Blockchain Papers

Lan Nguyen, Reihaneh Safavi–Naini

No abstract is available for this record.

William Blomquist, Ariel Dinar, Karin Kemper

One of the internationally accepted principles of river basin management is to decentralize decision making to the lowest appropriate level. This principle has been promulgated extensively over the past 15 years, leading to the creation of many river basin management organizations structured around a broader participation of stakeholders from different user groups and sectors in order to achieve more integrated water resources management. This study originated from empirical observations, based on experience with World Bank-financed river basin management projects all over the world. Experience from these projects suggested that while the concept of management at the lowest appropriate level could be translated into laws and regulations relatively easily, its actual application often encounters obstacles due to the varying interests of different stakeholder groups, including those having to promote decentralization. In practice, this means that projects and policies based around integrated water resources management principles may not fully achieve their potential benefits. This observation led this study to investigate the underlying reasons for (non-) achievement of decentralization in river basin management. The research was carried out over the period 2002 to 2005. The study consists of three main parts: (1) a global survey of 83 river basin organizations around the world, (2) eight in-depth case studies and (3) an extensive literature review.

Insop Pak

This paper begins with a description of globalization and analyzes its nature and effects on the financial environment. Implications of globalization for state sovereignty are also addressed. In particular, global challenges to national fiscal sovereignty are discussed. In this context, this writing clarifies the concept of tax jurisdiction and reviews problems with the national tax systems such as double taxation, and taxpayers' cross-border arbitrage which results from the increased mobility of capital associated with financial globalization. Furthermore, an emphasis has been given to discuss the pros and cons of tax competition and harmonization. More importantly, this article attempts to search for the measures to enhance global governance in the international tax regime. In this regard, an analysis of the network of tax treaties is provided. I then move on to review the role of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) as a global tax network in international taxation. In this context, an emphasis is placed on the evaluation of global network governance conducted by independent decentralized government agencies in the international economy under international law. In addition, an argument about the creation of the International Tax Organization (ITO) is discussed. Finally, this paper concludes by seeking alternatives to enhance global tax governance through the coordination of a bilateral tax treaty network and a global tax network in international finance.

Peter Waalwo Kajula, Francis Kintu, John Barugahare, Stella Neema

The aim of this study was to assess the political and social dynamics resulting from the rapid change in user-fee reforms in Uganda and the effects on service delivery for malaria control. Using political mapping and political risk analysis techniques, the study analysed qualitative and quantitative data obtained from secondary data sources and key actors in the policy arena. The results have shown that the feasibility of user-fees in Uganda was undermined by the absence of strong central government leadership and strategies to manage the politics of the reforms. The resultant rapid change in policy adversely affected the recurrent expenditures of health units that previously relied heavily on cost sharing, which led to a chronic shortage of malaria drugs and undermined the ability of health facilities to hire and motivate staff. The study results demonstrate that in order to contribute positively to healthcare delivery goals for malaria control in endemic countries, user-fees require full ownership and strong political leadership by the central government. Decentralization, when merely used as a strategy to navigate the political risks associated with user-fees, is unlikely to succeed without a centrally coordinated and managed process of policy formulation and acceptance involving wider consultations and political management of interest groups.

Sultan Almuhammadi, Nien T. Sui, Donald C. McLeod

We propose an approach using elliptic curve-based zero-knowledge proofs in e-commerce applications. We demonstrate that using elliptic curved-based zero-knowledge proofs provide privacy and more security than other existing techniques. The improvement of security is due to the complexity of solving the discrete logarithm problem over elliptic curves.

