Blockchain Papers

Hal Hodson

An app called Cheers, which lets one tip any musician in the world using bitcoins is featured. It uses one's smartphone to recognize the audio signature of the music one is listening to--its this that gets one's tip to the artist. The app also let's one manually tip any artist one like. Tips can be between 20 cents and $2 worth of bitcoins

Johnatan Rafael Santana de Brito, João Ramos Matos Filho, Edward Martins Costa

the Brazilian tax structure has specific characteristics and the performance level of government. Although there was a better regulation of these transfers after the enactment of the Fiscal Responsibility Law, it is observed that the amount of resources transferred to the municipalities of Rio Grande do Norte is quite high. In light of the theory of federalism and fiscal decentralization, in particular, the theories related to intergovernmental transfers seek to diagnose the transfers from the systematization of information as to the origin, value and destination. We used the econometric model of Dynamic Panel System GMM in diagnosis and verification of the impact of transfers on public finances of municipalities in the RN, a dynamic econometric model that captures the lagged effects of variables making use of adjustment mechanisms based on a model differences distributed so that the dependent function is a concatenation of variable contemporary and out of phase. The data point to what is predicted in theory: an increasing trend of dependency. The paper presents some proposals for the transfer system and the composition of spending in order to contribute to greater tax efficiency.

Pablo Sitjar

No abstract is available for this record.

Lucie Leopoldová

The main objective of this diploma thesis is to find out the potential of digital currencies to replace contemporary fiat currency. Specifically, the thesis is focused on cryptocurrency Bitcoin, which currently has the highest market value. The thesis is divided into three main chapters. The first one focuses on money itself and its function, not only today but also throughout the history. Second chapter explains substance and functioning of Bitcoin, as well as its role in the current monetary system. Likewise the question of regulatory measures and competition of altcoins is being examined. Final part analyses the future of digital currencies and it compares pros and cons of Bitcoin and money we use today. Furthermore, it is discussed whether Bitcoin is the next bubble in the financial market. In the end, main problems which Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies deal with are mentioned and a possible future development is outlined.

Norfariza Mohd Radzi

School-based financial management is a concept derived from the financial decentralization reform which granted autonomy to public schools to manage their financial resources. In Malaysia, it is still at early stage as implemented by cluster schools. Therefore, this study was carried out for the purpose of developing the profile of effective school-based financial management in Malaysia. Specifically, the development of this profile included three phases of study. First, the phase of need analysis is aimed at identifying the need for performing this study. The second phase of profile design listed the main elements and practices of effective school-based financial management in Malaysia that are based on a high level of consensus among local experts. Finally, the phase of profile evaluation is to evaluate the designed profile through a survey of a group of cluster schools in Malaysia. The theoretical frameworks of this study were based on Institutional Theory (Meyer & Rowan, 1977), Education Production Function (Hanushek, 1979), the model of Financial and Resource Management in Open System of Organization (Levacic, 2000), Integrated Goal and System-Resource Model of Effectiveness (Hoy & Miskel, 2007) and the Dick, Carey and Carey Model of Instructional Design (Dick, Carey & Carey, 2009). The research design included three phases of study. First, the phase of need analysis used the qualitative method by conducting interviews with ten principals and head teachers of schools that have been granted guided financial autonomy in Klang Valley. Then, the second phase of profile design applied the Delphi study consisting of three round of studies. This method involved fifteen local experts in the School Finance area. For the last phase of profile evaluation, quantitative study was applied by the distribution of questionnaires to 170 leaders of cluster schools in Malaysia. In terms of data analysis, the qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis to identify the themes and sub-themes. Then, the quantitative data were analysed using SPSS version 19.0 for the iv analysis of descriptive statistics such as mode, median and inter quartile range (IQR) and inferential statistics of the Wilcoxon Signed - Rank Test. The analysis of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) used AMOS SPSS version 20.0 for the development of the profile of effective school-based financial management in Malaysia.This study found a need to develop a profile of effective school-based financial management in Malaysia and eight aspects in its implementation. In addition, research finding also emphasized the involvement of all school stakeholders, including principals or head teachers, teachers, financial administrators, parents and communities such as non-government organisations. Furthermore, the profile of effective schoolbased financial management has been developed which included 13 elements that are categorized under 4 financial functions of planning, financial acceptance, acquisition and disbursement, and control and evaluation. There are also 123 practices listed in the profile when the scores of Inter Quartile Range are between 0.00 through 1.00 (IQR=0.00-1.00). The evaluation study of cluster schools in Malaysia also found a high level of practice for 119 practices (mean≥3.80). The analysis of Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) has developed a structural equation model for the effective schoolbased financial management in Malaysia which fits with the collected data (CMIN/DF = 1.412, NFI, IFI, TLI, CFI > 0.09, RMSEA = 0.059). The implication of this study is that the schools that are granted guided financial autonomy can be assisted by a specific profile which takes into consideration the local context.

