Technology is entering every part of our daily life leading to integration with all aspects of modern society. Social sciences research is not an exception of this role. The fourth revolution is intertwined in the process we do research. In this thesis, two models are designed based on blockchain and smart contract technology to solve the current problems in the existing traditional models. Those traditional models proved to have certain problems including being inflexible and having so many parties involved the network. The new model provided by this thesis is built upon blockchain and smart contract technology. Therefore, those networks have the benefits of being more flexible and having less parties involved in the network. the first case is a crowdfunding network, we have examined a traditional crowdfunding and developed a similar one based on blockchain and smart contracts technology to overcome the drawbacks of the existing network. the second case is a marriage contract network where we built a network similar to the traditional one but has the ability to remove the burden of wasting time and effort. Finally, both cases are compared based on the change in structure and functions of each party in the network. We have seen some changes in terms of structure between the two networks, however, the main change came in the functions of each party and the removal on unnecessary ones in the network which is expected to reduce the transaction cost.
The concepts of information assurance and information warfare are often framed around digital artefacts. The fabrication of these artefacts and their consequent attachment to physical products provide interesting opportunities for assuring the provenance of physical products. We examine a case study where blockchain technology offers an innovative solution for Wine Industry supply chain governance, especially in regard to the identification of counterfeit product. This paper proposes a prototype solution to directly link the advantages of blockchain technology with the requirements of the Wine Industry. The results indicate that although blockchain-based supply chains are feasible, issues around authentication, verification and protection of digital assets persist. Our contribution was to investigate the opportunities offered by blockchain and smart contracting technology to provide greater product assurance than is currently offered in the wine industry.
In Brazil, it is referred to as sanitary surveillance a complex state action that has undergone transformations since 1999, with the creation of the National Agency of Sanitary Surveillance (ANVISA) and the institution of the National Health Surveillance System (SNVS). Its area of activity covers the sanitary control of products and practices related to health, articulating to control some determinants, risks and damages to health. It represents an expressive part of health protection and, integrating the Brazilian Health System (SUS), contributes to its qualification, as well as national products submitted to sanitary regulation. In the organization of SNVS, notably in a federative country with continental dimensions and extremely diverse realities, such as Brazil, the decentralized implementation of actions and their correspondence with the loco regional context is fundamental. Being the municipality the most fragile component of the SNVS, it is imperative to study contextually the municipal services, and among them, the capitals, which concentrate resources, population and problems of various orders. This is an exploratory and descriptive study based on secondary and universal access data and covers sanitary surveillance services of the four state capitals of the southeastern region of Brazil, from 2014 to 2017, a year of reform of federal SUS financing. The capitals were characterized by sociodemographic and financial indicators and the respective sanitary surveillance services, using data from the Municipal Basic Information Survey, from the official sites and referring to their rates collection. The procedures reported by these services were described and their revenues and expenses analyzed. It was found that the sanitary surveillance of these capitals are inserted in different hierarchical levels in the organization chart of the respective SMS and that their financing is very dependent on federal transfers, which decreased in the period. The allocation of own resources was very low and amounts collected as fees and fines seems not to have been reverted to the service in one of the capitals that reported this collection. There was no uniformity in relation to the types of inspecteds establishments/activities and the licensing process. Data from the different databases were consistent. It is necessary elucidate to what type of regulation are being submitted the establishments and services located in the jurisdictional limit of the capitals and that are not regulated by them, and discuss responsibilities. As well as institutional and political factors, with the intention of explaining the non-allocation of own resources and those collected by the surveillance, or part of them, to the services themselves.
