This book employs a qualitative analysis of China's publicly financed construction sector, taking the system design as its point of departure and applying comprehensive evaluation techniques to create an index system for this type of construction - which in turn serves as a basis for quantitatively evaluating China's publicly financed construction sector. Given the fact that China's publicly financed construction sector is a very complex field of systems engineering involving multiple subsystems, as an important indicator of China's fiscal innovations since its reform and opening, publicly financed construction is now shifting from theory to practice, demonstrating that China has entered an era of fully publicly financed construction.

'In this timely book, Professor Gordon Rausser explores the changing landscape of university-industry relations, informed by his unusual background as a pioneer in Public Private Research Partnerships (PPRPs) while serving as Dean of the College of Natural Resources at UC Berkeley. Scholars, administrators, and industry executives who are interested in industry/university partnerships will find a treasure of information and insights in this beautifully written book.' - Steve P. Briggs, University of California, San Diego 'As public/private partnerships have become increasingly important to the funding of academic research, it is essential not only to learn from past institutional experience of such partnerships, but to create templates that optimize their structure for both partners. In his important book, Structuring Public-Private Research Partnerships for Success, Gordon Rausser has set himself to both tasks. All those who think about such partnerships will learn from this book.' - Carol Christ, University of California, Berkeley University research has played an essential role in economic growth by generating public good outputs that have not readily lent themselves to private market development. As funding for universities and governmental research units has declined, these institutions have turned to the private sector to augment their research and development budgets. This book presents a framework for structuring public-private research partnerships that protect both these institutions' academic freedom and the private firm's corporate interests. The authors present a four-stage framework that recognizes the critical role of 'control rights' and reveals how these rights can be effectively identified, valued, and allocated between research partners. The book provides a number of template designs for a variety of research partnerships, including tactics and strategies for implementing successful public-private research partnerships. It further provides case studies with examples of both successful and unsuccessful research partnerships. The book demonstrates that universities are empowered when they pursue private partners actively and when contracts preserve academic freedom, address confidentiality, specify intellectual property rights, define access to proprietary data, clarify the conflict resolution process, and address potential publication delays. This book is an essential and illuminating resource for academic researchers in economics and public policy departments, technology transfer offices, as well as others involved in university and public administration.

Congress uses the tax laws to encourage or discourage certain behaviors, and to steer the economy. Their tax incentives (or strategies) encourage conservation, economic development, charitable giving, retirement savings, real estate development, and more. That

This volume offers a collection of studies on problem of organization's efficiency, criteria for evaluating the efficiency, tools and methods for measuring the efficiency. The articles included present an interdisciplinary look at efficiency, its essence and the principles of its measurement. The contributions also identify a broad spectrum of conditions for achieving efficiency in various types of organizations and systems (e.g. public institution, non-profit organizations), representing various industries. The book collects selected papers presented at the 7th International Conference "Efficiency as a Source of the Wealth of Nations", held in Wroclaw, Poland, in May 2017.

Germany's ability to support its war machine financially has long puzzled scholars. The young nation had exhausted itself paying for its loss in the First World War, had suffered a hyperinflation in the early 1920s, and had ended the 1920s with a terrible economic depression. This is the first book in any language to examine the budget policies of the middle years of the Weimar Republic and to look at how these policies changed the politics of the time. It is also the first work to support the government's aggressive use of deficit spending and fiscal stimuli to promote economic growth. Some findings even indicate that the German government could have used creative financial solutions to avoid the worst of the Depression and to avert the Nazi regime.

Clingan explores the changes and continuities in fiscal policy and budget-making politics, beginning in the last years of the Wilhelmine Empire and continuing into the 1930s. Although this is a story about money, it is also a story about men. Very few in Nazi Germany understood the intricacies of fiscal policy and budget making, and political parties tended to follow the lead of those who did. Clingan combines their personal stories with the tale of a country still growing into its economic power and still trying to learn both its limits and its strengths.

Kula contends that conventional time-dependent theories in welfare economics are based on the unwarranted assumption that people live forever, an assumption that underpins the criteria for many decision-making activities and one that leads public sector policy makers to discriminate against future generations. It is seen in its most extreme in decision making on such long-term projects as nuclear power facilities, whose effects will be visited upon many future generations. How did this assumption gain currency and influence? Kula says, this oddity has been imposed by mathematical economists who now dominate the scene. Kula aggressively challenges these theories, which he alleges are untrue and unjust, provides an alternative method for discounting, and shows how its application can yield dramatically positive results. His book is thus a unique, important contribution to the theory and practice of decision making in public endeavors, intended not only for academics but equally for their practitioner colleagues in all parts of the world.