Jamie Lahiere

Saluting Innovation at Bitcoin for designing the first fully implemented decentralized digital currency. Simply put, it is an open source online software payment system. Currency is exchanged for Bitcoins, which are then transferred person-to-person.

Nishu Choudhary, Saibal K. Pal

Bitcoin has recently gained popularity as a peer-to-peer decentralized electronic currency system. It was designed to provide all the desirable properties of electronic cash. One of the desirable properties of Bitcoin is that it does not depend on a central authority like a bank or the government. This paper introduces Bitcoin and its characteristics together with its core components–block, block chain and transaction. Mechanisms for ensuring privacy and security in Bitcoin are also presented. Primitives like hash functions and digital signatures play important roles in providing cryptographic functionalities for Bitcoin. SHA-256 is used to prevent malicious parties from stealing and creating coins. Specific characteristics of this hash function and its suitability for bitcoin would be analyzed. The elliptic Curve digital signature Algorithm (ECDSA) is used for confirming identity of payer and validating truncation. Properties of the Elliptic curve used in ECDSA and the signature algorithm would also be technically analyzed together with their role in protecting the electronic currency for the next few decades.

Elie Benayed, Issa Jama

Bitcoin has over the years dominated the headlines for good and bad reasons. Examples of this range from the first introduction of a Bitcoin Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) to the recent attack on t ...

Anna Piotrowska

The appearance of bitcoin is the beginning of a new era in which advanced technological capabili- ties have changed the perspective on the financial system's functioning rules and have expanded the understanding of the category of money. Bitcoin is used in commercial transactions, transfers and as an investment asset. The establishment of bitcoin is a part of the movement away from cash transactions and the general acceptance of non-material form of money observed around the world. The aim of the study is to analyse the bitcoin cryptocurrency in the scope of the fulfilment of the definition criteria and functions of money formulated in an economic theory, and to present the current legal situation in selected countries relating with its functioning.

P. Carl Mullan

Introduction 1. What Is Digital Currency? 2. Who Uses Digital Currency? 3. Digital Gold Currency 4. E-gold 5. Digital Currency Growth 6. Regulatory History 7. Follow the Money 8. Money Service Business 9. Prepaid Access 10. WebMoney Transfer 11. Loom 12. Bitcoin Decentralized Virtual Currency 13. Early Bitcoin 14. Bitcoin Mining 15. Bitcoin Differences 16. Benefits and Advantages 17. Disadvantages and Barriers 18. FIN-2013-G001 19. Global Bitcoin 20. Bitcoin Challenges 21. Bitcoin Merchant Services 22. Bitcoin Opportunity 23. The Future

Thomas Peters

Technology is linking the slightest of our actions to the virtual world. In such connected environments, cryptography aims at building schemes with provable security in order to mathematically protect the users' security in electronic exchanges. Relying on the existence of pairings in bilinear groups wherein the discrete logarithm problem is hard, this thesis puts forth mechanisms to efficiently enhance the privacy in three of the most fundamental cryptographic primitives, namely, digital signatures, encryption schemes and zero-knowledge proofs. Furthermore, these mechanisms support public verifiability so as to force the honesty of all participants in the standard model. We first focus on group signatures, a primitive proposed some 20 years ago, for which we propose the first efficient revocation mechanisms, overcoming the main obstacle to the deployment of this primitive in practical applications. We then focus on P-homomorphic signatures that make it possible to modify a signed message in a controlled way. In particular, we propose new mechanisms providing structure-preserving linearly homomorphic signatures, from which we build the first constant-size non-malleable commitments compatible with standard proof systems, as well as a generalization of this construction into a generic transformation. Finally we further investigate the unexpected applications of this kind of malleable signatures to non-malleable cryptography. This leads us to new proof systems for linear languages which in turn provide the most efficient publicly verifiable CCA-secure threshold encryption to date, and other new extensions.

