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The late Middle Ages are often referred to as the ‘age of pledges’ (‘Verpfändungszeitalter’). Given the importance ofthe pledge for the life of noble society, it is only understandable why this legal institution attracted and still attractsthe attention of so many scholars across Europe. By contrast, the pledge policy pursued by Henry of Carinthia inTyrol between 1295 and 1335 has always been a more‐or‐less neglected topic. However, Henry was constantly onthe lookout for money and, throughout his life, surrounded himself with pledgees. This paper thus intends to describevarious legal aspects of these pledge relationships. The analysis of the pledge contracts registered in the Innsbruckmanuscript IC 18 should eventually result in a new view of the personality of Henry of Carinthia, blamed byhistorians for squandering the fortune inherited from his father, the great Menhart II.

Democratic institutions and state-society relations shape governance arrangements and expectations between public and private stakeholders about public health impact. We illustrate this with a comparison between the English Public Health Responsibility Deal (RD) and the Dutch ‘All About Health…’ (AaH) programme. As manifestations of a Whole-of-Society approach, in which governments, civil society and business take responsibility for the co-production of economic utility and good health, these programmes are two recent collaborative platforms based on voluntary agreements to improve public health. Using a ‘most similar cases’ design, we conducted a comparative secondary analysis of data from the evaluations of the two programmes. The underlying rationale of both programmes was that voluntary agreements would be better suited than regulation to encourage business and civil society to take more responsibility for improving health. Differences between the two included: expectations of an enforcing versus facilitative role for government; hierarchical versus horizontal coordination; big business versus civil society participants; top-down versus bottom-up formulation of voluntary pledges and progress monitoring for accountability versus for learning and adaptation. Despite the attempt in both programmes to base voluntary commitments on trust, the English ‘shadow of hierarchy’ and adversarial state-society relationships conditioned non-governmental parties to see the pledges as controlling, quasi-contractual agreements that were only partially lived up to. The Dutch consensual political tradition enabled a civil society-based understanding and gradual acceptance of the pledges as the internalization by partner organizations of public health values within their operations. We conclude that there are institutional limitations to the implementation of generic trust-building and learning-based models of change ‘Whole-of-Society’ approaches.

After a steady improvement in the fiscal position over the past decade, the standoff over clearance revenues has severely constrained the PA budget, leading to a significant expansion in expenditure arrears. Going forward, however, uncertainty about a resolution for the clearance revenue standoff will weigh on the economy. Over the last two decades, the Palestinian economy has been driven by large inflows of transfers as other sources of growth have been long-hindered by the ongoing Israeli restrictions on movement and access. Under a baseline scenario which assumes a continuation of the Israeli restrictions, persistence of the internal divide between the West Bank and Gaza and a decline in aid levels, the Palestinian economy is expected to slip into a recession in 2020 and 2021, even if additional, one-off transfers from clearance revenues are made. As financial buffers are depleted, the reduced revenues will require sizable cuts in public spending, which in turn would translate in reduced consumption and investment. The decline in growth implies a sizable decline in real per capita income and a rise in poverty. The Palestinian financial sector continues to face substantial risks against the backdrop of the fiscal crisis. The negative impact of the deepening fiscal crisis on the quality of loan portfolios across the banking sector has started to materialize as both non-performing loans and classified loans have been on an upward trajectory. With the severe liquidity shortage facing the PA, it has resorted to domestic banks to finance its needs raising the sector’s exposure to the PA for the first time in a number of years. Banks are also rescheduling outstanding loans held by PA employees who are receiving a reduced salary, compounding the destabilizing effect on the sector. However, the fact that the PA is simultaneously building up an asset in the form of tax revenues not received from the GoI ameliorates the situation as the increased exposure may be seen as a temporary trend. Another cause of concern is a possible disruption in Correspondent Banking Relationships (CBRs) between Palestinian banks and their Israeli counterparts due to de-risking by Israeli banks. The immunity and indemnity package given by the GoI to banks with CBRs are set to expire in May 2020 and February 2021, respectively, when a longer term and more sustainable intervention is expected to be in place. While resolving the fiscal crisis is an immediate priority there remains a broader reform agenda to improve the economy and Palestinian living standards.