Kula corrects the conventional theory by assuming societal models in which individuals are mortal and generations overlap. From this emerges a new discounting theory which leads to outcomes that are dramatically different from the old ones. The new criterion is called modified discounting, and can be readily applied to real-life projects. In Part I, Kula lays out his theory and constructs the new decision-making method, in which public policy makers accept the proposition that all generations ought to be treated equitably. Then, in Part II, he provides five case studies to illustrate his theory, each devoted to major public activities such as nuclear waste disposal, forestry, agriculture, and urban transport, and based on experiences in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Ireland.

The New Energy Paradigm provides an overview of the current energy policy debate, contextualized by the oil shock from 2000, and considers how the trends in international energy markets impact on security of supply and climate change. It includes a discussion of market design, looks at carbon and oil markets, and considers best practice for effective policy design.

Comparative Public Policy provides the first truly systematic and comprehensive account of the transformation of the post-war state in the advanced countries of the Western world. The author generates new research findings which show how the economic, social and political changes of the post-war era have reshaped modern public policy across the OECD region. Francis G. Castles examines the growth of big government and the emergence of the modern welfare state and identifies ways in which the role of the state has impacted on labour markets and such personal issues as home ownership, fertility and divorce. He explains why the trajectory of policy transformation has varied from country to country, with immediate post-war policy laggards sometimes becoming leaders, and erstwhile policy pioneers on occasions stagnating. This innovative book presents a wealth of background data and a huge range of new findings, covering 12 policy areas in 21 advanced industrialized countries over a period of more than three decades. Comparative Public Policy is essential reading for students and scholars who wish to understand the dynamics of contemporary social and political development.

The choice of currency denomination, indexation, and maturity structure of public debt is an increasingly important aspect of policy in a world of high debts and and financially integrated markets. This book surveys theories and evidence on public debt composition and debt returns with the goal of emphasizing the main policy issues.

This contributed volume combines approaches of the current inequality debate with aspects of finance based on profound macroeconomic model analyses. Research on inequality has had a long tradition in economics. With the financial crisis from 2007, not only output decreased tremendously, but also inequality has risen since then. The book presents selected contributions of a workshop held at Bielefeld University in 2016 and features additional papers written by experts in the field. A mixture of established researchers and young scholars presents both theoretical and empirical frameworks to analyze the subject.

In 1958, 1976, and 1985, Argentina experienced severe imbalances of its external accounts, which led to attempts at economic stabilization through an agreement with the International Monetary Fund. This book examines these IMF-supported programs and their success in alleviating Argentina's economic problems. Luigi Manzetti explores three aspects of the issue: the programs' impact on the Argentine economy from a policy management perspective; the methods by which different political regimes coped with similar problems and the level of their success; and the relationship between economic stabilization and political institutions, with particular emphasis on why IMF-supported programs encounter problems and how these problems can be overcome.

Exploring the previously overlooked relationship between economic and public policies, Manzetti begins his study by examining the balance of payments problems that afflict developing countries along with the role played by the IMF in solving them. He assesses IMF involvement both in terms of economic theory and policy recommendations, portraying the academic debate that for years has surrounded the IMF. The peculiarities of the Argentine case are outlined, as are contending interpretations of the country's chronic economic crises. A set of three chapters fully details the stabilization plans of the Frondizi, Videla, and Alfonsin administrations. Finally, a concluding chapter argues that wrong assumptions by the IMF and the mistakes of Argentina's policy makers were responsible for the limited success of the programs. This work will be an important reference tool for courses in economic development and Latin American studies, as well as a useful resource for academic and professional libraries.

Vogel views health care within the context of total Sub-Saharan economic systems, emphasizing the output of health-care programs (i.e., healthier people) and the most cost-effective ways to maximize that output. He recommends shifting public financing resources from the hospital sector to primary and preventive care, in order to reposition financial resources away from the colonial and post-colonial period of concentration upon cost-ineffective hospitals and toward the direction emphasized by the World Health Organization.

