Revisiting the nexus between fiscal decentralization and CO_(2)emissions in South Africa:fresh policy insights

The argument over fiscal decentralization and carbon dioxide emission(CO_(2))reduction has received much attention.However,evidence to back this claim is limited.Economic theory predicts that fiscal decentralization affects environmental quality,but the specifics of this relationship are still up for debate.Some scholars noted that fiscal decentralization might lead to a race to the top,whereas others contended that it would result in a race to the bottom.In light of the current debates in environmental and development economics,this study aims to provide insight into how this relationship may function in South Africa from 1960 to 2020.In contrast to the existing research,the present study uses a novel dynamic autoregressive distributed lag simulation approach to assess the positive and negative changes in fiscal decentralization,scale effect,technique effect,technological innovation,foreign direct investment,energy consumption,industrial growth,and trade openness on CO_(2)emissions.The following are the main findings:(i)Fiscal decentralization had a CO_(2)emission reduction impact in the short and long run,highlighting the presence of the race to the top approach.(ii)Economic growth(as represented by the scale effect)eroded ecological integrity.However,its square(as expressed by technique effect)aided in strengthening ecological protection,validating the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.(iii)CO_(2)emissions were driven by energy utilization,trade openness,industrial value-added,and foreign direct investment,whereas technological innovation boosted ecological integrity.Findings suggest that further fiscal decentralization should be undertaken through further devolution of power to local entities,particularly regarding environmental policy issues,to maintain South Africa’s ecological sustainability.South Africa should also establish policies to improve environmental sustainability by strengthening a lower layer of government and clarifying responsibilities at the national and local levels to fulfill the energy-saving functions of fiscal expenditures.

Attention Markets of Blockchain-Based Decentralized Autonomous Organizations

The attention is a scarce resource in decentralized autonomous organizations(DAOs),as their self-governance relies heavily on the attention-intensive decision-making process of“proposal and voting”.To prevent the negative effects of pro-posers’attention-capturing strategies that contribute to the“tragedy of the commons”and ensure an efficient distribution of attention among multiple proposals,it is necessary to establish a market-driven allocation scheme for DAOs’attention.First,the Harberger tax-based attention markets are designed to facilitate its allocation via continuous and automated trading,where the individualized Harberger tax rate(HTR)determined by the pro-posers’reputation is adopted.Then,the Stackelberg game model is formulated in these markets,casting attention to owners in the role of leaders and other competitive proposers as followers.Its equilibrium trading strategies are also discussed to unravel the intricate dynamics of attention pricing.Moreover,utilizing the single-round Stackelberg game as an illustrative example,the existence of Nash equilibrium trading strategies is demonstrated.Finally,the impact of individualized HTR on trading strategies is investigated,and results suggest that it has a negative correlation with leaders’self-accessed prices and ownership duration,but its effect on their revenues varies under different conditions.This study is expected to provide valuable insights into leveraging attention resources to improve DAOs’governance and decision-making process.

Designing a Secure and Scalable Data Sharing Mechanism Using Decentralized Identifiers(DID)

Centralized storage and identity identification methods pose many risks,including hacker attacks,data misuse,and single points of failure.Additionally,existing centralized identity management methods face interoperability issues and rely on a single identity provider,leaving users without control over their identities.Therefore,this paper proposes a mechanism for identity identification and data sharing based on decentralized identifiers.The scheme utilizes blockchain technology to store the identifiers and data hashed on the chain to ensure permanent identity recognition and data integrity.Data is stored on InterPlanetary File System(IPFS)to avoid the risk of single points of failure and to enhance data persistence and availability.At the same time,compliance with World Wide Web Consortium(W3C)standards for decentralized identifiers and verifiable credentials increases the mechanism’s scalability and interoperability.

On Designs of Decentralized Reputation Management for Permissioned Blockchain Networks

In permissioned blockchain networks,the Proof of Authority(PoA)consensus,which uses the election of authorized nodes to validate transactions and blocks,has beenwidely advocated thanks to its high transaction throughput and fault tolerance.However,PoA suffers from the drawback of centralization dominated by a limited number of authorized nodes and the lack of anonymity due to the round-robin block proposal mechanism.As a result,traditional PoA is vulnerable to a single point of failure that compromises the security of the blockchain network.To address these issues,we propose a novel decentralized reputation management mechanism for permissioned blockchain networks to enhance security,promote liveness,and mitigate centralization while retaining the same throughput as traditional PoA.This paper aims to design an off-chain reputation evaluation and an on-chain reputation-aided consensus.First,we evaluate the nodes’reputation in the context of the blockchain networks and make the reputation globally verifiable through smart contracts.Second,building upon traditional PoA,we propose a reputation-aided PoA(rPoA)consensus to enhance securitywithout sacrificing throughput.In particular,rPoA can incentivize nodes to autonomously form committees based on reputation authority,which prevents block generation from being tracked through the randomness of reputation variation.Moreover,we develop a reputation-aided fork-choice rule for rPoA to promote the network’s liveness.Finally,experimental results show that the proposed rPoA achieves higher security performance while retaining transaction throughput compared to traditional PoA.