Jan Priebe, Fiona Howell, María Carmela

Little is known about public health-care supply in Eastern Indonesia, a region that shows worse health outcomes than the rest of the country. Drawing on a new dataset (IFLS East 2012), this paper examines the availability and quality of public health-care facilities (puskesmas and posyandu) in Eastern Indonesia. Our findings suggest that public health-care supply plays a larger and more important role in Eastern Indonesia compared with Western Indonesia. However, this stronger reliance and dependence on public health-care provision has not necessarily resulted in quality health-care supply. Although significant improvements have been achieved over time, we found that many puskesmas and posyandu could benefit from more and better-trained staff (education, training, availability, absenteeism) and better physical endowment (infrastructure, medical equipment, and medications). The results further suggest that remarkable differences in the provision of health care exist between urban and rural areas; urban areas have on average better-equipped puskesmas, whereas rural areas seem to have better-equipped posyandu. Furthermore, we found that direct funds from the central level (central government funds and Jamkesmas), despite the decentralization process, play a major role in financing the operations of public health facilities. In rural Eastern Indonesia, these central-level funds constitute about 80 percent of the total operational budget of a puskesmas. 1 Jan Priebe (jan.priebe@tnp2k.go.id or jpriebe@uni-goettingen.de) is a senior economist at TNP2K’s Cluster 1 team. Fiona Howell is the social assistance policy advisor in TNP2K, Government of Indonesia. Maria Carmela Lo Bue is research associate at the Development Economics Research Group at the University of Gottingen, Germany. The authors would like to thank Suahasil Nazara, Elan Satriawan, and Sudarno Sumarto for valuable input and comments. Special thanks go to SurveyMETER, in particular, to Bondan Sikoki, Ni Wayan Suriastini, and Firman Witoelar for providing clarifications on the IFLS East 2012 data. We also wish to gratefully acknowledge Maciej Czos and Pamela S. Cubberly for their editorial assistance. Any remaining errors are solely our responsibility.

