(TIỂU LUẬN) each text can be a chapter of a printed book or a research article, journal article or news article

HANOI UNIVERSITY ENGLISH FOR SPECIFIC PURPOSES DEPARTMENT Academic Reading – Term Pair Reading Project Student name: Nguyễễn Trà My Bùi Thiễn Nga Student ID#: 1904040079 1904040080 Lecturer: Class: Ms Bùi Ngọc Liễn 1TC19-ACN 2019-2020 Pair Reading Project Guideline Reading is an input skill, and its mastery is clearly illustrated by an output product; thus, reading project is needed for the on-going assessment process of the course The project also encourages your extensive reading related to your major It enhances your teacher’s interaction with you in the same way as between a reader and a writer, through a real cycle of reading and writing You read then write, your teacher reads your work, then writes feedback for you to read A Pair Reading Project consists of the following tasks 1) Pair extensive reading (assignment) - Your pair select and read an English reading text - Each text can be a chapter of a printed book or a research article, journal article or news article - It is at least 800 words in length, of A4 paper size with Times News Roman – font 12 - It must have a reference source - Topic MUST BE an academic topic related to your major - Your project must include a soft copy of this reading text: copy the content and paste it in this file – or take a photo and insert the picture into this file (or a hardcopy for offline class) - First, you are required to create a mind map or an outline (that summarizes this reading text) - Second, you are asked to answer a list of “critical analysis and discussion” questions about the text, type the answers, explain the answers and provide evidence Examples of the critical questions are in the textbook The list of questions are provided by the Teacher - All work must be typed using the forms provided below (and printed in offline class) - Pair Extensive Reading covers critical analysis and discussion questions of Week to - Paper can be refused if it does not meet requirements - Teacher will collect your assignments for marking and giving feedback in Week 8, then return them to you later - You MUST keep all your papers with teacher’s feedback - For online class, send the whole project to the Teacher online - For offline class, you will staple the whole project (hardcopy) together, and submit the Pair Reading Project at the end of the course for teacher’s final marking 2) Pair critical review: pair written paper & brief presentation  Written critical review (of 300 – 400 words)  Your pair use the same English reading text (in the previous Pair Extensive Reading assignment)  You are required to write a critical review of this text It should be at least 300 – 400 words in length Submit First draft in Week 9, submit Final draft in Week 11  PPT presentation about your critical review (maximum minutes)   Your slides display your critical review (text summary & critique) One of you presents the critical review’s content in Week 11 (one speaker only)  Note: Do NOT use the same reading text as your classmates, or copy your classmates’ work It is very easy to see and you will be penalized or have to find a new reading text Late submission: Your score will be deducted if you not complete your tasks on time B Resources of reading texts for Pair Reading Project:  Research articles & journal articles from:  HANU library lib.hanu.vn  Vietnam Journals Online http://.vjol.info/index/about/  National Library of Vietnam http://dl.nlv.gov.vn/  Google Scholar http://scholar.google.com.vn/  Taylor & Francis Journal http://www.tandfonline.com/page/openaccess  Research Gate http://www.researchgate.net/  Free source: http://www.freefullpdf.com  ScienceDirect https://www.sciencedirect.com/  Wiley Online Library http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com  News articles from: e.g The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Economist, Reuters, BBC, The Guardian, Financial Times, Washington Post, or other reputable newspaper  The following resources are NOT ACCEPTED for the Pair Reading Project: (1) posts on social networks such as Facebook or Twitter; (3) personal opinion in opinion column on newspaper; (2) blogs; (3) YAHOO.COM news reports; (4) Wikipedia and other similar websites; (5) Viet Nam News; (6) textbooks for English language learning (7) IELTS texts  You MUST select reading topics that are related to your major Pair Extensive Reading (submitted in Week 8) Tittle Decentralization after the great recession: fine-tuning or paradigm change? Reference source/web link: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00343404.2020.17118 78?fbclid=IwAR2OF0BDbM_3uj55jbZgdp8WwihxmJXuGkhKgx3URUt0yYQZpHVRhIi9J0 B Mind-map or outline: Content whether the Great Recession of 2008 affected Overview The political consencus about decentralization & the conventional wisdom abt its impact on economic, political & social outcomes Examine in depth the effects of the economic & fiscal crisis Approach Identify & explain differences in political, economic & fiscal performances of the various countries Consequences of the great recession for the quality of governance Whether voters hold incombent accountable for the country's economic performance during the Great Recession Whether voter's electoral response to the Great Recession is uniform across districts