M. A. Oommen

That rural local bodies or Panchayats once an appendage of the rural development departments have been made a ‘third stratum’ of Indian federal polity is a great step towards decentralized governance. Panchayat is defined in the Indian Constitution as ‘an institution of self-government’ for the rural areas (Article 243(d) and is structured on a three-tier basis ‐ village, intermediate and district (Article 243 B). The hallmark of any self-government is the degree of autonomy it enjoys in formulating and implementing public policies in regard to those functional responsibilities assigned to it. In the threetier structure, the most critical level is the village or gram panchayat (GP) for a number of reasons. It is closer to the people and is enjoined to interact with the assembly of citizenvoters called Gram Sabha (Article 243A). The delivery of several basic services and ‘planning for economic development and social justice’ (Article 243G and 243W) can work effectively and equitably only at the village level. More over, in almost all states only the GPs are endowed with revenue-raising powers. The intermediate and district tiers by and large do not enjoy substantial taxing powers (See Appendix A, A1 and A2). Nearly a decade has passed since the decentralized development process has been launched. The purpose of this paper is to raise some rural fiscal decentralisation issues in the context of the twelfth finance commission (TFC). Kerala which has made significant strides in regard to fiscal decentralisation is chosen for special mention in order to draw possible lessons for others. The paper is organized under four heads: 1

Lars P. Feld, Horst Zimmermann, Thomas Döring

The distribution of competencies between the different levels of a federal system may have remarkable effects on economic growth, because mainly the regions of a country contribute to national economic development. Thus, a government’s economic policy is reasonably shaped along regional lines. The theoretical discussion in economics focuses however on the efficiency aspects of a decentralized provision and financing of public services; rarely the argument is raised that decentralization or federalism increases growth through a higher ability of the political system to innovate and to carry out reforms. After a discussion of the theoretical arguments on federalism and growth, we address the empirical question in this paper how important the assignment of decision making competencies and the design of fiscal federalism are for economic development. Finally, on the basis of existing theoretical and empirical studies on economic growth and federalism, open questions and possible ways of answering them are presented.

Lun King Ngok, Kin Keung Chan David

No abstract is available for this record.

Erlinda M. Medalla, Dorothea Lazaro

A major theoretical as well as political approach to transport infrastructure investment and management is the idea that such services are public goods and should not be subject to private market considerations. However, from time to time, public provision seems to fail, which increases the importance of various forms of private sector participation. Assessing the impact of devolution on the country's road infrastructure, the author underscores the lack of coherence in the design and redistribution of resources and responsibilities, which resulted in a coordination gap between national government agencies and local government units. An important insight is that the private provision of a public good may be feasible, for as long as its consumer-beneficiaries can be made to pay a use price, such that the revenue stream to the private provider is greater than the cost of construction, administration, and upkeep of the public good.

Rafael Pass

Zero-knowledge proofs are one of the most important cryptographic notions. Since their introduction in the early 80's by Goldwasser, Micali and Racko, they have proven very useful in the design of cryptographic protocols. Nevertheless, many limitations (in terms of e ciency and robustness under concurrent executability of protocols) have also been noticed. In order to overcome these limitations two lines of research have been investigated in the literature: 1. Models with some limited intervention of a trusted party (for example during a set-up phase). 2. Weakenings of the notion of zero-knowledge. In this thesis we attempt to further the understanding of the notion of zero-knowledge proofs by addressing both the above lines of research. More precisely, 1. Concerning the rst line of research, we show that the de nition of zeroknowledge in certain popular models (namely the Common Reference

Ivan Damgård, Serge Fehr, Louis Salvail

The concept of zero-knowledge (ZK) has become of fundamental importance in cryptography. However, in a setting where entities are modeled by quantum computers, classical arguments for proving ZK fail to hold since, in the quantum setting, the concept of rewinding is not generally applicable. Moreover, known classical techniques that avoid rewinding have various shortcomings in the quantum setting.<br /> <br />We propose new techniques for building <em>quantum</em> zero-knowledge (QZK) protocols, which remain secure even under (active) quantum attacks. We obtain computational QZK proofs and perfect QZK arguments for any NP language in the common reference string model. This is based on a general method converting an important class of classical honest-verifier ZK (HVZK) proofs into QZK proofs. This leads to quite practical protocols if the underlying HVZK proof is efficient. These are the first proof protocols enjoying these properties, in particular the first to achieve perfect QZK.<br /> <br />As part of our construction, we propose a general framework for building unconditionally hiding (trapdoor) string commitment schemes, secure against quantum attacks, as well as concrete instantiations based on specific (believed to be) hard problems. This is of independent interest, as these are the first unconditionally hiding string commitment schemes withstanding quantum attacks.<br /> <br />Finally, we give a partial answer to the question whether QZK is possible in the plain model. We propose a new notion of QZK, <em>non-oblivious verifier</em> QZK, which is strictly stronger than honest-verifier QZK but weaker than full QZK, and we show that this notion can be achieved by means of efficient (quantum) protocols.