M. Shaw

‘We are poised between an old world that no longer works and a new one struggling to be born. Surrounded by centralized hierarchies on the one hand and predatory markets on the other, people around the world are searching for alternatives’. This is the starting point for what David Bollier and Silke Helfrich, the editors of The Wealth of the Commons: A World Beyond Market and State (2012), describe as ‘an extended global exercise in commoning’ – Peter Linebaugh's term for ‘the self-determination of commoners in managing their shared resources’ (p. 396). In other words, the book itself is offered as an active process of ‘making the path’ by presenting ‘some of the most promising new paths now being developed’. It is intended to be ‘rigorous enough for academic readers yet accessible enough for the layperson’. In this, it more than achieves its ambitions. The Wealth of the Commons is an edited collection of seventy-three short papers from thirty countries: ‘a collective venture of sharing, collaboration, negotiation and creative production among some of the most diverse commons scholars, activists and projects leaders imaginable’. This rich and diverse source of knowledge and inspiration could be described as ‘polyvocal’ in the sense that it presents a multiplicity of voices improvising around a single theme – sometimes in harmony, sometimes discordant, but always interesting. The book brings together an impressive collection of contributors from different places, backgrounds and interests to explore the meaning of the commons and to advocate for it ‘as a new paradigm’ for the organization of public and private life. In this sense, it represents a project rather than an analysis: essentially espousing a cause with imperative urgency. This is not necessarily a weakness, but it does raise specific questions about what is included and what is absent or marginalized in this particular selection of accounts, and what might be lost along the way. What counts as ‘commons’ or ‘the commons’ or ‘the common’ (all used in the text) is a subject of discussion and contestation here, as elsewhere. The effort to ‘name and claim’ is an integral aspect of the project. As Jeffrey et al. (2012, p. 10) comment, ‘the struggle for the commons has never been without its own politics of separation and division’, raising valid questions about the prospects for a coherent paradigm at this stage. At the very least, however, this rich resource may prove seminal in countering those dominant paradigms of growth and development in which structural and cultural adjustments ‘serve as a justifying rhetoric for continuity in plunder’ of common resources (Mattei, p. 41). The contributions fall into three general categories: those offering a critique of existing ‘increasingly dysfunctional’ market/state relations; those that ‘enlarge theoretical understandings of the commons as a way to change the world’; and those that ‘describe innovative working projects which demonstrate the feasibility’ of the commons. As acknowledged in many of the chapters, defining the commons in any consistent and convincing way can be deeply problematic. Like ‘community’ itself, it can be regarded to some degree as an ideological portmanteau which contains a variety of meanings. Nonetheless, there is a general commitment to confront such difficulties in an open way, and to be as clear as possible about what the commons might represent, what it might replace, and what it should not be confused with. Put most simply, the commons refers to what human beings share in nature and society that should be cherished for all now and for the future: ‘the term … provides the binding element between the natural and the social or cultural worlds’ (Weber p.11). Its profound challenge to the logic of competitive capitalist relations, therefore, is to ‘validate new schemes of human relations, production and governance … commonance’ (Bollier and Helfrich, p. xiv) that penetrate all levels of public and private life. This idea is explored in detail in many of the contributions. The commons, then, claims to represent a philosophical stance, an intellectual framework, a moral and economic imperative, a set of organizing principles and commitments, a movement, and an emerging ‘global community of practice’ (O'Connell, 2012). It has also developed an increasingly shared discourse, which is designed to unsettle institutionalized norms and values and to reclaim or remake the language of co-operation, fairness and social justice. As the editorial points out, the language of capitalism is one that becomes ‘encoded into the epistemology of our language and internalized by people’. In community development, and elsewhere, we have become sensitized to the way in which progressive language can be appropriated to support individualistic market values. When empowerment can mean facilitated asset-stripping of local communities, and solidarity targets can be set by government (e.g. Scottish Government, 2007), then we must be wary about assuming proprietorial closure on the term ‘commons’ itself. As Federici, in a particularly persuasive chapter, warns: ‘… capital is learning about the virtues of the common good’ (p. 46). She argues that, ‘since at least the 1990s, the language of the commons has been appropriated … by the World Bank and put at the service of privatization’. For this reason, it is important to think of the commons as a ‘quality of relations, a principle of co-operation and of responsibility to each other and to the earth, the forests, the seas, the animals’ (p. 50). This produces a different operational logic, which is explored in depth across the collection. To advance the commons as ‘a new paradigm’, it is necessary to locate it historically and to show the ways in which it has been colonized and compromised, as some of these pieces do. It may seem ironic that the meaning of ‘the commons’ to many people in the UK, for example, is that bear pit of parliamentary business, the House of Commons, in which adversarial rather than consensual politics is the order of the day. Reclaiming such foundational ideas is a lengthy and demanding process, as David Graeber shows in The Democracy Project, his recent account of the Occupy Movement, which for a time commanded considerable international interest. Drawing on Linebaugh, Federici contends that ‘commons have been the thread that has connected the history of the class struggle into our time’. It is unfortunate, therefore, that the volume fails to address the relationship between organized labour and the commons, as highlighted in the introduction, because there is a distinctive contribution to be made here. As Harvey (2012) argues, decentralization and autonomy are also primary vehicles for reinforcing neoliberal class strategies of social reproduction and producing greater inequality. For example, in urban environments in particular, ‘the better the common qualities a social group creates, the more likely it is to be raided and appropriated by private profit-maximising interests’ leading inexorably to economic cleansing of whole areas. Gentrification and tourism are the clearest examples. The salience of class in general is an underdeveloped line of argument. If this authoritative collection is anything to go by, this may be a significant deficiency in the commons framework. Without historical continuity – honouring the contribution of those ‘commoners’ who came before in various guises and places – there is a danger of falling into the contemporary trap of regarding ‘innovation’ as a way of separating us from our past. History in the past as well as in the making is as essential a part of our commons as is the present and the future – material, temporal and spiritual. Some of the chapters are conceptual, some practical, some poetic, but all have at their heart the ‘duty’ not only to describe the problems of contemporary life, but to develop alternative ways of thinking about and living the relationship between individual and society, state and market, policy and politics. Since these relationships are, in broad terms, the primary focus of community development in theory and practice, commons perspectives have much to offer. Given the breadth of vision represented in this impressive book, and the restrictions of space here, I have limited myself to those chapters and issues that have particular relevance to community development. A fundamental concern is the tension between public and private spheres, and how these relate to the idea of the commons. The subtitle of the book makes clear that the ‘the wealth of the commons’ lies ‘beyond the market and the state’, emphasizing the private, communal or community spheres. However, it is important to acknowledge that ‘community’ has traditionally been as much a fiction of political contrivance as a real search for communal relationships. For example, in the current context, community is being systematically deployed as an alibi for decentralizing responsibility from the ‘public’ to the gendered ‘private’ community sector, en route to the ‘private’ commercial sector. If the potential for more democratic and meaningful social relationships is to be realized, then at the very least there needs to be recognition of the anti-democratic potential of community development in facilitating a ‘localism’ agenda which may deprive the poorest of key state services (a vital part of their particular commons heritage). There is clearly a qualitative difference between municipal co-operatives as an extension of ‘the public’ and community engagement strategies which are likely to lead to an extension of ‘the private’ in both senses of the word. The need for ‘reflexive decentralization’ in making these distinctions is beyond question (Graeber, 2013). Whilst