Transparent and Accountable Training Data Sharing in Decentralized Machine Learning Systems

In Decentralized Machine Learning(DML)systems,system participants contribute their resources to assist others in developing machine learning solutions.Identifying malicious contributions in DML systems is challenging,which has led to the exploration of blockchain technology.Blockchain leverages its transparency and immutability to record the provenance and reliability of training data.However,storing massive datasets or implementing model evaluation processes on smart contracts incurs high computational costs.Additionally,current research on preventing malicious contributions in DML systems primarily focuses on protecting models from being exploited by workers who contribute incorrect or misleading data.However,less attention has been paid to the scenario where malicious requesters intentionally manipulate test data during evaluation to gain an unfair advantage.This paper proposes a transparent and accountable training data sharing method that securely shares data among potentially malicious system participants.First,we introduce a blockchain-based DML system architecture that supports secure training data sharing through the IPFS network.Second,we design a blockchain smart contract to transparently split training datasets into training and test datasets,respectively,without involving system participants.Under the system,transparent and accountable training data sharing can be achieved with attribute-based proxy re-encryption.We demonstrate the security analysis for the system,and conduct experiments on the Ethereum and IPFS platforms to show the feasibility and practicality of the system.

Decentralized Optimal Control and Stabilization of Interconnected Systems With Asymmetric Information

The paper addresses the decentralized optimal control and stabilization problems for interconnected systems subject to asymmetric information.Compared with previous work,a closed-loop optimal solution to the control problem and sufficient and necessary conditions for the stabilization problem of the interconnected systems are given for the first time.The main challenge lies in three aspects:Firstly,the asymmetric information results in coupling between control and estimation and failure of the separation principle.Secondly,two extra unknown variables are generated by asymmetric information(different information filtration)when solving forward-backward stochastic difference equations.Thirdly,the existence of additive noise makes the study of mean-square boundedness an obstacle.The adopted technique is proving and assuming the linear form of controllers and establishing the equivalence between the two systems with and without additive noise.A dual-motor parallel drive system is presented to demonstrate the validity of the proposed algorithm.

Finite-time decentralized event-triggered state estimation for coupled neural networks under unreliable Markovian network against mixed cyberattacks

This article investigates the issue of finite-time state estimation in coupled neural networks under random mixed cyberattacks,in which the Markov process is used to model the mixed cyberattacks.To optimize the utilization of channel resources,a decentralized event-triggered mechanism is adopted during the information transmission.By establishing the augmentation system and constructing the Lyapunov function,sufficient conditions are obtained for the system to be finite-time bounded and satisfy the H∞ performance index.Then,under these conditions,a suitable state estimator gain is obtained.Finally,the feasibility of the method is verified by a given illustrative example.

Anomaly-Resistant Decentralized State Estimation Under Minimum Error Entropy With Fiducial Points for Wide-Area Power Systems

This paper investigates the anomaly-resistant decentralized state estimation(SE) problem for a class of wide-area power systems which are divided into several non-overlapping areas connected through transmission lines. Two classes of measurements(i.e., local measurements and edge measurements) are obtained, respectively, from the individual area and the transmission lines. A decentralized state estimator, whose performance is resistant against measurement with anomalies, is designed based on the minimum error entropy with fiducial points(MEEF) criterion. Specifically, 1) An augmented model, which incorporates the local prediction and local measurement, is developed by resorting to the unscented transformation approach and the statistical linearization approach;2) Using the augmented model, an MEEF-based cost function is designed that reflects the local prediction errors of the state and the measurement;and 3) The local estimate is first obtained by minimizing the MEEF-based cost function through a fixed-point iteration and then updated by using the edge measuring information. Finally, simulation experiments with three scenarios are carried out on the IEEE 14-bus system to illustrate the validity of the proposed anomaly-resistant decentralized SE scheme.