within countries Social protection expenditures are best assigned to the central level of government Solution Investments in the traditional drivers of growth remain the main factors behind successful economic trajectories Increasing GV quality is the most effective policy for increasing regional economic performance in lagging regions C Answers to Critical Questions about this reading (the list given by the Teacher): Answer to Question 1: Where was this text published? This text was published in a peer- reviewed academic journal because it has been peer-reviewed by many people in the same area of study who have a similar level of expertise The text is also examinated carefully and give opinion on its strength and weeknesses When was this text published? Is the text up-to-date or outdated? The text is up-to-date because it was published online on 31 January 2020 Answer to Question 2: Who is the author of the reading text? What are his/her credentials, profession and educational background? The author of the text cosists of three peoples:  Ignacio Lago: Professor of Political Science at Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona, Spain) and Doctor-Miembro at Juan March Institute (Madrid) His recent publications have appeared in Economics and Politics, Electoral Studies,…  Santiago Lago-Peñas: Full professor and Director of Governance and Economics research Network (GEN) at University of Vigo in Spain Director of the Galician Economic Forum  Jorge Martinez-Vazquez: is a Professor of Economics and Director of the International Studies Program at the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University He has worked as Consultant for the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, Inter American development Bank, USAID, the governments of many countries and state governments in USA Is the text biased or objective? This text is objective because it discussed both sides of the arguments which is how the Great Recession of 2008 affected the political consensus about decentralization and the conventional wisdom about its impacts on economic, political and social outcomes Additionally, the author not use emotional words Answer to Question 3: Who was the text written for? The text was written for academic audience because it has technical, specialized vocabulary which only for those who specialize in this field Why did the author write the text? The author wrote this text to make a contribution to their field and to add to the bank of knowledge available on how the Great Recession of 2008 affected the political consensus about decentralization and the conventional wisdom about its impacts on economic, political and social outcomes Answer to Question 4: Does the author present or imply his/her opinion about the topic in the text? What is his or her opinion? The author does not present or imply his opinion about the topic Does the text present a convincing argument or reliable information about its topic? (Briefly explain why it is convincing/ reliable, or why not) The text does present a compelling argument and reliable information about its topic because: +) The author conducted all of the information from trustworthy sources which the person and organization have specialized in the economic field +) The information is still new because all of the research dates are only in the range of 2000 to 2019, so is cant be outdated information Answer to Question 5: Has the author done empirical research about the topic? (YES or No?) No, the authors have not done empirical research about the topic As we said in the previous answer, the authors used many different reliable sources so this means that the authors not the empirical research by themselves; instead, they uses other sources Do the author use such types of evidence as anecdotes, visual items, statistics, quotations to support his/her points? Is the evidence convincing and effectively used? If there is no evidence, how are the author’s points supported? The authors use statistics to support their points For instance: - Similarly, the Regional Authority Index elaborated by Hooghe et al (2016) shows that the average level of decentralization in 2007 and 2010 (the last available year) in a sample of 79 countries has not decreased, but, in fact, slightly increased, from 9.64 to 9.77 - The 2016 edition of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Fiscal Federalism concludes that ‘the consolidated shares of sub-central governments in general government spending and revenue have evolved relatively little over the last two decades or so – even after the onset of the crisis in 2008’ (OECD/KIPF, 2016, p 13) The pieces of evidence are convinced and effectively used because they are taken from the research of other authors DECENTRALIZATION AFTER THE GREAT RECESSION: FINE-TUNING OR PARADIGM CHANGE? Authors: Ignacio Lago, Santiago Lago-Peñas, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez Words count: 1,927 ABTRACT The general question addressed in this special issue of Regional Studies is whether the Great Recession of 2008 affected the political consensus about decentralization and the conventional wisdom about its impact on economic, political and social outcomes The present introduction emphasizes the two main lines of enquiry that cut across all the papers in this issue First, the effects of the Great Recession on the relations