community has always been a contested term, there is now a very real possibility that it becomes a victim of enclosure itself, in the sense that a ‘space for political empowerment’ is extinguished by default or by design, to be replaced by a process of managed compliance and privatization. At the same time, Harvey (2012, p. 70) argues, not all forms of enclosure can be dismissed as bad by definition. In fact, ‘some sort of closure is often the best way to preserve certain kinds of valued commons’. Kratzwald (p. 55), in her compelling chapter on rethinking the social welfare state in light of the commons, argues that one strategic way of avoiding wholesale appropriation of ‘commons’ ideology in the service of privatization agendas is to reconsider how services are provided – ‘by the state, controlled by those affected; by citizens, through various forms of government support and financing; or in self-organised social networks’ – and that such decisions must be made ‘anew in every individual case’. The precondition in all cases would be the strengthening of ‘political empowerment’ against privatization. This is essentially a call for ‘clarity through specificity’ (Cornwall, 2008), which could act as a very concrete corrective to some of the more grandiose claims of community development. In addition, the strategic application of the kind of filtering process suggested by Kratzwald may offer sustenance to beleaguered practitioners working with long-suffering communities to understand where their best interests might lie. It also validates the case for speaking out collectively ‘when the idea of the commons is used to justify cutting public expenditures’ (Kratzwald, p. 59) as in various versions of ‘the big society’. Re-theorizing both ‘the public’ and ‘the private’ in community development would help to expose the shallowness of much of the current drive towards community governance worldwide and help to repoliticize participatory democracy. Any serious case for a commons-based approach must be at least partially measured by the extent to which it expands democratic political space for those most removed from power. As Quilligan in particular argues (p. 73), there is always a tension between representative and participatory democracy, with community development often positioned as a mediator between state and civil society. However, in a global environment in which private ‘corporations have substantially invaded the sphere of government, demanding that the state functions mainly for their benefit’ (Rustin, 2013), that mediating position is severely compromised, if not rendered almost impossible. In this process poor people everywhere have been ‘responsibilized’ and ‘demonized’ while, at the same time, some sections of civil society have been ‘entrepreneurialized’ by being expected to take over substantial state functions, sometimes through competitive tendering processes, which produce low wages, poor services and increasingly divided communities. This creates the sharpest of tensions, considering that ‘the community solution’ has traditionally been framed within the politics of the state. There is a strong temptation therefore to regard the marketized state as beyond redemption, a central cause of the problems that currently beset democratic life. In this respect, Mattei (p. 39) argues that the conventional state/market dichotomy is a ‘distinction without a difference’. And there is no shortage of evidence of the combination of market economics and bureaucratic politics that have so undermined democratic structures and cultures. Nonetheless, an insistent question remains as to whether the state should be surrendered so readily, and what might take its place as an institutionalized expression of the collective will of citizens in defence of ‘their sovereign rights … to their common goods’ (Quilligan, p. 81). The state is essentially an ambivalent formation, which has been fought over and fought for in many different contexts over time. As it has been gradually hollowed out by the virus of neoliberalism, it is tempting to erase from collective memory those democratic struggles over the state through which marginalized groups have fought their way towards some degree of social protection, cultural recognition and material redistribution. Through representing their claims in and outside of state structures, social and political movements have shifted the balance of power in many situations for the better. There is a dialectical relationship between the state and civil society, between representative and participatory democracy. To construct the state as the enemy, or at least as an unwanted encumbrance, is to reduce confidence in collective social and economic solutions as they may be expressed and evolved through democratic politics. As Kratzwald argues, what is required is a reclaiming of the state and the public sphere by ‘stepping out of the private sphere’ and into the sphere of politics. This could be a promising position for community development workers to put to the test. Operating both within the ‘invited spaces’ of policy and the ‘demanded spaces’ of politics, practitioners and community groups continuously need to make a critical assessment of the opportunities and challenges of both strategic participation and strategic non-participation in existing structures and programmes. Indeed, society from the as it (p. presents a key challenge for and community development (p. approach to reclaiming the state a and for thinking about the politics of take are in a and people over their and are to take responsibility for also a central for the state, as citizens active in such various to the state or the In is through the and the people In this way the democratic state is from the of the market through the made of it by an and active civil society. It is also different to those contemporary versions of in which the of power is through the of representative has always its history us that people with their that which they could never to in the market and other public 2012). To and for a democratic state that on the of human and social need as a central of the commons its because it provides a political focus for the kind of of and communal necessary to public in any way. This reclaiming the state as a shared a is regarded by some as a lost or but it is no more so than the commons project itself. Whilst there is an to be by with what is as the project of the social welfare state, it is where there is of this position that the commons idea at its and least There is no from politics, and it to that ideas are at their best they are made argues that of the of the of is that the very idea of a and of a alternative has been almost from the of It is for example, that there is not a single in the of this to is there much of other political and in at any What are we to make of The commons could be to a broad an which has an important in and to an alternative social However, there is a broad commitment to are framed in ways that its is essentially ideological and cultural rather than This is not in the contribution it could make to the development of a project. As (2012) argues in his assessment of social movements in the ‘the fundamental power struggle is the for the of meaning in the of people’. one of the most about the collection of ideas and which the commitment to is that it is an active which does not in the in which all often to politics community development. At the same time, this may also be one of the in to a coherent commons of ‘the commons’ is a of claims therefore, always such social and political As in his critique of the urban commons (2012, p. argues, the of it the is often with a are common interests to and by what are essentially political The potential for the rich to lead and to in communities and to an commons is all A more epistemology may be required to take account of or The of commons may be necessary in to and a vision of an alternative moral which would for but an of of power a more dialectical of cause and For example, the and of certain sections of the are as of – be they welfare at one of the or and at the Whilst it is clearly that and can the kind of wealth which in some world over whole are increasingly on their it is the of economic in order to produce those very that is the to the kind of commons which would society. In a of by – from public through to – the of an must confront the of an for enclosure has always been the default and who autonomy to their one of the most significant contributions of the commons then, is in the ideological and cultural challenge it presents for community development. In this respect, it is important to that capitalism itself is if not an ideological with profound cultural in of how people to and Graeber makes a but between the and the in politics, both as an and the Occupy Movement, in the The as are with structures, process being a The on the other are in of which will construct the as yet important of politics therefore is that it through its in the and to offer a of the future it is – to it as it This kind of politics is also in much commons thinking and community development. The dialectical process of in of power by the claims of marginalized groups expressed through is what community development should be In other words, greater to democratic democratic structures that in the in which those are or As it (p. need a state that expands our for community To what might be a which practitioners to the of and critical framed within an of collective and and to an of the structural of could help to community This book provides a to ways of thinking and that at the very least, our from and beyond the and in which many of us are It us of the of the of in our to rather than or of a more world – and then to for