Decentralized Semi-Supervised Learning for Stochastic Configuration Networks Based on the Mean Teacher Method

The aim of this paper is to broaden the application of Stochastic Configuration Network (SCN) in the semi-supervised domain by utilizing common unlabeled data in daily life. It can enhance the classification accuracy of decentralized SCN algorithms while effectively protecting user privacy. To this end, we propose a decentralized semi-supervised learning algorithm for SCN, called DMT-SCN, which introduces teacher and student models by combining the idea of consistency regularization to improve the response speed of model iterations. In order to reduce the possible negative impact of unsupervised data on the model, we purposely change the way of adding noise to the unlabeled data. Simulation results show that the algorithm can effectively utilize unlabeled data to improve the classification accuracy of SCN training and is robust under different ground simulation environments.

Land Use and Land Cover Changes in Awash National Park, Ethiopia: Impact of Decentralization on the Use and Management of Resources

We analyzed the magnitude of land use land cover changes and identified drivers of those changes at Awash National Park, Ethiopia, using aerial photographs, satellite images and field observation. Scattered bushland—the most important habitat for the wild animals, declined drastically. Areas under grassland, farmland or open land increased over the study period. Policy and park border demarcation issues were identified as drivers of change before 1995 (before decentralization), whereas livestock grazing was indicated to be the leading driver of change after 1995. Major events and causes that largely explained these changes include immigration of the Ittu community, land tenure system, drought, poaching, use policy issues and regional economic and infrastructural development. Our study reveals that the sustainability of the park calls for an immediate action to reduce the ever increasing human and livestock pressure on park resources.

A CASE STUDY ON CONCENTRATION AND DECENTRALIZATION:BEHAVIOR AND DYN AMIC MECHANISM OF SPATIAL EVOLUTION IN METROPOLITAN AREA,NANJING,CHINA

In rapid socio-economic developme nt,the process of concentration and dispersal of various elements tends to be more dramatic,tremendously in fluencing the shaping and transform ation of the space in metropolitan area.Survey of spatial concentration and decent ralization has thus become a basic me thod in examining metropolitan spatial evolution.In this research,three elements were selected as the essential indicato rs of the process:demographic density distribu-tion,employment density distribut ion and business office location.Performance of these elements in Nanji ng City was exam-ined historically.As Nanjing City c ould be regarded as a representative of metropolitan areas in China,its s ituation large-ly suggestes the general characteristics in similar areas of China.Hence based on the investigation of Nanji ng City,four general implications were highligh ted.First,metropolitan areas inChina are in a violentprocess and shift of spatialconcentra-tion and decentralization.Second,from now to at least the near future,c oncentration will continue to be the central fea-ture.Third,the landscape of metrop olitan areas basically exhibits a dual structure character.The gap in en vironmental and ecological qualities among different districts will continue for a l ong time.Fourth,Central Business District(CBD)is playing an important role in helpi ng to convert the traditionally single-centered city structure into a polycentric one.

CHINA'S REGIONAL DISPARITY IN 1981-2000:OPENNESS AND DEVELOPMENT OF NON-STATE-OWNED ENTERPRISES AND FISCAL DECENTRALIZATION

While China's economic growth has been impressive since 1978, regional disparity in terms of provincial per capita GDP has been increasing. On the other hand, this rapid but uneven growth was accompanied by China's deepening openness and structural reforms including the development of non-state-owned enterprises (non-SOEs) and fiscal decentralization. Based on quantitative analyses, this paper tries to explore the features of regional disparity in China and the relationships between regional growth and China's openness and economic structure reforms in the period from 1981 to 2000. The paper finds that the catching-up of the coastal region to the initially rich provinces, which are mainly located in inland areas, brought about a convergence of the growth pattern across provinces in the 1980s.The subsequent divergence in the provincial growth rates between the coast and the interior generated an enlarging regional disparity in China in the 1990s. The ever-faster growth in the coastal region was benefited by China's openness and the development of non-state-owned enterprises. The development of non-state-owned enterprises underlies the higher operational efficiency in the coastal region. Additionally, with the insignificant regression results, fiscal decentralization was observed to facilitate faster growth in the coast region. The findings justify the initiative of the 'West Region Development Strategy' and offer some policy implications for China.