In an era of federal deficits and struggling municipalities, states have emerged as the most significant governmental actors. But state governments face the major challenge of fiscal planning in the midst of economic change. Roy Bahl and William Duncombe tackle this challenge head-on. Using New York as a case study, they identify looming dangers for state revenue and expenditure planning. Bahl and Duncombe begin with the premise that one cannot separate an evaluation of fiscal performance from an evaluation of economic performance. Accordingly, they describe and analyze the patterns of population, employment, and personal income growth. Following this is a study of state and local government finances in New York since 1970 and a recounting of the fiscal adjustments that were taken in the face of slower and then faster growth in the economy.

The authors conclude that based on current conditions, the state and its local governments are in for fiscal belt-tightening. They note that the state should take a comprehensive view in planning the development and retrenchment of its government sector. The book is thought-provoking, exhaustively researched, and sensibly written. Its lessons are applicable everywhere and should be read by all those seeking a route through the tangled thicket of government policy for economic growth.

This volume comprises papers presented at the 8th international conference "The Economies of the Balkan and Eastern European Countries in the Changing World" (EBEEC) held in Split, Croatia in 2016. The papers cover a wide range of current issues relevant for the whole of Eastern Europe, such as European integration, economic growth, labour markets, education and tourism. Written by experienced researchers in the field of economic challenges for Eastern Europe, the papers not only analyse recent problems, but also offer policies to resolve them. Furthermore, they offer insights into the theoretical and empirical foundations of the economic processes described. The proceedings of the conference appeals to all those interested in the further economic development of the Balkan and Eastern European countries.

This book provides an up-to-date study of public infrastructure in terms of the selection, procurement and delivery of projects. There is widespread acceptance that infrastructure is vital and needs increasing, yet less agreement about how it should be funded and procured. This book assesses in detail the features of various procurement options while also providing a framework for comparing their advantages and disadvantages. Drawing on international experiences and case studies, Darrin Grimsey and Mervyn Lewis consider some of the best and worst examples of public-private partnerships, new funding methods and infrastructure megaprojects. By offering a conceptual basis for infrastructure decision-making, the authors identify ways to improve infrastructure procurement processes. Focusing on urbanization as a driver of innovation in infrastructure, both the historical context and the future prospects of public infrastructure are analysed. Significantly, the book also examines China's ambitious plans to create a 'high-speed rail economy' and its Belt and Road Initiative across Asia that offers an interesting contrast to infrastructure developments in the United States and other advanced economies. Global Developments in Public Infrastructure Procurement is an essential source of reference for academics and students of economics, public sector finance and urban infrastructure.

Beginning with the decade of the nineties, the idea of strategic management of government and nonprofit organizations burst upon the scene. Traditionally, governments have been thought of as being unchanging, resistant to change, or at the most, changing by reaction to pressure. Strategic management suggests both the idea of adaptation to change forces as well as defining mission and concerting future organizational design and behavior accordingly, perhaps even changing the environment. Work force management is an important dimension of this new approach. Both direct and indirect compensation of this work force to achieve an array of possible objectives is a critical aspect of work force management.

The strategic approach to public organizations is also concerned more than ever with obtaining optimal performance, however it may be defined. Compensation, as a subset, is very much part of this quest for organizational performance and performance improvement. Thus, there is a linkage of subparts, each with many potential alternatives: organizational mission/objectives, compensation objectives, compensation system design, and the role of pay in obtaining desired type and levels of performance. This design chain is the focus of this book.

In 2006 residential real estate prices peaked and started to fall, then threatened the world's financial institutions in 2007, and confronted the global economy with disaster in 2008. In the past few years, millions of people have lost very substantial portions of their wealth. And while the markets have rebounded considerably, they are still far from a full recovery. Now, professional economists, policy experts, public intellectuals, and the public at large are all struggling to understand the crisis that has engulfed us.
In The Financial Crisis of Our Time, Robert W. Kolb provides an essential, comprehensive review of the context within which these events unfolded, arguing that while the crisis had no single cause, housing finance played a central role, and that to understand what happened, one must comprehend the mechanism by which the housing industry came into crisis. Kolb offers a history of the housing finance system as it developed throughout the twentieth century, and especially in the period from 1990 to 2006, showing how the originate-to-distribute model of mortgage financing presented market participants with a "clockwork of perverse incentives." In this system, various participants-simply by pursuing their narrow personal interests-participated in an elaborate mechanism that led to disaster. The book then gives a narrative of the crisis as it developed and analyzes all of the participants in the housing market, from the home buyers to investors in collaterialized debt obligations (CDOs). At each step, the book explains in a nontechnical manner the essential relationships among the market participants and zeroes in on the incentives facing each party. The book also includes an extensive glossary and a detailed, authoritative timeline of the subprime financial crisis.
Offering a unique look at the participants and incentives within the housing finance industry and its role in the biggest financial catastrophe in recent history, Robert W. Kolb provides one of the most comprehensive and illuminating accounts of the events that will be studied for decades to come as the financial crisis of our time.