between national and subnational governments; and second, the differences in political, economic and fiscal performance across countries depending on the extent and quality of the institutions supporting both political and fiscal decentralization INTRODUCTION The decentralization of political and economic power has become a defining feature of contemporary representative democracies The dispersion of political authority from national governments to supranational, regional and local ones has expanded rapidly worldwide in the last decades, in what Hooghe, Marks, and Schakel (2010, p 52) have characterized as the ‘era of regionalization’ The consensus position is that the division of functional responsibilities among levels of government increases the efficiency and responsiveness of governments In short, at the beginning of the 21st century, democracies with a highly centralized structure of power are not conceivable As the World Bank has emphatically argued: ‘strategies to stop decentralization are unlikely to succeed, as the pressures to decentralise are beyond government control’ (World Bank, 2000, p 124) The general question addressed in this special issue is whether the Great Recession of 2008 has affected the political consensus about decentralization and the conventional wisdom about its economic, political and social outcomes (Martínez-Vázquez, Lago-Pas, & Sacchi, 2017; Mookherjee, 2015; Wibbels, 2006) From a bird's-eye view, at least on the surface, it would appear that no systemic changes have taken place The 2016 edition of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) Fiscal Federalism concludes that ‘the consolidated shares of subcentral governments in general government spending and revenue have evolved relatively little over the last two decades or so – even after the onset of the crisis in 2008’ (OECD/KIPF, 2016, p 13) This is in line with the 2014 edition of the same report According to the OECD (2013, pp 14–15), sub-central tax revenues and intergovernmental grants have remained almost stable since 2008, while the sub-central fiscal consolidation has been achieved mainly through spending cuts Similarly, the Regional Authority Index elaborated by Hooghe et al (2016) shows that the average level of decentralization in 2007 and 2010 (the last available year) in a sample of 79 countries has not decreased, but, in fact, slightly increased, from 9.64 to 9.77 Even if the 2008 Great Recession has not (yet) remodelled the architecture of local and regional authorities, it has open up a vivid debate over the benefits and costs of decentralization power According to the Council of European Municipalities and Regions (2013), the economic and financial crisis has had ‘a major impact on Europe's approach to the organization of services and the question of financial independence … Certain governmental actions run counter to these principles [the desire of greater decentralization and the principle of subsidiarity]’ Similarly, the debate has also become popular among citizens with the Great Recession putting into question the extent to which the political and economic power in European Union countries has to be shared between national and supranational institutions The papers in this special issue of Regional Studies take part in this ongoing debate about how the dispersion of political and economic authority across levels of government has been challenged in recent times The approach is multidisciplinary with contributions from economic, political science and economic geography perspectives The papers pursue two main objectives First, they examine in depth the effects of the economic and fiscal crisis that hit much of the world in 2008 on the relations between national and subnational governments Second, they identify and explain differences in political, economic and fiscal performances of the various countries depending on the extent and quality of the institutions supporting both political and fiscal decentralization More specifically, when decentralization is the input, the topic addressed here is to what extent the consequences of the Great Recession on the quality of governance are driven by decentralization; when decentralization is the output, how decentralization conditions the political and economic effects of the Great Recession CONSEQUENCES OF THE GREAT RECESSION FOR THE QUALITY OF GOVERNANCE The first set of papers focuses on the social, political and electoral dimensions of decentralization after the Great Recession Pablo Beramendi and Melissa Rogers, in ‘Fiscal decentralization and the distributive incidence of the Great Recession’ (2019, in this issue), focus on the relationship between decentralization and inequality Using a difference-indifferences approach and data from 21 OECD countries in the years following the Great Recession, they find that fiscally decentralized nations saw increased interpersonal inequality and lower redistribution, but lower interregional inequality The second topic addressed in this section is whether voters hold incumbents accountable for the country's economic performance during the Great Recession, and how electoral accountability is channelled by the degree of decentralization of political and economic power Ruth Dassonneville and Michael Lewis-Beck, in ‘Inequality and party support: positional economic voting or a new dimension of valence’ (2019, in this issue), take advantage of the Great Recession to examine whether economic growth and inequality are valence or position issues for voters in established democracies, and the extent to which their effect on election outcomes is driven by federalism Somewhat surprisingly, they find that both left- and right-wing incumbents are held accountable for changes in inequality, suggesting that inequality can affect the vote in a valence way, while federalism does not affect these outcomes In a third paper, Ignacio Lago and André Blais, in ‘Decentralization and electoral swings’ (2019, in this issue), explore whether voters’ electoral response to the Great Recession is uniform across districts within countries Using district-level data from OECD countries and individual-level data for national elections in Canada and Spain, they find that the electoral swing away from the incumbent government observed at the time of the Great Recession is more homogeneous in more decentralized countries HOW DECENTRALIZATION CONDITIONED THE ECONOMIC AND FISCAL EFFECTS OF THE GREAT RECESSION The second set of papers examines the economic and political strategies followed in centralized and decentralized countries to cope with the Great Recession The first topic addressed here is the relationship between decentralization and fiscal stability Santiago Lago-Peñas, Jorge Martinez-Vazquez and Agnese Sacchi, ‘Fiscal stability during the Great Recession: putting decentralization design to the test’ (2019, in this issue), revisit the question of whether fiscally decentralized countries are inherently more fiscally unstable than more centralized countries Using data from OECD countries between 1995 and 2014, their main finding is that higher levels of fiscal decentralization have a beneficiary effect on fiscal performance, but the positive impact erodes rapidly with higher levels of vertical fiscal imbalance and weaker fiscal rules Hence, decentralization is not harmful for fiscal stability, if subnational tax autonomy is significantly present and fiscal rules are properly defined Viewing the Great Recession as a shock, Timothy Goodspeed, in ‘Decentralization and intracountry transfers in the Great Recession: the case of the EU’ ( 2019, in this issue), explores the effect of decentralization and vertical fiscal imbalance on social protection expenditures Using panel data from 2000 to 2014 for the 12 countries that constitute the Eurozone in that period, the main policy conclusion is that social protection expenditures are best assigned to the central level of government In particular, more decentralized systems provide less social protection The last general topic addressed is the consequences of decentralization on public sector performance during the Great Recession The sharp decline in revenues combined with an increase in the expenditure needs forced much of the public policy debate to focus on efficiency, especially at the local level Luiz de Mello and João Tovar Jalles, in ‘The global crisis and intergovernmental relations: centralization versus decentralization 10 years on’ (2019, in this issue), examine the effects of the global financial and economic crisis on intergovernmental fiscal relations Using data from a large set of advanced and emergingmarket/developing economies between 1990 and 2015, they show that the Great Recession has been associated with an increase in the subnational shares of general government spending and revenue The findings for subnational authority over policy and fiscal– financial management are more nuanced and suggest that increases in government indebtedness (spending) since the crisis have been associated with greater (weaker) subnational authority Second, small-sized municipal governments have been blamed for an inefficient provision of public services, as economies of scale are not maximized and spillover effects are not internalized Amalgamation reforms and horizontal cooperation have been put to use, even when they might increase transaction costs and affect political accountability The success of such mechanisms is supported by previous empirical studies, although no evidence has been found for the post-crisis period Miriam Hortas-Rico and Víctor Ríos, in ‘Is there an optimal size for local governments? A spatial panel data model approach’ (2019, in this issue), rely on data from Spanish municipalities to determine the optimal size of local jurisdictions and whether it varies depending on the geographical heterogeneity of the territory There is compelling evidence in favour of a ‘U’-shaped relationship between population size and the costs of providing public services, while optimal city size decreases with elevation and increases with ruggedness Third, and last, Andrés Rodríguez-Pose and Tobias Ketterer, in ‘Institutional change and the development of lagging regions in Europe’ (2019, in this issue), assess whether both the levels and the degree of change in government quality influence regional economic performance in the European Union, and, in particular, in its lagging regions Relying on data from 249 NUTS-2 European Union regions for the period 1999–2013, they show that a poor initial quality of government is not an insurmountable handicap for good economic performance Their main conclusion is that low-growth regions in Southern Europe stand to benefit the most from improvements