Chantha Onxayvieng, Shukui Tan

The District Development Fund program  or  model was introduced in Lao People Democratic Republic in 2005, with the technical and financial support of United Nations Capital Development Fund, as a core part of the Governance and Public Administration Reform Programme, which was jointly supported by United Nations Capital Development Fund and United Nations Development Programme. The District Development Fund program was designed to be an effective approach and support methodology suitable for a low capacity environment in order to help deliver better public services to rural and remote communities in Lao PDR. The DDF has since been expanded to fifty two (52) Districts (of a total of 148 Districts) across the country. DDF aims to sustainably improve local public services delivery through the strengthening of capacity of local district administration and demonstrating improved financial management systems and procedures that can contribute positively in this objective. It does this by providing both discretionary development grants together with capacity development and support to improvements systems and procedures for local development. However, there has been little external research undertaken to date on “assessment of the District Development Fund program as an effective approach to strengthen public service improvement for decentralized and better service delivery in Lao PDR, and whether the District Development Fund program has positively affected the capacity of local authorities to delivery prioritized local public services”.  This article addresses this by looking at the empirical results from the DDF program and draws on experiences on how DDF program has been operating and contributing on the ground in building local capacities, in financial management, planning and budgeting, to enhance the local authorities’ ability to finance local priority services. The DDF for government has become the viability and positive results of empowering local authorities and communities as part of public administration reform, that is not only a government fund transfer mechanism a form of fiscal decentralization but also has proven to be very well suited to the low capacity environment in Lao PDR A better people-focused service delivery has mostly been achieved by empowering sub-national administrations to take a more effective role in leading local socio-economic development, which is to bring about tangible improvements in public services to people and a real reduction in local poverty. The most significant lesson of the DDF experience in Laos has been its ability to achieve results that have led to improvements in pro poor service delivery combined with improvements in the capacity of local administration in planning, budgeting and monitoring services. A critical lesson in achieving these results has been ensuring that new systems and procedures fully align with existing government processes . This not only helps to improve capacity development but also ensures innovations, which is more cost effective and scalable in future by working through existing governance systems. Greater district and community oversight and accountability result in funds being well spent with minimum leakages. This article, to a large extent, is entering new ground where there is little other independent research or documentation available. Thus the approach relies on conducting structured evaluation dialogue with the direct stakeholders, including the Ministry of Home Affairs, Governance of Public Administration Reform /District Development Fund  project team, national and local practitioners and representatives of the communities involved, combined with a review of the available documents and data. The methodological tools used were interviews, workshops, focus group discussions, data analysis and document review. Keywords: Service delivery, Building capacity, Financial management, Planning and budgeting management, Local authority, District development fund approach.