China's Development Modeli:the Costs and Benefits of the Decentralization Approach to Transition

This article provides a coherent framework within which to understand China’s development model,as well as the successes and the failures of China’s decentralization approach to reform.The combination of political centralization and economic decentralization provide local government with enough incentives to develop local economies,in particular incentives to promote market privatisation locally.However,the relative evaluation-based incentive schemes lead to inter- regional market segmentation,increasing inter-regional development gaps and the unequal provision of certain public goods.The success of early-stage reform can be attributed to the benefits of the decentralization approach.The next stage reform should however focus on minimizing the associated costs.China’s gradualist reform can be seen as a mechanism design issue under the control of central government.Therefore,it is essential to take both the costs and benefits of the decentralization approach into account in the design of the next-stage reform package.

Decentralization,spatial disequilibrium,and restructuring of coastal tourist destination-Empirical research from Sanya,China

The objective of this article is to speculate on resort restructuring in the market-oriented reform process in China.Previous studies show that spatial disequilibrium was aggravated by decentralization,which leads to the difference in tourism policy and investment,public goods,and service;a profound analytical framework is much needed for further empirical studies.This article has reviewed the relevant studies on links between decentralization and restructuring,spatial influences of decentralization on tourism,based on which we put forward the theoretical framework of resort spatial restructuring from the view of political economy analysis,then we elaborate on and discuss it based on the example of Sanya,China.In short,the article suggests that decentralization of fiscal responsibilities and institutional power contributes to the spatial disequilibrium of tourism industrial structure,land use,public infrastructure and service facilities,and to community inequality.Interests of government,investors,and community should be comprehensively coordinated in the resort spatial restructuring process from three aspects:restructuring government,optimizing space structure,and tourism industry.Furthermore,we argue that resort restructuring in the context of Sanya requires coordination of various interest groups through four ways:restructure the government power under administrative division adjustment,optimizing spatial structure,expanding industrial space to diversified tourism products,and building resort management services organization.Finally,we discussed some policy requirements for resort sustainable development.

Interprovincial Effects of Fiscal Decentralization on Financial Decentralization in China

By motivating local governments to fght for financial resources, China＇s tax sharing reform has affected the structure of financial decentralization and inflated local financial systems, thus spawning regional financial risks. Based on theoretical analysis and empirical evidence, this paper has arrived at the following findings： due to different policy objectives, central and local governments exhibit different fiscal and financial behaviors; public finance and financial sector have become financing instruments with certain convertibility under local economic growth framework,＂ fiscal decentralization inevitably affects financial decentralization and lays the foundation for provincial fiscal disparities, resulting in a certain spatial effect of interprovincial fiscal variable; fnancial explicit centralization/implicit decentralization and fiscal centralization have fueled local competition for financial resources and resulted in correlation between the spatial effects of provincial financial and fiscal variables, and moreover, their mismatch has also spawned fiscal and financial risks on various fronts. Hence, setting clear boundaries of financial centralization and decentralization and ensuring local government fiscal accountability is the key to the prevention and mitigation of fiscal and financial risks in China.

County-Level Tax Sharing:A Statistical Basis for Measuring China's Fiscal Decentralization

Controversies exist in literature regarding what indicators should be employed to measure China's fiscal decentralization. This paper measures China's fiscal decentralization by the sharing ratios of county-level VAT and corporate income tax(CIT). This approach avoids such problems as homogeneous denominator, and reflects the intricate interactions between governments at different levels. Based on extensive sources including the National Fiscal Statistical Information at Prefecture and County Levels and China County(City) Socio-Economic Statistical Yearbook over the 1998-2007 period, our estimation and analysis led to the following findings:(1) Since 2002, counties have retained a falling share of revenues;(2) a multidimensional horizontal comparison reveals a pattern in the county-level tax sharing ratio, i.e. counties in central and eastern regions retain a higher share of tax revenues compared with those in western and northwestern regions.These findings explain the fiscal difficulties at the grassroots level, and can be used to conduct a quantitative analysis of the determinants and economic effects of China's fiscal decentralization."

Local Government Behavior behind China's Excessive Investment under Decentralization——Theoretical and Empirical Analysis Based on Manufacturing Sector

This paper investigates the effect of local government intervention on capital deepening of manufacturing sector by using interprovincial panel data sets of 28 Chinese provinces,municipalities and autonomous regions between 1994 and 2011.Theoretical research indicates that as a transitional economy,China's local government intervention in corporate investment behaviors will cause excessive investment,thus bringing about a long-term and sustained tendency of capital deepening in manufacturing sector.Empirical test further discovers that in a certain range,the phenomenon of capital deepening in manufacturing sector is not an inevitable result endogenous to economic development and technology progress,and that investment behaviors of manufacturing sector are largely subject to the external institutional environment.Fiscal decentralization has indeed promoted capital deepening of manufacturing sector.Financial credit expansion and interventions in SOEs are major instruments for local governments to intervene in the capital deepening of manufacturing sector and such an influence is particularly significant for China's central,western and northeast regions.Therefore,clarifying government functions and improving local government performance review mechanism are of great significance to the healthy development of China's manufacturing sector.