UID/ELT/00657/2013 The archipelago of the Azores is composed of 9 islands located in the Atlantic Ocean. Each island has its own strong cultural identity and specific geographical, geological and environmental characteristics. The habits of these islands have been influenced by the strong immigration to the U.S.A. and Canada. However, their eating habits have changed very little. Each island has its own specific gastronomy but they all have just one sweet in common: Massa Sovada (a type of sweet bread). Wherever the Azoreans are, massa sovada is present. We can find it in all festivities and gatherings. It has always been associated with festivities and offerings. It functions as the unification element between communities. However, each island can give it a different name. This archipelago celebrates the Cult of The Holy Ghost. All communities get together each year to prepare the communal feast, share food and present the offerings to the divinity. Massa sovada is always present. This research analyses the symbolic meaning of such a food, as an offering to the divinity and a sharing act between family members and neighbors, during the Holy Ghost Feasts, weddings, baptisms and pig-slaughtering. It registers its function as an identity element of the Azores Islands. publishersversion published

Voluntary and compulsory public statements of good conduct are frequently observed in the real world, such as the codes of good conduct for professionals or the requirements of academic journals to affirm that research was carried out ethically. In this study, we investigate what effect public statements of good conduct have on contribution behavior in a public goods experiment. Using a 'between-within subjects design' we identify three channels by which non-enforceable statements of intent are associated with higher levels of contributions to the public good. First, in a selection effect, socially-oriented participants are more likely in the experiment to make a public statement. Second, in a commitment effect, participants who make a public statement are contributing more to the public good. Third, in a coordination effect, aggregate contributions are higher when 'Statement-Makers' observe that also other group members make the statement. The latter explains why compulsory statements of good conduct are in our experiment more effective over time.

A teoria do mandato serve de referência a muitos trabalhos que analisam a medida em que os partidos políticos cumprem as promessas eleitorais e, consequentemente, implementam políticas. É esta ligação entre promessa e política que nos ocupa neste trabalho. Esta permitirá aferir a medida em que a estrutura do governo, quer este seja maioritário ou minoritário; a posição que o partido ocupa na oposição ou no governo; ou mesmo até qual o poder que o partido tem para influenciar uma decisão de governo, são relevantes para que um partido cumpra com as suas promessas num momento pós-eleição. A pesquisa apoia-se numa análise que compreende vários momentos de governo entre 1995 e 2015 e que recorre à metodologia do CAP - uma metodologia internacional que foi criada para análises comparativas em políticas públicas - para determinar qual atenção dada pelos partidos acerca das políticas educativas nos seus manifestos e qual a taxa de implementação destas políticas. A análise é focada na atenção política dada à área da educação nos manifestos eleitorais dos partidos, e não no conteúdo substantivo das promessas eleitorais, que poderá servir de base a muitos outros estudos em diferentes áreas das políticas públicas. The mandate theory is the main reference for studies that focus on how parties manage to uphold their electoral pledges and, consequently, implement policy initiatives based on them. It is this program-to-policy linkage that concerns us here. This theory will allow us to understand how the government structure, be it a majority or minority government; the position that the party holds as a member of the opposition or of the government; or even the de facto power position it holds in parliament that could allow it to influence government decisions – all of these are relevant to determine the ability of the party to fulfill its pledges in a post-election period. This research is focused on several government moments comprised between 1995 and 2015 and uses the CAP methodology as its main compass – an international methodology that was created for comparison purposes between public policies - to determine which role education policies fill in party manifestoes and the implementation rate of these policies. A study that focuses on the level of political attention devoted to public policy in education, rather than on the content of these very pledges, and which could provide solid ground for further research in public policy theory.

The papers in this series aim to provide a vehicle for publishing preliminary results on Macroeconomics and Fiscal Management (MFM) topics to encourage discussion and debate. This paper explores two new financing mechanisms that multilateral and bilateral development agencies could consider deploying to address problems of debt sustainability in small states. In this paper the authors provide an initial assessment of these proposals, informed by analysis of small state indebtedness and recent debt dynamics. Proposed financing instruments are predicated on assumptions that small states face high levels of indebtedness, and that reducing debt levels while increasing climate resilience could sustainably reduce such vulnerabilities. The authors find that levels of indebtedness vary widely across small states. Analysis of small state debt dynamics shows that small state debt accumulation has been driven by large primary and current account deficits and slow economic growth. Debt reduction from new mechanisms can only be expected to be sustainable, therefore, if countries simultaneously address the macroeconomic imbalances driving debt accumulation. The authors demonstrate that, while exposure to natural disasters is likely to have exacerbated economic management challenges in some small states, such exposures are unlikely to be the only important cause of indebtedness. The authors conclude that proposed new financing instruments can potentially help reduce small state debt burdens and gain fiscal space for climate adaptation but will not present a sustainable solution to problems of small state debt risks unless they involve macroeconomic and structural reforms to address the underlying imbalances driving rapid debt accumulation.

