper presented at the EBM Conference at RAU:28-29 November 1994. [ Links ]
SWANSON, N.R. 1996. Finite sample properties of a simple LM test for neglected nonlinearity in error correction regression equations. Working Paper, University of Pennsylvania. [ Links ]
TERÄSVIRTA, T. 1998. Modelling economic relationships with smooth transition regressions, in A. Ullah and D.E.A. Gilles (eds.) Handbook of applied economic statistics, New York: Marcel Dekker. [ Links ]
TERÄSVIRTA, T. 1994. Specification, estimation, and evaluation of smooth transition autoregressive models. Journal of the American Statistical Association, 89:208-218. [ Links ]
TREHAN, B. & WALSH, C.E. 1988. Common trends: the government budget constraint and revenue smoothing. Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, 12:425-444. [ Links ]
TSAY, R.S. 2005. Analysis of financial time series (2nd ed.) University of Chicago, Graduate School of Business. [ Links ]
VAN DIJK, D. & FRANSES, P.H. 1997. Nonlinear error-correction models for interest rates in Netherlands. In W.A. Barnett, D.F. Henry, S. Hylleberg, T. Terasvirta, D. Tjiostheim and A.H. Wurtz (eds.) Nonlinear economic modelling of time series. Cambridge University Press. [ Links ]
VAN DIJK, D., TERÄSVIRTA, T. & FRANSES P.H. 2002. Smooth transition autoregressive models: a survey of recent developments. Econometric Reviews, 21(1):1-47. [ Links ]
VAN DER MERWE, E. 1994. Is South Africa in a debt trap? EPSG Occasional Paper No.6, Johannesburg: Economic Policy Group Study. [ Links ]
WILCOX, D.W. 1989. The sustainability of government deficits: implications of the present value borrowing constraint. Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, 21(3):291-306. [ Links ]
ZIVOT, D. & ANDREWS, K. 1992. Further evidence on the great crash: the oil price shocks, and the unit root hypothesis. Journal of Business and Economic Statistics,10(10):251-70. [ Links ]
Accepted: October 2011


text:
Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology
The University of Wisconsin, Madison is recognized as having one of the largest and most productive biology facilities in the world. As a member of this remarkable research community, the Laboratory of Cell and Molecular Biology fosters excellence in interdisciplinary research which crosses departmental boundaries.
The Laboratory is also a center for graduate training and is staffed by research groups specializing in biophotonics, cell biology, molecular and developmental biology and neurobiology. Faculty members continue to receive substantial national and international recognition for their research.


text:
Learn Exchange the Guru way !!!
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 29th, 2010 at 3:47 pm and is filed under .
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Name (required)
Mail (will not be published) (required)
© 2015 MSExchangeGuru.com All Rights Reserved | Privacy Policy
Theme by BytesForAll
Entries (RSS)
and Comments (RSS).
Theme by BytesForAll


text:
The Grand Prairie AirHogs are in El Paso to begin a short roadtrip:
A three game set today, Saturday, and Sunday, then a three game series in Fort Worth starting Monday.
Let's hear what Coach Ricky thinks about the upcoming series:
If you want to watch the game you can! Just log in to here!
Go AirHogs!
0.000000 0.000000