COVID-19 Classification from X-Ray Images:An Approach to Implement Federated Learning on Decentralized Dataset

The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated our daily lives,leaving horrific repercussions in its aftermath.Due to its rapid spread,it was quite difficult for medical personnel to diagnose it in such a big quantity.Patients who test positive for Covid-19 are diagnosed via a nasal PCR test.In comparison,polymerase chain reaction(PCR)findings take a few hours to a few days.The PCR test is expensive,although the government may bear expenses in certain places.Furthermore,subsets of the population resist invasive testing like swabs.Therefore,chest X-rays or Computerized Vomography(CT)scans are preferred in most cases,and more importantly,they are non-invasive,inexpensive,and provide a faster response time.Recent advances in Artificial Intelligence(AI),in combination with state-of-the-art methods,have allowed for the diagnosis of COVID-19 using chest x-rays.This article proposes a method for classifying COVID-19 as positive or negative on a decentralized dataset that is based on the Federated learning scheme.In order to build a progressive global COVID-19 classification model,two edge devices are employed to train the model on their respective localized dataset,and a 3-layered custom Convolutional Neural Network(CNN)model is used in the process of training the model,which can be deployed from the server.These two edge devices then communicate their learned parameter and weight to the server,where it aggregates and updates the globalmodel.The proposed model is trained using an image dataset that can be found on Kaggle.There are more than 13,000 X-ray images in Kaggle Database collection,from that collection 9000 images of Normal and COVID-19 positive images are used.Each edge node possesses a different number of images;edge node 1 has 3200 images,while edge node 2 has 5800.There is no association between the datasets of the various nodes that are included in the network.By doing it in this manner,each of the nodes will have access to a separate image collection that has no correlation with each other.The diagnosis of COVID-19 has become considerably more efficient with the installation of the suggested algorithm and dataset,and the findings that we have obtained are quite encouraging.

Fiscal Decentralization,Financial Decentralization and Macroeconomic Governance

Improvement of the macroeconomic governance system as an important part of the national governance system is a key initiative to address major economic problems in the new era.The coordination and economic regulatory effects of fiscal and monetary policies are subject to the arrangements of fiscal and financial decentralization systems.Analysis revealed a mismatch between China’s fiscal income decentralization and fiscal spending decentralization,as manifested in the clear decentralization of fiscal revenue and vague decentralization of fiscal spending;in pursuing local economic stability,local governments seek other sources of revenue and compete for financial resources,as manifested in apparent financial centralization and implicit financial decentralization,causing financial decentralization to be inconsistent between various levels of government and between government and the market.The above-mentioned problems are reflected in mutual conversion between public finance and financial intermediation as two financial allocation methods and mutual transmission between fiscal and financial risks,making the case for enhancing coordination between fiscal and monetary policies.In creating a scientific macroeconomic governance system,therefore,we must establish clear local government responsibilities,reduce the proportion of local fiscal spending,clarify the orientations and relief boundary of fiscal and monetary policies,moderately decentralize financial powers,and give better play to the role of local governments in improving the quality of economic development and controlling major risks.

Foreign direct investment and environmental pollution:A fiscal decentralization perspective

Based on the panel data of 272 prefecture-level cities in China from 2003 to 2017,this study used the comprehensive index of environmental pollution to measure local environmental pollution,and employed the panel simultaneous equation to analyze the relationship between fiscal decentralization,foreign direct investment,and environmental pollution.The results showed that environmental pollution has the characteristics of time inertia and positive spatial spillover;fiscal decentralization and local government competition have a significant“race to bottom”effect on environmental pollution;and with the increase of fiscal decentralization,environmental quality will deteriorate.In the interaction between foreign direct investment and environmental pollution under the system of fiscal decentralization,foreign direct investment aggravates environmental pollution.Meanwhile,if the environmental pollution in a given region is serious,the willingness of foreign investors to invest therein is lessened to a certain extent.Based on the conditions in China,certain policy suggestions are put forward to increase environmental quality,such as building a comprehensive performance assessment mechanism that includes environmental quality,optimizing the decentralization system,and raising the threshold of foreign investment access.