This dissertation addresses various topics in public finance that are particularly relevant for developing countries. These topics include consumption taxes, tax evasion, and rent-seeking by government officials. The first and third chapters focus on how formal and informal taxes affect production and firm behavior in developing countries, while the second focuses on household responses to a consumption tax in a developed country context. Chapter 1 examines firms’ response to a size-based exemption threshold for a Value Added Tax (VAT) in India and shows how compliance costs affect production and strategic misreporting among manufacturing firms. Although the marginal tax rate on production and compliance costs change discontinuously at the exemption threshold, firms’ response can be almost fully attributed to compliance costs alone. Patterns of input use corresponding to the reported output of firms just below the exemption threshold suggest that they are producing less output than they would have in the absence of the tax and not simply underreporting their true output to appear small. Chapter 2, joint with Yeliz Kacamak and Eleanor Wilking, studies how the tax elasticity of the consumption tax base is affected by changing sales tax remittance rules. We study empirically how an important development in U.S. sales tax policy – the requirement of online retailers to remit the sales tax instead of the consumer, as part of Voluntary Collection Agreements (VCAs) – impacts this elasticity. Our identification strategy exploits quasi-experimental variation from the staggered state-wise introduction of the VCAs. We find that consumers reduce their online expenditure after the introduction of VCAs, consistent with an increase in compliance with sales taxes on online sales and suggesting that consumers took note of the tax change. On average, we do not find evidence of an impact of the remittance rule change on the elasticity of the tax base with respect to the tax rate. Chapter 3, joint with Traviss Cassidy, studies whether competition between local governments can reduce rent-seeking by local officials in the context of a major period of decentralization in Indonesia that increased the number of local governments by 50 percent within a decade. District governments, which are responsible for most local public goods expenditure and receive revenue from business licensing and fees, split into smaller districts, increasing the number of local governments within original district boundaries. We find that on average, there is a small increase in the probability of any bribe payments by firms and no change in the average size of payments. However, newly created establishments in districts that split are less likely to report bribe payments. We suggest that these results are consistent with a model of rent-maximizing bureaucrats in which bribe rates are constrained by mobility of firms.
At the present stage in the context of the reforms in the tax administration system, the issues of tax control management and improvement of registration procedures are relevant. Tax revenues account for the largest share of other methods of centralizing budget resources. Therefore, increasing tax revenues is especially relevant for financing budgets, including local ones. The purpose of the paper is to study controversial issues of tax control in the field of taxpayer accounting in order to find opportunities to increase tax revenues, primarily by making it impossible to carry out unregistered economic activity. The object of the study is the process of taxpayer accounting. The main tasks are: 1) to emphasize the importance of accounting and registration procedures in ensuring sustainable budgetary revenues; 2) to determine the specific features of accounting for different categories of taxpayers and outline the basic requirements for its organization in the tax authorities; 3) to track the dynamics of the number of taxpayers; 4) to propose directions for the improvement of the accounting and registration work of the State Tax Service authorities. In the course of the study, the following methods were used: abstract-logical, analysis and synthesis, benchmarking and structural-functional analysis, statistical-economic and graphic methods. It is substantiated that it is essential to working through the procedures of taxpayer accounting in order to ensure effective control over the correctness of calculation completeness and timeliness of making tax payments. The mechanism of taxation of different categories of entities on a one contact principle and on general grounds is considered. The emphasis is placed on the lack of coherence of actions of the state registration and tax authorities at the stage of registration of the entities, insufficient scope of authority of the controlling bodies and the lack of a single complete database on taxpayers. The dynamics of the number of different taxpayer categories is highlighted, the necessity to improve the method of their accounting is explained; and the income from unregistered economic activity in Ukraine is calculated with the method of ‘population expenditures – retail trade’. Ways to improve tax control in order to ensure the completeness and timeliness of taxes and fees are proposed. The prospects for further research are related to the investigation into controversial issues of tax policy and activities of tax authorities, as well as the improvement of tax control for the effective use of its fiscal regulatory capacity.