This book explores the economic and social development of the Western Balkan region, a group of six countries that are potential candidates for EU membership. It focuses on the key economic issues facing these countries, including the challenge of promoting economic growth, limiting public deficits and debt, and fostering international trade relations. Given the severe impact of the recent economic crisis on social welfare in the region, it also investigates the nature and extent of social exclusion, a factor likely to produce future political instabilities if not effectively addressed by a return to sustainable economic growth. The contributions explore these issues in light of the major influence of EU policy instruments and advice, which are currently guiding the economies along an accession trajectory to future EU membership.

This book offers a critical perspective on the issues related to women's empowerment, microfinance, and entrepreneurship in India. Written by distinguishing experts in this field, this book highlights women's empowerment, which is a process of entrusting power to an individual on the control over resources and decisions. However, these two factors are less effective in a society where religion and cultural dominance is high. The book sheds light on the social security measures undertaken by the government aiming to the right to work helped women who are bounded by social restrictions. Over time there is a shift in rural occupational structure towards non-farm activities, which is largely distress driven self-employment. Access to credit is a great source to provide self-employment that develops self-esteem among women and uplift their position. The book highlights the discrimination against women entrepreneurs in access to credit led to gender biased entrepreneurial society. Association with self-help groups (SHGs) has made women more socially empowered. SHG members help them to change their life in a positive manner through micro-entrepreneurial activities. The book has emphasized on the role of microfinance, which has served the poor to become financially self-reliant. It is observed that for second generation borrowers, the impact of microfinance seems to fizzle out, where MFIs who are gaining efficiency are diverting their objective of servicing poor, signalling a sign of mission drift.

This book is a quarterly forecast and analysis report on the Chinese economy. It is published twice a year and presents ongoing results from the "China Quarterly Macroeconomic Model (CQMM)," a research project at the Center for Macroeconomic Research (CMR) at Xiamen University. Based on the CQMM model, the research team forecast major macroeconomic indicators for the next 8 quarters, including the rate of GDP growth, the CPI, fixed-asset investment, resident consumption and foreign trade. At the same time it focuses on simulation of current macroeconomic policies in China. In addition to helping readers understand China's economic trend and policy guide, this book has three main goals: to help readers understand China's economic performance; to forecast the main macroeconomic indicators for the next 8 quarters; and to simulate the effectiveness of macroeconomic policies.

This book examines key issues and policy concerns relating to fiscal sustainability and competitiveness in European and Asian economies. In addition to estimating the extent of fiscal capacity or lack thereof for these economies, the authors supplement the empirical analysis with country case studies.

Making Fiscal Policy in Japan is written for those who want to understand the role and performance of fiscal policy as an integral component of macroeconomic policy, and the attendant effects on economic growth. Ishi traces and analyses the central features of postwar Japanese fiscal policy and considers the institutional framework and policy objectives which shaped the budget process. The overall conclusion is that the Japanese government has been generally passive in guiding the state's economic activities, using fiscal policy to support the private market economy rather than directly to influence the economy through deliberate expenditure and tax policies.

This book explores the role of national fiscal policies in a selected group of Euro-area countries under the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). In particular, the authors characterize the response of output to fiscal consolidations and expansions in the small Euro-area open economies affected by high public and private debt. It is shown that the macroeconomic outcome of fiscal shocks is strongly related to debt levels. The Euro-area countries included in the investigation are Greece, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal, over the sample period 1999-2016, i.e., the EMU period. The main econometric tools used in this research are structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models, including panel VAR models. The available literature relating to the subject is also fully reviewed. A further closely investigated topic is the potential spillover effects of German fiscal policies on the selected small Euro-area economies. Moreover, in the perspective of the evolution of the Euro Area towards a full Monetary and Fiscal Union, the authors study the effects of area-wide government spending shocks on aggregate output and other macroeconomic variables during the EMU period. The closing chapter of the book considers evidence on the consequences of austerity policies for European labour markets during recent years.

"The athor views the fiscal crisis as both a product and the process of class struggle. . . . Interview data and documents are combined to present a useful and interesting counter-perspective sensitive to the contingencies of struggle." Choice