Alon Rosen

No abstract is available for this record.

Björn Berggren, Christer Olofsson, Lars Silver

Financing entrepreneurship in different regions : The failure to decentralize financing to regional centres in Sweden

Laura B. Rawlings, Lynne Sherburne-Benz, Julie Van Domelen

The study seeks to answer four questions that summarize the fundamental issues in the international debate about the capacity of social funds to improve beneficiaries' living conditions: o Do social funds reach poor areas and poor households? Do social funds deliver high-quality, sustainable investments? Do social funds affect living standards? How cost-efficient are social funds and the investments they finance, compared with other delivery mechanisms? The findings and lessons from this research reflect a specific moment in the evolution of six social funds and therefore may not fully predict the future impact of current investments. The evaluation assesses subprojects identified and implemented between 1993 and 1999, a period when longer-term objectives-such as increasing access to and utilization of basic services-began to supplant the funds' original emergency mandates. The time period selected allowed enough elapsed time following the implementation of the social fund subprojects to make measurement of impact and sustainability possible. The evaluation does not consider the effects of social fund projects on employment or on income generation-the original objectives of the first generation of social funds, which were introduced in Latin America. It also does not discuss the effect of social fund investments on capacity building-a more recent emphasis of social funds seeking to assist decentralization and community development.

Yongnian Zheng

The restructuring of the state bureaucracy deals largely with the relations between the state and market. It does not tell us how the Chinese government has used modern economic means to manage and regulate the economy. This chapter shifts to the latter aspect, focusing on the reforms in the key sectors of taxation, finance, and the enterprise system. In reforming China's fiscal and financial systems, the leadership sought to achieve two main goals. First, fiscal and financial reforms aimed to promote the development of the market economy by changing the relationship between the state and the enterprises, and second, the reforms were expected to build a modern state by managing the economy more efficiently and shifting economic power from local government to the central state. This chapter attempts to link the reforms in taxation, finance, and state-owned enterprises (SOEs) with state-building efforts by the leadership. Taxation reform and the tax regime China's fiscal system since the late 1970s has undergone a drastic transformation from a unitary system to a federal one. When the leadership first embarked on economic reform, it recognized that enterprises as well as local governments had to be provided with incentives to support the reform effort. This was achieved through fiscal decentralization. But this process augmented local autonomy at the expense of the center's fiscal capacity.

John W. Rich

Waste Processors Management, Inc. (WMPI), along with its subcontractors Texaco Power & Gasification (now ChevronTexaco), SASOL Technology Ltd., and Nexant Inc. entered into a Cooperative Agreement DE-FC26-00NT40693 with the U. S. Department of Energy (DOE), National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) to assess the techno-economic viability of building an Early Entrance Co-Production Plant (EECP) in the United States to produce ultra clean Fischer-Tropsch (FT) transportation fuels with either power or steam as the major co-product. The EECP design includes recovery and gasification of low-cost coal waste (culm) from physical coal cleaning operations and will assess blends of the culm with coal or petroleum coke. The project has three phases. Phase I is the concept definition and engineering feasibility study to identify areas of technical, environmental and financial risk. Phase II is an experimental testing program designed to validate the coal waste mixture gasification performance. Phase III updates the original EECP design based on results from Phase II, to prepare a preliminary engineering design package and financial plan for obtaining private funding to build a 5,000 barrel per day (BPD) coal gasification/liquefaction plant next to an existing co-generation plant in Gilberton, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. The current report covers the period performance from July 1, 2003 through September 30, 2003. The DOE/WMPI Cooperative Agreement was modified on May 2003 to expand the project team to include Shell Global Solutions, U.S. and Uhde GmbH as the engineering contractor. The addition of Shell and Uhde strengthen both the technical capability and financing ability of the project. Uhde, as the prime EPC contractor, has the responsibility to develop a LSTK (lump sum turnkey) engineering design package for the EECP leading to the eventual detailed engineering, construction and operation of the proposed concept. Major technical activities during the reporting period include: (1) finalizing contractual agreements between DOE, Uhde and other technology providers, focusing on intellectual-property-right issues, (2) Uhde's preparation of a LSTK project execution plan and other project engineering procedural documents, and (3) Uhde's preliminary project technical concept assessment and trade-off evaluations.