The phenomenon of transnational crimes such as money laundering, drug trafficking, and terrorist financing remains a persistent problem for the international community and for individual states. Though existing efforts to combat transnational crimes are by no means perfect, the recent iteration of financial technology – cryptocurrencies – presents a potential alternative means for circumventing the regulatory measures that inhibit transnational crimes. Most features of traditional banking facilities are absent in cryptocurrencies: transactions therein are considered to be relatively anonymous, cryptocurrencies are also decentralized, and their use lacks any formal oversight. Thus, cryptocurrencies could be considered a further complication to the already challenging problem faced by regulatory and enforcement agencies in striving to combat transnational crimes. To date, the degree to which cryptocurrencies remain susceptible to exploitation for criminal purposes is still the subject of much debate. Therefore, this thesis will contribute to this ongoing conversation by examining the extent to which the use of cryptocurrencies facilitates transnational crimes and in turn circumvent the existing global anti-money laundering (AML) regime. Using a New Legal Realism theoretical lens, this thesis interrogates how the complex international AML framework could be interpreted, in the first instance, to apply to cryptocurrency-facilitated money laundering. This thesis also provides an overview of cryptocurrencies using Bitcoin as a case study. Given the emerging nature of cryptocurrencies, Bitcoin, as the first fully developed and widely used cryptocurrency network, is used to highlight the operating systems of cryptocurrencies. Furthermore, this work draws from the criminological discipline to explain the attractiveness of cryptocurrencies for money laundering to facilitate transnational crime. Relying on a number of criminological theories, this thesis demonstrates the importance of regulating cryptocurrencies while the problem of its illicit use is still at a nascent stage. In this case cryptocurrencies, in the absence of cohesive regulation, could become attractive to criminals seeking alternative avenues to launder the proceeds of their crimes. Thus, this thesis contributes original insights to the discussion of new techniques for facilitating transnational crimes by demonstrating through interpretation, how cryptocurrencies could be brought within the application of the existing AML regime as it is.
While global sourcing arrangements are highly complex and usually represent large value to the partners, little is known of the use of e-contracts or smart contracts and contract management systems to enhance the contract management process. In this paper we assess the potential of emerging technologies for global sourcing. We review current sourcing contract issues and evaluate three technologies that have been applied to enhance contracting processes. These are (1) semantic standardisation, (2) cognitive technologies and (3) smart contracts and blockchain. We discuss that each of these seem to have their merit for contract management and potentially can contribute to contract management in more complex and dynamic sourcing arrangements. The combination and configuration in which these three technologies will provide value to sourcing should be on the agenda for future research in sourcing contract management.
This paper analyses the efficiency of cryptocurrency markets by applying econometric models to different short-term investment horizons. A number of experiments are carried out to demonstrate that small training sets can still be used to build efficient and useful forecasts, which in turn can be transformed into straight-forward investment strategies. It also compares the application of selected models on cryptocurrency and mature stock markets. The forecasting accuracy of the models is explored using different error metrics and different horizons. The results suggest that the variation of the error estimates doesn’t appear to be tightly related to the maturity of the markets, but rather depends on the intrinsic characteristics of the analyzed time series.
For many, the appeal of bitcoin is in its detachment from government regulation. \nHowever, the Coffee bonding theory, which initially arose in the context of foreign \nstocks, suggests certain benefits of regulation for bitcoin, including increased \nlegitimacy. By invoking the Coffee bonding theory, this Article offers another \nperspective on the regulation of bitcoin.