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in European Union (EU). It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America and OECD High Income.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

Doing Business sheds light on how easy or difficult it is for a local entrepreneur to open and run a small to medium-size business when complying with relevant regulations. It measures and tracks changes in regulations affecting 11 areas in the life cycle of a business: starting a business, dealing with construction permits, getting electricity, registering property, getting credit, protecting minority investors, paying taxes, trading across borders, enforcing contracts, resolving insolvency and labor market regulation. Doing Business 2016 presents the data for the labor market regulation indicators in an annex. The report does not present rankings of economies on labor market regulation indicators or include the topic in the aggregate distance to frontier score or ranking on the ease of doing business. This regional profile presents the Doing Business indicators for economies in OECD High Income. It also shows the regional average, the best performance globally for each indicator and data for the following comparator regions: European Union (EU), East Asia and the Pacific (EAP), Europe and Central Asia (ECA), South Asia (SA) and Latin America.. The data in this report are current as of June 1, 2015 (except for the paying taxes indicators, which cover the period January–December 2014).

The images of flattened buildings and tent cities that dominated the news following the Haitian earthquake of January 12, 2010 triggered an emergency response from the global aid and development community. Foreign governments, multilateral organizations including the World Bank, and NGOs dramatically increased the flow of funding to the devastated country. The money helped pay for emergency relief but also for higher public investment spending that sought to repair damage and press ahead with development projects that had begun before the disaster. Six years later, the flow of aid is declining, and Haiti faces pivotal challenges: how to adapt to the reductions, raise more resources internally, spend more efficiently, and safeguard the fragile social gains it has achieved in a time of extreme hardship. The infrastructure Haiti has acquired in the recent surge of investment is something like a newly built house that lacks furniture and running water, it may look good from the outside but does little for its occupants. For the present, life remains a struggle for most of the country’s 10.4 million people. Thus in addition to growth, the country needs policies that will foster inclusiveness. Analysis and past experience suggest that two factors are key: human capital and political stability. To achieve this goal, Haiti will require a new outlook favoring fair, efficient government and social inclusiveness.

A country’s legal and judicial environment can help or hinder access to credit. In addition to the banking law governing the organization of the sector, the operations of credit institutions are subject to several laws. Four components of Malian business law are particularly relevant in assessing the position of creditors, the law on secured transactions, the law on collective proceedings, the law on information-sharing related to debtors (sometimes called the credit reporting law), and the law on collection and enforcement proceedings. If creditors cannot have confidence in their legal environment, they will be inclined to lend only to persons they know well. In this regard, it is telling to note that in Mali, the 50 biggest clients account for 39.3 percent of the credit extended by banks (although this percentage has fallen in recent times). Furthermore, access to credit remains a major constraint in the Malian business world. Although the reasons are not confined solely to the legal sphere, it is important to point out that, according to the 2010 Enterprise Survey, Malian enterprises cited access to credit as the main constraint hampering the business environment (43.9 percent of enterprises). The same study showed that in the case of loans involving a security right, the value of the assets pledged stood at 201.4 percent of the amount borrowed, reflecting the lack of confidence by banks in their ability to actually enforce their rights. In addition, in view of the fact that 58 percent of loans require a pledged asset which, in most instances, takes the form of immovable property, persons who do not own such assets are, de facto, shut out of the system and unable to seek credit.