Hartmut Surmann, Andreas Nüchter, Joachim Hertzberg

No abstract is available for this record.

Äsa Cristina Laurell

Latin American social medicine (LASM) emerged as a movement in the 1970s and played an important role in the Brazilian health care reform of the 1980s, both of which focused on decentralization and on health care as a social right. The dominant health care reform model in Latin America has included a market-driven, private subsystem for the insured and a public subsystem for the uninsured and the poor. In contrast, the Mexico City government has launched a comprehensive policy based on social rights and redistribution of resources. A universal pension for senior citizens and free medical services are financed by grants, eliminating routine government corruption and waste. The Mexico City policy reflects the influence of Latin American social medicine. In this article, I outline the basic traits of LASM and those of the prevailing health care reform model in Latin America and describe the Mexico City social and health policy, emphasizing the influence of LASM in values, principles, and concrete programs.

Wanzong Peng, Tongliang Lu, Wenju Peng, Zhongpan Wang

File sharing, being the foundation of the Internet, has traditionally relied on a centralized service architecture resulting in significant maintenance costs. Moreover, due to the lack of an effective file management system, instances of sensitive information going out of control and loss of confidentiality in file sharing have occurred frequently. In order to address the difficulty of tamper detection and the lack of supervision in the entire process of file transfer in the current Internet environment, this paper designs a blockchain-based system architecture for secure sharing of electronic documents. An efficient blockchain model is used in our framework, and with the help of distributed storage system and asymmetric encryption technology, file sharing can be controlled, reliable and traceable in the transfer process. Referring to existing consensus mechanisms, e.g., Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) and Practical Byzantine Fault Tolerance (PBFT), we propose a new consensus for efficient and secure file sharing. Our experimental results show that our framework can maintain a higher throughput than existing schemes.

Charlie Jeffery

The rules for allocating financial resources in decentralized states are both crucially important for the operation of government and deeply controversial, since finance is an easily politicized issue. This contribution focuses on this political dimension. Drawing on evidence from a range of decentralized states, it identifies the issues around which central–regional and inter-regional conflict tends to develop, including: the relation of revenue-raising powers to expenditure responsibilities; vertical fiscal imbalances between centre and regions; horizontal, region-to-region imbalances of fiscal capacity; and the processes for revising territorial financial arrangements. The article also draws on this comparative evidence to identify some of the issues the UK is likely to encounter as debate about the reform of its territorial financial arrangements unfolds.

Manuel E. Contreras, Maria Luisa Talavera Simoni

This case study of the Bolivian education reform, synthesizes the first decade of the reform's design and implementation process, from 1992 to 2002, and, summarizes many recent unpublished reports on the reform, while weaving together various partial studies produced in Bolivia and abroad. The study presents a general background of Bolivia, and its socioeconomic and educational characteristics, traces the reform's background, its formulation process, and the main proposals of the Education Reform Law of 1994 (ERL). It also includes an analysis of the reform implementation, and highlights major changes in: teacher training, curriculum development, curriculum and pedagogical implementation, bilingual and intercultural education, institutional reform, decentralization, student achievement and testing (SIMECAL), and financing. The reform has improved the internal efficiency of public primary schools, and decreased access differentials between rural and urban areas. Lessons indicate that continuity in policy and leadership, is critical to achieve lasting results; there is a need for basic provision of materials in all schools in order for innovation to take hold; there is also a need to ensure that basic institutional capacities are developed within the ministries of education. The report further emphasizes that all levels of education systems have complementary roles to play in a reform. The study is composed of six sections: the first section presents a general background of Bolivia and its socioeconomic and educational characteristics; section 2 traces the reform's background, its formulation process, and the main proposals of the 1994 ERL; section 3 includes an analysis of the reform implementation and highlights major changes in teacher training; curriculum development; curriculum and pedagogical implementation; bilingual and intercultural education; institutional reform; teachers' unions and compensation; decentralization; student achievement and testing (SIMECAL); and, education financing; section 4 assesses the education reform and compares it to other countries in the region. It analyzes the reform's main influences, and the reformers' critical reform strategies, while section 5 presents the study's main conclusions, and the final section distills lessons learned from the Bolivian experience.