One of the core promises of blockchain technology is that of enabling trustworthy data dissemination in a trustless environment. What current blockchain systems deliver, however, is slow dissemination of public data, rendering blockchain technology unusable in settings where latency, transaction capacity, or data confidentiality are important. In this thesis we focus on providing solutions on two of the most pressing problems blockchain technology currently faces: scalability and data confidentiality. To address the scalability issue, we present OMNILEDGER, a novel scale-out distributed ledger that preserves long-term security under permissionless operation. It ensures security and correctness by using a bias-resistant public-randomness protocol for choosing large, statistically representative shards that process transactions, and by introducing an efficient cross-shard commit protocol that atomically handles transactions affecting multiple shards. To enable secure sharing of confidential data we present CALYPSO, the first fully decentralized, auditable access-control framework for secure blockchain-based data sharing which builds upon two abstractions. First, on-chain secrets enable collective management of (verifiably shared) secrets under a Byzantine adversary where an access-control blockchain enforces user-specific access rules and a secret-management cothority administers encrypted data. Second, skipchain-based identity and access management enables efficient administration of dynamic, sovereign identities and access policies and, in particular, permits clients to maintain long-term relationships with respect to evolving user identities thanks to the trust-delegating forward links of skipchains. In order to build OMNILEDGER and CALYPSO, we first build a set of tools for efficient decentralization, which are presented in Part II of this dissertation. These tools can be used in decentralized and distributed systems to achieve (1) scalable consensus (BYZCOIN), (2) bias- resistant distributed randomness creations (RANDHOUND), and (3) relationship-keeping between independently updating communication endpoints (SKIPCHAINIAC). Although we use this tools in the scope off this thesis, they can be (and already have been) used in a far wider scope.
This thesis aims to explore the compliance of blockchain technology and the GDPR. The GDPR was implemented for the EU member states in May 2018 with the purpose of harmonizing data protection regulation. However, the regulation is based on the notion that data is stored and processed in a centralized system. This causes an issue when it comes to distributed networks, and in particular with the distributed ledger technology (DLT), the underlying technology of blockchain. For this thesis, a literature review has been conducted to investigate the problems of GDPR compliance for blockchain projects, and what technical solutions exist to make a blockchain solution more GDPR compliant. In addition, interviews have been conducted to investigate the technical and legal perspectives on the current and future situations of regulation and technology. Compatibility problems mainly concern the immutability and transparency of a blockchain and examples of technical solutions that handle those problems can be found in the literature. Nevertheless, none of the discussed solutions are yet to guarantee full GDPR compliance. The technical and legal perspectives share ideas of the main compliance issues. However, differences such as interpretation of technical details can be identified, indicating problems to arise when regulating blockchains in the future. Further interdisciplinary work on guidelines for the GDPR is necessary for blockchain projects to be successful in complying with the regulation as well as to strengthen the technology neutrality of the GDPR.
Chaoyang Li, Gang Xu, Yuling Chen, Haseeb Ahmad · 5 authors
Blockchain technology has become a research hotspot in recent years with the prominent characteristics as public, distributed and decentration. And blockchain-enabled internet of things (BIoT) has a tendency to make a revolutionary change for the internet of things (IoT) which requires distributed trustless consensus. However, the scalability and security issues become particularly important with the dramatically increasing number of IoT devices. Especially, with the development of quantum computing, many extant cryptographic algorithms applied in blockchain or BIoT systems are vulnerable to the quantum attacks. In this paper, an anti-quantum proxy blind signature scheme based on the lattice cryptography has been proposed, which can provide user anonymity and untraceability in the distributed applications of BIoT. Then, the security proof of the proposed scheme can derive that it is secure in random oracle model, and the efficiency analysis can indicate it is efficient than other similar literatures.
The article is devoted to the main directions of formation in library establishments, especially regional, thematic bases on topics of organization of ecological activity. It is investigated that due to the decentralization reform, the concept of environmental policy in Ukraine is constantly evolving, revealing new solutions to environmental problems, using the main trends in the European Union. This reform should strengthen the organizational, material, financial and legal autonomy of local communities, ensure the separation of powers between local governments at different levels and transform the budget system in order for communities to have their own budgets, the opportunity to combine their efforts and finance, taking into account the combination of national, regional and local interests and specifics of socio-economic, ecological, political and cultural development. First of all, the successful development of this process should be ensured by its effective information and analytical support on the basis of an operational analysis of all problems and achievements. Therefore, information centers and library institutions: should establish permanent contacts with local authorities, find out their information needs and the most effective ways of cooperation; should form information bases for operational information for practical field assistance; must develop distant forms of information service; should develop inter-library cooperation in exchange of practical experience of decentralization, forecast-analytical materials.