The economic activity that drives growth in developing countries is heavily concentrated in cities. Catchphrases such as “metropolitan areas are the engines that pull the national economy” turn out to be fairly accurate. But the same advantages of metropolitan areas that draw investment also draw migrants who need jobs and housing, lead to demands for better infrastructure and social services, and result in increased congestion, environmental harm, and social problems. The challenges for metropolitan public finance are to capture a share of the economic growth to adequately finance new and growing expenditures and to organize governance so that services can be delivered in a cost-effective way, giving the local population a voice in fiscal decision making. At the same time, care must be taken to avoid overregulation and overtaxation, which will hamper the now quite mobile economic engine of private investment and entrepreneurial initiative. Metropolitan planning has become a reality in most large urban areas, even though the planning agencies are often ineffective in moving things forward and in linking their plans with the fiscal and financial realities of metropolitan government. A growing number of success stories in metropolitan finance and management, together with accumulated experience and proper efforts and support, could be extended to a broader array of forward-looking programs to address the growing public service needs of metropolitan-area populations. Nevertheless, sweeping metropolitan-area fiscal reforms have been few and far between; the urban policy reform agenda is still a long one; and there is a reasonable prospect that closing the gaps between what we know how to do and what is actually being done will continue to be difficult and slow. This book identifies the most important issues in metropolitan governance and finance in developing countries, describes the practice, explores the gap between practice and what theory suggests should be done, and lays out the reform paths that might be considered. Part of the solution will rest in rethinking expenditure assignments and instruments of finance. The “right” approach also will depend on the flexibility of political leaders to relinquish some control in order to find a better solution to the metropolitan finance problem.

Describes basic principles and recent developments in approximate query processing. It focuses on four key synopses: random samples, histograms, wavelets, and sketches. It considers issues such as accuracy, space and time efficiency, optimality, practicality, range of applicability, error bounds on query answers, and incremental maintenance.

Did Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States, commit bank fraud and tax fraud on a massive and continuing scale while in office? Did he write hush-money checks before the 2016 election to silence women with whom he had hidden extramarital relationships, thus breaking campaign finance laws? Did he use non-profit charitable foundation funds to line his own pockets and furnish art for his golf clubhouses? Did he put himself in league with Russian oligarchs close to Vladimir Putin? Was he a racist, a conman and a cheat? Did he lie to the nation and the world over 8700 times in the first three years of his Presidency? Bolstered by documentary exhibits and on the strength of his decade of service as Donald Trump's former attorney, Michael Cohen made such allegations during his testimony and hearings of February 29, 2019 before the House Committee on Oversight & Reform. A series of 24 Democratic representatives of the House questioned him for proof and details of these claims.Alternatively, was Michael Cohen, convicted of lying before Congress, the very body before which he had once again been called, discredited as a witness and incapable of telling the truth? Was the hearing an exercise in futility and only designed to smear the President? That thesis was the counter-strategy employed by 18 Republican representatives of the House as they questioned Mr. Cohen.The partisan disputes during the public proceedings reflected sharp divisions in the American body politic. Still, the speakers labeled each other "gentleman" and "gentlelady" throughout.The transcript is complete, verbatim and carefully reconstructed from audio recordings. The transcribers played and replayed the words and phrases of each participant time and again until the correct text could be reproduced, right down to "um" and "ah." No annotations, omissions or additions interfere with the message.Thoroughly researched allusions and mentions of names, locations, institutions, publications, and so forth, reflect the accurate spellings and background information.Evenhanded, non-biased illustrations for each of the 43 participants - from I.T. Meladeca - provide a rich, visual feel for the event."This would be perfect for civics class... if we had civics classes anymore.""Every American - for that matter every citizen of the world - should determine if the claims of Michel Cohen are legitimate. The visual documentary evidence can help with that.""Whatever your political persuasion, this transcription will let you draw your own conclusions."