in government quality, while in low-income regions of Central and Eastern Europe, investments in the traditional drivers of growth remain the main factors behind successful economic trajectories In conclusion, this special issue offers some interesting findings on the role of federalism Federalism mediated the consequences of the Great Recession on the quality of governance in some unexpected ways Despite the marked increases in interpersonal inequality, decentralized countries did not experience a higher as interregional inequality, and it was personal inequality, not federalism, that held valence for how voters blamed both left- and right-wing incumbents in elections In particular, the electoral swing away from the incumbent governments observed during the Great Recession was more homogeneous in more decentralized countries Additionally, decentralized countries not seem to be inherently more fiscally unstable than more centralized countries However, fiscal stability under decentralization requires that subnational tax autonomy is significantly present and fiscal rules are properly defined In addition, social protection expenditures are best protected when they are assigned to the central level of government Finally, the Great Recession did put the focus on the consequences of decentralization on public sector efficiency and performance Interestingly, the Great Recession has been associated with an increase in the subnational shares of general government spending and revenue, if not authority over policy and fiscal–financial management Amalgamation reforms and horizontal cooperation can be effective solutions to the inefficient scale of local governments; however, not one size fits all There is evidence of a ‘U’-shaped relationship between size and public service cost efficiency, while optimal size is also affected by geography Increasing government quality is the most effective policy for increasing regional economic performance in lagging regions REFERENCES Beramendi, P., & Rogers, M (2019) Fiscal decentralization and the distributive incidence of the Great Recession Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1652895 Council of European Municipalities and Regions (2013) Decentralisation at a crossroads: Territorial reforms in Europe in times of crisis Retrieved from http://www.ccre.org/img/uploads/piecesjointe/filename/CCRE_broch_EN_complete_low.p df Dassonneville, R., & Lewis-Beck, M (2019) Inequality and party support: positional economic voting or a new dimension of valence Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1634802 de Mello, L., & Tovar Jalles, J., (2019) The global crisis and intergovernmental relations: centralization versus decentralization 10 years on Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1645326 Goodspeed, T (2019) Decentralization and intra-country transfers in the Great Recession: the case of the EU Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1666207 Hooghe, L., Marks, G., & Schakel, A H (2010) The rise of regional authority: A comparative study of 42 democracies London: Routledge [Crossref], [Google Scholar] Hooghe, L., Marks, G., Schakel, A H., Osterkatz, S C., Niedzwiecki S., & ShairRosenfield, S (2016) Measuring regional authority: A postfunctionalist theory of governance, Volume I Oxford: Oxford University Press [Google Scholar] Hortas-Rico, M., & Ríos, V (2019) Is there an optimal size for local governments? A spatial panel data model approach Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1648786 Lago, I., & Blais, A (2019) Decentralization and electoral swings Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1577960 Lago-Peñas, S., Martinez-Vazquez, J., & Sacchi, A (2019) Fiscal stability during the Great Recession: putting decentralization design to the test Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1637836 Martínez-Vázquez, J., Lago-Pas, S., & Sacchi, A (2017) The impact decentralization: A survey Journal of Economic Surveys, 31(4), 1095–1129 of fiscal Mookherjee, D (2015) Political decentralization Annual Review of Economics, 7, 231– 249 doi: 10.1146/annurev-economics-080614-115527 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2013) Fiscal federalism 2014: Making decentralization work Paris: OECD Publ [Google Scholar] OECD/KIPF (2016) Fiscal federalism 2016: Making decentralization work Paris: OECD Publ [Google Scholar] Rodríguez-Pose, A., & Ketterer, T (2019) Institutional change and the development of lagging regions in Europe Regional Studies https://doi.org/10.1080/00343404.2019.1608356 Wibbels, E (2006) Madison in Baghdad?: Decentralization and federalism in comparative politics Annual Review of Political Science, 9, 165–188 World Bank (2000) Entering the 21st century Washington, DC: World Bank [Google Scholar] ... Your pair select and read an English reading text - Each text can be a chapter of a printed book or a research article, journal article or news article - It is at least 800 words in length, of A4 ... information is still new because all of the research dates are only in the range of 2000 to 2019, so is cant be outdated information Answer to Question 5: Has the author done empirical research. .. Economics and Politics, Electoral Studies,…  Santiago Lago-Peñas: Full professor and Director of Governance and Economics research Network (GEN) at University of Vigo in Spain Director of the Galician