David Nyange, David Tschirley, Hussein Nassoro, Abeid Francis Gaspar · 8 authors

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Rural taxation policy is a major issue in many countries of Africa as they pursue more decentralized forms of governing and at the same time work to enhance the effectiveness, efficiency, and fairness of their tax systems. Tanzania has struggled with this issue since at least 1962, when it expanded countrywide the limited decentralization that had occurred under the colonial regime, then abolished LGAs in 1972 in favor of “Madaraka Mikoani,” only to reinstate them and enshrine them in the constitution in 1984. With wide powers to set tax policy and practice at local level, made possible by the Local Government Finance Act (LGFA) of 1982, Tanzania soon experienced a dizzying array of taxes and fees, with dramatically differing rates across LGAs. The situation became so extreme that some claimed that Tanzania by the late 1990s had “about 110 local authorities ... each with a different tax system” (Fjeldstad and Semboja 2000). A sustained effort at reform culminated in 2003, when the “head tax” and a series of “nuisance taxes” were abolished, and the produce cess was limited to a maximum of 5% (compared to rates as high as 20% in the past). Though the resulting system of local taxation is substantially less complex, less variable across LGAs, and less onerous than it was prior to these reforms, important problems remain, and stakeholder demands for further reform have been growing. Since the produce cess became the most important source of local revenue after 2003, much of the demand for reform has focused on it. In response to these concerns, GoT included a commitment to “reduce or abolish” produce cess when it signed the G8’s “New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition” declaration. This study took advantage of a newly available database of LGA revenue and expenditure and complemented it with fieldwork in 27 LGAs with varying levels of reliance on the produce cess. Its overall purpose is to generate new empirical understanding that contributes to the on-going debate on produce cess and that informs the GoT on pros and cons of potential options for reform. Key new findings include: 1. Dependence on the produce cess varies widely among rural LGAs, from 0% of total locally generated revenue in Ngorongoro to 90% in Urambo; 2. Relative to the value of their marketed production, traditional export crops generate more than three times as much cess revenue as do food crops; 3. Much potential cess revenue goes uncollected: nationally, LGAs collect not more than one- quarter of the revenue potentially available from produce cess charges. This low level of collection reflects both limited human and institutional capacity at local level and widespread tax evasion, some of it likely featuring the collaboration of some local officials; 4. Because it is charged on the gross value of production, current cess rates can result in very high tax (even confiscatory) on net revenue among farmers that use a large amount of inputs but experience small net margins; Confirmed previous findings include: 1. With the reforms of 2003, local revenue fell sharply as a share of total LGA revenue, from 20% to a current level of 7%. Central government transfers provide the rest. Such a low share of locally generated revenue makes meaningful decentralization quite challenging. 2. Nationally, cess contributes only 1.8% of total LGA revenue, with other local taxes accounting for 5%; 3. Yet cess is the largest source of rural LGA own revenue, at 43%. Because this revenue is very flexible (it does not come with the spending dictates that accompany central government transfers), it is highly valued by local authorities, and is largely used for Councilor allowances and other “costs of doing business”; 4. Cess rates are highly variable across LGAs, varying by a factor of as much as four (Beans in Handeni at Tshs 1000/bag vs. Lushoto at Tshs 4000/bag); 5. Tax evasion is widespread and likely a more serious problem than tax avoidance; 6. But avoidance – farmers or traders or others changing their production and marketing behavior due to the tax (and especially due to the variation over space in tax rates) – can be a serious problem in particular instances. For example, some sugarcane growers in Mvomero are considering shifting their farming activities to Kilombero due to lower cess rates in the latter; and farmers and traders report that traders favor some districts over others in their food trade due to differences in cess rates; Reform options include: 1. Abolish cess in one step 2. Gradual phasing out of cess 3. Reduce the cess rate, broaden its base, and improve capacity for collection 4. Institute a differential cess for food- and non-food crops 5. Completely remove cess in food crops, leaving it only for traditional and other export crops. Simple simulations of option 3 combined with option 4 (3% for traditional cash crops, 2% for food crops) indicate that LGAs would need to improve their efficiency in collection (the share of potential cess that is actually collected) from the current estimated 28% to 41% to maintain revenue, and would increase revenue with further improvements. Complete elimination of cess on food crops (option 5) would make LGA’s jobs quite challenging, especially if rates were reduced on traditional export crops. Leaving the rate on these crops unchanged at 5%, LGAs would have to achieve nearly 60% efficiency in their collection to maintain their current revenues; dropping the cess on traditional export crops to 3% while eliminating it on food crops would require an almost certainly unattainable 83% efficiency. Based on the analysis in the paper, and in keeping with the view that improvement in tax systems is a long-term process featuring continuous, incremental improvement, the report suggests that option 3 combined with option 4 – reducing the rate of the cess (thereby reducing its variability over space), introducing a slight differential between food crops and traditional export crops, and broadening the cess collection base by working continuously to improve the human and institutional capacity of LGAs to collect taxes in efficient and fair fashion, is likely to be the best option for Tanzania. Piloting of technological and institutional innovations such as the use of mobile money for cess payment are proposed as one way to address both the inadequate local capacity and the scope for corruption in cess collection.