The Indonesia Economic Quarterly (IEQ) has two main aims. First, it reports on the key developments over the past three months in Indonesia’s economy, and places these in a longerterm and global context. Based on these developments, and on policy changes over the period, the IEQ regularly updates the outlook for Indonesia’s economy and social welfare. Second, the IEQ provides a more in-depth examination of selected economic and policy issues, and analysis of Indonesia’s medium-term development challenges. It is intended for a wide audience, including policymakers, business leaders, financial market participants, and the community of analysts and professionals engaged in Indonesia’s evolving economy. This paper discusses about the economic conditions of Indonesia for the year 2015. Emerging market assets rebounded in October 2015 after the sharp losses recorded in August and September, when the uncertainty about the Chinese economic slowdown and the U.S. interest rate outlook was particularly high. Despite a more favorable market sentiment, capital flows to emerging economies have remained weak and borrowing costs relatively high. In addition to tight financing conditions, Indonesia faced subdued external demand for its exports in the near term and persistently low commodity prices over the medium run. In 2015, fire in Indonesia cost nearly twice that of reconstruction following the 2004 tsunami in Aceh. Agriculture and forestry have sustained losses and damages in trillions. Sustained exposure to haze could also lead to the volcano effect, i.e., a decrease in plant productivity in the short term due to limited sun exposure and a deleterious effect on plant physiology and photosynthesis. The recurring nature of Indonesia’s fire crisis is of particular concern. Another potential step in Indonesia’s new reform process was the country’s signaling its intention to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement in the near future. Whether membership materializes or not, the agreement is likely to have a limited impact on trade, because import tariffs in member countries are already low and Indonesia has trade agreements with most of them.

More frequent incidences of violence in Afghanistan, as well as delays in the elections process and cabinet formation, continued to fuel uncertainty and affected investor confidence in 2014 and the first half of 2015. Economic growth slowed to 1.3 percent in 2014, down from 3.7 percent a year earlier. Unlike in previous years, agriculture did not contribute much to growth in 2014. Production levels were high for a third year in a row but did not supersede the strong output in 2013. Growth was mainly driven by services and a slight expansion of industries where an increase in construction activities outweighed lower production in manufacturing. Private investment activities showed strong signs of slowdown in 2014, evidenced by a drop of nearly 50 percent in new firm registrations since 2012. The National Unity Government has embarked on an ambitious reform agenda to revitalize the economy, tackle corruption, and improve investment climate. However, it will take time for these reforms to have an impact, and it is yet unclear how much they will mitigate the high risks stemming from the fragile security environment. Growing trends in security and pension and wage spending over the medium term require immediate attention. Afghanistan faces significant financing shortages for both civilian and security spending. Therefore, securing continued high levels of donor financing over the coming years is of critical importance for fiscal stability in the country. The fragile security environment and financing constraints, compounded by weak governance capacity, pose serious challenges to service delivery in Afghanistan. Any setback in reform implementation would further slowdown the pace of human capital accumulation in Afghanistan and reduce future prospects of growth and poverty reduction.

This paper builds on the findings of an earlier unpublished discussion paper titled ‘designing a model for networked carbon markets’, with its objective being to describe key elements of the mitigation value assessment process. The outcome of this paper will inform a model for the Networked Carbon Markets concept, to be prepared at a later date. The following section two acknowledges the subject matter of the NCM initiative, namely the diverse and heterogeneous trading schemes and other carbon pricing mechanisms that are being put in place by jurisdictions around the globe. As this is the subject of another World Bank paper, only a brief reference is included. Section three sets out a conceptual framework within which to consider the key elements described in the glossary of terms, addressed in section four and annexure ‘C’. This section also looks at different transaction scenarios, introducing the concepts of an international transaction unit and an index. Section five turns attention to the types of institutions that might be suitable to participate in the mitigation value assessment process, providing practical examples, and considering the types of expertise and tools those institutions might leverage. Section six considers options for regulatory supervision of the MV assessment process. Section seven looks in more detail at the relationship between mitigation value and the compliance value that might be attached to carbon assets and, in so doing, considers the role and function of the settlement platform. This section also considers the feasibility and potential benefits of an index. The concluding section eight looks at the next steps that might flow from this work.

This is a pre-copyedited, author-produced PDF of an article accepted for publication in the British Yearbook of International Law following peer review. The definitive publisher-authenticated version is available online at the link below. Intergovernmental trust funds are vehicles set up mainly to advance developmental objectives. They are composed of capital contributed largely by states. The management of the capital and the objectives of the trust are assigned to a trustee, usually an international organization, such as the UN or the World Bank. The practice of the trusts surveyed in this article unequivocally suggests that the intention of the two principal parties to the trust relationship (i.e. donor and trustee) is to transfer ownership of the trust’s assets to the trustee. The latter’s responsibility is restricted to investing and distributing the trust’s assets to the identified beneficiaries. The understanding is that neither the donors nor the trustee is liable against third parties in respect of any unlawful act committed in connection to the donation or the disbursement of funds. The absolute character of this extra-contractual limitation is dismissed in this article, given that despite the charitable or benevolent nature of the trust’s aims, the disbursement of funds under certain circumstances may be injurious to the interests of states or the international community.