Nizar Allouch, Monique Florenzano

No abstract is available for this record.

Koko Warner, Georg Ch. Pflug, Leslie Martin, J. Linnerooth‐Bayer · 6 authors

This report was commissioned by the Natural Disasters Network of the Regional Policy Dialogue. This report constitutes Phase 2 of this project. While the first phase of the study discusses the components of a national system, the second focuses on instruments for financing reconstruction after a disaster. The research compares centralized, government-directed management systems with those that are localized and decentralized, and also analyzes the factors affecting the financial and political stability of alternative approaches. As natural disasters may result in major resource gaps for governments facing the task of financing reconstruction, the report presents case studies of four countries-Bolivia, Colombia, the Dominican Republic, and El Salvador-to highlight the various policy options. Alternative sources of ex ante funding are identified, including reserve funds, contingent credit, and insurance. These innovative methods of funding are compared with ex post funding possibilities through international aid, loan diversions and increased external debt, budget reallocations, and tax increases.

Deanne A. Crone, Robert H. Horner, Leanne S. Hawken

1. Introduction to the Behavior Education Program 2. The Context for Positive Behavior Support in Schools 3. The Basic BEP: Critical Features and Processes 4. Getting a BEP Intervention Started 5. Roles, Responsibilities, and Training Needs Related to Implementing the BEP, Deanne A. Crone, Leanne S. Hawken, and K. Sandra MacLeod 6. Designing the BEP to Fit Your School 7. Measuring Response to the BEP Intervention and Fading 8. The Modified BEP: Adaptations and Elaborations 9. High School Implementation of the BEP, Jessica Swain-Bradway and Robert H. Horner 10. Adapting the BEP for Preschool Settings, Susan S. Johnston and Leanne S. Hawken 11. Cultural Considerations and Adaptations for the BEP, Joan Schumann and Jason J. Burrow-Sanchez 12. Frequently Asked Questions and Troubleshooting the BEP Implementation Appendices: Appendix A.1. List of Acronyms and Definitions Appendix B.1. Working Smarter Not Harder Organizer Appendix B.2. Request for Assistance Form Appendix B.3. Parental Permission Form Appendix B.4. Daily Progress Report-Middle School, Example 1 Appendix B.5. Daily Progress Report-Middle School, Example 2 Appendix B.6. Thumbs Up! Ticket Appendix B.7. Daily Progress Report-Elementary School, Example 1 Appendix B.8. Daily Progress Report-Elementary School, Example 2 Appendix C.1. BEP Implementation Readiness Questionnaire Appendix C.2. Voting Form for Implementing the BEP Intervention Appendix C.3. BEP Development and Implementation Guide Appendix D.1. BEP Check-In, Check-Out Form-Elementary School Appendix D.2. BEP Check-In, Check-Out Form-Middle/High School Appendix E.1. Reinforcer Checklist Appendix F.1. BEP Fidelity of Implementation Measure (BEP-FIM) Appendix F.2. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Teacher Version Appendix F.3. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Student Version Appendix F.4. BEP Acceptability Questionnaire-Parent Version Appendix G.1. BEP Contract Appendix G.2. BEP Support Plan Appendix G.3. Functional Behavioral Assessment-Behavior Support Plan Protocol (F-BSP Protocol) Appendix G.4. Functional Assessment Checklist for Teachers and Staff (FACTS) Appendix H.1. High School BEP Referral Form Appendix H.2. High School Daily Plan Agenda Appendix H.3. Reinforcer Checklist for High School BEP