Campbell R. Harvey

No abstract is available for this record.

Daniel Rodríguez Herrera

No abstract is available for this record.

jwmars

No abstract is available for this record.

Wang Ming-we

A new signature scheme based solely on the MQ-problem is presented,which satisfies the following properties:(1)Forward security,which means that a compromise of a key now does not necessarily expose old traffic.(2)Backward security,which means that a compromise of a key now does not necessarily expose future traffic.We do not have to revoke our public key and re-issue a new key system everytime we detect a key leak.We use two fundamental tools,such as zero knowledge proof and mulitivariate public crypto.Our basic model is Koichi Sakumoto's identifcation scheme which is transformed by parallel processing and Fiat-Shamir transforming.What is novel about our approach is the key updating algortithm,which makes our scheme preserve backward security besides the forward property.Finally,we prove that our scheme satisfies the security under the random oracle model.

Genqiang Wu, Yeping He, Yi Lu, Liping Ding

Abstract. We consider the following problem: Assuming that Alice and Bob have an integer interval [a, e] and an integer b respectively, for a commitment c to b, Alice and Bob jointly check whether b is within [a, e] without revealing their inputs, where either party may behave malicious-ly. A special case of the problem is the secure integer comparison in the malicious model. This problem mainly arises from location-based access control systems where one party needs to assure to the other party that its location is within some definite area. Our main result is a constant-round protocol that exhibit the square of log e communication and the square of log e exponentiations with simulation-based security. At the heart of the construction is perfec-t k-ary index and corresponding zero-knowledge proof techniques. We consider a more general case of the problem where the interval is substi-tuted by a union of intervals.

Robert McMillan

No abstract is available for this record.

Nancy Neslund

This paper will explore the recent development of digital (aka virtual or crypto-) currencies—currencies which are creatures of the Internet, have no issuing or governing body, are self-authenticating, and can be used worldwide by members of the general public to engage in the same types of direct, one-to-one transactions that daily occur using government-issued currencies

Senadin Plojović, Džemail Zornić, Šemsudin Plojović, Enis Ujkanović

No abstract is available for this record.

Philip Dotemoto

This project attempts to implement an open source FPGA based Bitcoin miner on an Altera DE2-115 development board. Bitcoin is an experimental peer-to-peer digital currency based on public key cryptography. The advantages of Bitcoins are that they can be transferred between any two people anywhere in the world, and they do not have the same fees and lack of control associated with traditional methods of currency transfers. The first part of this project focuses on detailing how the Bitcoin network and open source miner work. The second part of the project attempts to improve the performance of the open source miner, but a lack of resources on the Cyclone IV EP4CE115F29C7 ultimately prevented implementing a dual pipelined design.