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This paper studies why public finances in Sweden have remained very strong
during the current financial crisis. Unlike almost all other European
countries, Sweden has had budget surpluses and a government debt ratio around
40 percent of GDP during the recent crisis. We attribute this to two
important factors. First, Sweden entered the crisis with strong public
finances and second that unemployment did not rise as much as normally during
recessions. The Swedish fiscal framework that was introduced after the
banking crisis in the early 1990s with expenditure ceilings, a top-down
budget process, balanced budget requirement for local governments has played
an important role. We show that the behavior of budget deficits has changed
significantly recently, from a deficit bias to a surplus bias. Aggregate
demand remained strong during the crisis even though exports fell sharply. As
unemployment in the manufacturing sector increased, it was to a large extent
offset by increased employment in the service sector.

This paper contrasts the effects of balanced-budget reductions in government consumption on private consumption in the permanent income model and a model allowing for precautionary savings. We compare impulse responses of private consumption to temporary and permanent shocks to government consumption when agents do not observe the shocks directly or can distinguish between temporary and permanent shocks. Our simulations suggest that uncertainty about the permanence of government consumption reductions affect both the impact and the duration of private consumption whereas precautionary saving motives only affect the impact.

Intro -- Dedication -- Preface -- In-line Citations -- Contents -- Chapter 1: Introduction -- Structure of the Book -- Overview of Contents -- Key Themes -- References -- Chapter 2: Information, Knowledge, Representation -- What Is Information? -- Some Basics of Information -- The Structure of Information -- Forms of Structure -- Some Structures Are More Efficient -- Evolution Favors Efficient Structures -- The Meaning of Information -- What Is Knowledge? -- The Nature of Knowledge -- Knowledge as Belief -- Doubt as the Impetus of Knowledge -- What Is Representation? -- The Shadowy Object -- Three Modes of Representation -- Peirce's Semiosis and Triadomany -- References -- Part I: Knowledge Representation in Context -- Chapter 3: The Situation -- Information and Economic Wealth -- Historical Breakpoints -- The X Factor of Information -- Knowledge and Innovation -- Untapped Information Assets -- Valuing Information as an Asset -- Lost Value in Information -- The Information Enterprise -- Impediments to Information Sharing -- Cultural Factors -- Tooling and Technology -- Perspectives and Priorities -- References -- Chapter 4: The Opportunity -- KM and a Spectrum of Applications -- Some Premises -- Potential Applications -- A Minimal Scaffolding -- Data Interoperability -- The Data Federation Pyramid -- Benefits from Interoperability -- A Design for Interoperating -- Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence -- Machine Learning -- Knowledge Supervision -- Feature Engineering -- References -- Chapter 5: The Precepts -- Equal Class Data Citizens -- The Structural View -- The Formats View -- The Content View -- Addressing Semantic Heterogeneity -- Sources of Semantic Heterogeneity -- Role of Semantic Technologies -- Semantics and Graph Structures -- Carving Nature at the Joints -- Forming 'Natural' Classes -- A Mindset for Categorization.

This comprehensive text is unique in its compilation of experiences in addressing the global diabetes epidemic and description of diverse worldwide prevention initiatives. Background chapters describe the diagnosis and definition of diabetes, the epidemiology, pathophysiology of prediabetes as well as clinical trial evidence for diabetes prevention and treatment. Furthermore, the critical role of government in formulating a global health agenda, policy perspectives for European initiatives, the importance of nutritional policies for diabetes prevention as well as the development of the necessary capacity and infrastructure for diabetes prevention are described. Given the prevalence of diabetes in South Asians and migrants, one chapter focuses on risk factors and prevention of diabetes in these communities. Other chapters detail local and regional approaches covering a truly global span: United States, Latin America, Europe, India, Turkey, (Siberia) Russia, the Middle East and North Africa, South Africa, Israel, East Asia and Australia. Authored by academic experts in endocrinology and diabetes and global leaders in epidemiology and public health, this landmark text is an authoritative reference for a diverse audience including government, public health and policy experts and researchers, academicians, healthcare professionals, endocrinologists and clinicians interested in prediabetes and diabetes prevention, graduate students and faculty in public and global health graduate programs, epidemiologists, nutritionists, sociologists and those in translational medicine. Readers will broaden their awareness of the prevailing and burgeoning diabetes epidemic and the remarkably creative worldwide prevention initiatives undertaken to address the seemingly insurmountable inherent challenges posed by this global health care crisis. The text is an attestation to the wonderful potential for enormous human collaboration and achievement when communal organizations, governments at local, regional and national levels, researchers, the medical and public health communities, and nutrition experts join with global citizenry in confronting one of the most significant healthcare challenges witnessed in this century

The principal-agent framework is a rapidly developing approach to the analysis of contractual relationships within the private sector. We argue that it should be a promising approach to the analysis of public policy commitments as well. As a matter of fact, it allows the statement of a number of basic public policy problems in terms of an integrated framework. The making and implementation of public policy involve fundamental contractual problems referred to as asymmetric information, moral hazard, bounded rationality and adverse selection. The Niskanen bureau model is a principal-agent model, but its general result is much more limited than previously recognized, which may be shown by employing the same mathematical structure as Niskanen himself uses.

Type 2 diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases are a growing public health challenge globally. An estimated 285 million people, corresponding to 6.4% of the world's adult population, has diabetes, which is expected to reach 552 million by the International Diabetes Federation in 2030. A much larger segment of the world's population, approximating 79 million individuals in the USA alone, has prediabetes. Globally, a relatively small percentage of those with diabetes or prediabetes are diagnosed with the potential for developing chronic complications. To address this epidemic, governments, in concert with the private sector, need to set policies that promote healthy nutritional and agricultural policies, favor modifications in the environment that encourage greater physical activity and make prevention affordable for all citizens at high risk. The public health sector has the charge of translating evidence-based findings into practical, accessible and cost-effective programs and monitoring the process to continuously improve prevention initiatives. The clinical sector has the formidable challenge of screening and identifying those at high risk and referring them to accredited intervention programs. There is a need to explore additional cost-effective interventions that are customized to meet individual needs that can be offered at the community and clinical levels. Thus, all three sectors, government, public health and clinical, each have a critical role in this process and by working in a partnership, ought to create the necessary synergies essential for making substantial forays in the prevention of Type 2 diabetes.