Poland’s economic growth over the last 25 years has been spectacular. In that period, Poland has more than doubled its income per capita and became a European growth champion. It was the only EU country to avoid a recession in 2009. Its current GDP growth rate is strong. Poland seems to be on the brink of its new ‘golden age.’ Doing Business in Poland 2015 is the first subnational report of the Doing Business series in Poland. It measures business regulations and their enforcement from the perspective of a small to medium-size domestic firm. The idea is a simple one: if entrepreneurs spend fewer resources on regulatory burdens, they will have more time to devote to productive activities. If laws and regulations are clear, accessible, and transparent and, at the same time, enforceable before the courts, entrepreneurs will feel more confident to do business with people they don’t know, and expand their client and supplier network. The gap between the 18 cities benchmarked is significant. By adopting existing good practices found across the country in the four areas measured by this report, Poland would rank 24th out of 189 economies globally, eight positions higher than Poland’s current ranking according to Doing Business 2015, placing the country ahead of France and the Netherlands. Promoting convergence among regions and cities towards the top performers and thus improving the ease of doing business in the whole country is a challenge worth taking.

Egypt’s economic activity is gaining momentum. Growth accelerated to 5.6 percent during the first half of FY15, compared to a dismal 1.2 percent in the same period last year. The recent spike in economic activity reflects favorable base effects, but more importantly broad-based sector recovery, especially in tourism and manufacturing. On the demand side, growth continues to benefit from resilient consumption and government stimulus, supported by large financial inflows from Gulf States. In March 2015, Egypt held a high level Economic Development Conference, which culminated with the signing of sizeable investment deals worth US$36 billion, securing external financing worth US$24 billion, and the announcement of a new Gulf support package worth US$12.5 billion. This will boost the ongoing economic recovery and facilitate efforts to achieve macroeconomic stability. Annual growth is expected to double to 4.3 percent in FY15, and should increase further thereafter, compared to the muted growth of 2 percent during FY11-FY14. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) conducted its article four consultation in November 2014 and the final report generally commended the authorities’ medium term plans while highlighting some risks including slippage in implementing reforms and a large external financing gap. Egypt’s main risk is to sustain the ongoing economic recovery which requires improved security. Notwithstanding the authorities’ ambitious fiscal consolidation plan, the deficit and debt aggregates will remain high and unsustainable. Further, there are risks of policy slippage as some details and the exact timing of policy measures are still missing and implementation capacity remains a challenge. Further, sustaining the reform pace requires efficient and well-targeted safety nets, which might take time to build. Finally, there is significant uncertainty regarding the financing of the announced mega-projects and the potential contingent liabilities that may arise.

Panama's economic growth has been at the top of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region in recent years. The country s rapid growth has been largely pro-poor and translated into significant poverty reduction. The new Administration is well placed to tackle these challenges, with its commitment to maintaining an open and diversified economy and redressing social imbalances. Looking ahead, the country s main challenges are to maintain the current growth performance and ensure that its benefits are extended to all. The World Bank Group s (WBG) new Country Partnership Framework (CPF) seeks to support Panama s continued high growth, while ensuring inclusion and opportunities for marginalized groups, and bolstering resilience and sustainability. These themes are highlighted as priorities in the Government s 2014-2019 Strategic Development Plan (SDP) and in the WBG s Systematic Country Diagnostic (SCD). The CPF seeks to maximize over a six-year period, the comparative advantages of the WBG, through packages of innovative public and private financing options based on cutting edge global knowledge and experience.

The explosive growth of green bonds in the capital markets is increasingly attracting attention from investors. This surge in interest has created a demand for accessible information on the green bond market. This primer was created in response to this demand and covers the principles of this relatively new financial instrument. The following intends to serve as a guide for those interested in better understanding the nature of green bonds. The content will aim to distinguish green bonds from other traditional financial instruments. It will also provide insight into the potential of green bonds to mobilize new sources of climate finance. This paper includes the following highlights: understanding bonds (chapter one); understanding green bonds (chapter two); and benefits and potential.