State fiscal decisions have a significant impact on the US economy. Taken together, subnational governments employ more than one out of every eight workers and provide the bulk of all basic governmental services consumed by individuals and businesses. Sustaining the States: The Fiscal Viability of American State Governments will give you a basic understanding of trends in, current status of, and future prospects for the fiscal sustainability of state governments. After reading this book, you should have a great appreciation for the reach and multiple contributions of state governments to individuals and communities across the nation. The book examines the broad range and depth of state revenues, responsibilities, and activities. It begins with an assessment of executive budgeting in the states, then presents the experiences of states with strong executive-driven systems and the various rules and institutions that impact state government budget discipline. The book goes on to examine state revenue sources, debt, pensions, and spending, honing in on vital state functions including education, transportation, health services and public safety. It concludes with an assessment of the challenges that will test the fiscal vibrancy of US state governments going forward: vulnerability to future economic downturns, growing dependence on an increasingly austere federal government, the obsolescence of state tax systems and an ever more coercive system of federalism. Edited by experts, with a hand-picked panel of contributors, the book delineates the resources that states generate and use to conduct the business of government. The chapters outline the very real and significant constraints on the ability of the states to fulfill their responsibilities and introduce several challenges that state governments face and are actively addressing as they strive for fiscal sustainability. These features provide a clear, realistic understanding of state operations and financing in the United States, today. The book should also leave you with a sense of optimism for the capacity of state governments to advance forward.

What is the appropriate design for environmental regulation? Gert Tinggaard Svendsen sheds new light on the appropriate mix of economic instruments to implement environmental regulation in the context of the world-wide attempts to abate CO2 emissions. Gert Tinggaard Svendsen offers a detailed and comprehensive study of two alternative methods for controlling CO2 emissions - tradable permits and taxation - using examples of varying success from the United States and Europe. He applies a blend of environmental economic theory and public choice theory to analyse these methods and reveals that they both have merits. He proposes a design incorporating the best features of the two approaches because it is both cost-effective and politically and administratively feasible. In the case of C02 regulation, a CO2 permit market based on the US experience with free historical emissions should be applied in relation to industry, electric utilities and environmental organisations. The author proposes that a CO2 tax should be applied to non-organized interests, such as households and the transport sector, based on the EU experience. In particular, these policy recommendations are applied to potential CO2 permit markets in Europe and the United States. The interdisciplinary approach and the resulting policy recommendations make this book relevant to policymakers and academics across the social sciences. It will be particularly pertinent to those interested in environmental economics and public choice economics.

In this book Miroslav Beblavy, who has been involved in policy-making at the highest level in his country, offers a detailed study of monetary policy and monetary institutions in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia during the 1990s and the early 2000s and a more general look at monetary policy in less developed, but highly open and financially integrated market economies. Taking an innovative approach, this text focuses on a range of areas where few articles or books have been published and where very little empirical research has been undertaken, covers the topics of monetary policy frameworks, institutions inflation in transition and developing economies. As well as these border themes it analyzes specific factors that have significant influence on the conduct or outcomes of monetary policy including: the transmission mechanism of monetary policy in Central Europe use of principal types of constraints on policy discretion, such as central bank independence, exchange rate commitments and domestic targets for monetary policy. This book is a valuable resource for postgraduate students and research working or studying in the areas of development economics, public finance and banking.

What do drivers' licenses that function as national ID cards, nationwide standardized tests for third graders, the late unlamented 55 mile per hour speed limit, the outlawing of the eighteen-year-old beer drinker, and the disappearing mechanical lever voting machine have in common? Each is the product of an unfunded federal mandate: a concept that politicians of both parties profess to oppose in theory but which in practice they often find irresistible as a means of forcing state and local governments to do their bidding, while paying for the privilege.

Mandate Madness explores the history, debate, and political gamesmanship surrounding unfunded federal mandates, concentrating on several of the most controversial and colorful of these laws. The cases hold lessons for those who would challenge current or future unfunded federal mandates. James T. Bennett also examines legislative efforts to rein in or repeal unfunded federal mandates. Finally, he reviews the treatment of unfunded mandates by the federal courts. Those who find wisdom in America's traditional federalist political arrangement maintain--perhaps with more wishfulness than realism--that the unfunded federal mandate has not yet joined death and taxes as an immovable part of the modern political landscape.

First Published in 1983. This book is a contribution to the debate about Monetarism as an economic policy, and whether and how Monetarist policies can contribute to solving the current economic crisis. The diverse backgrounds and opinions of the distinguished economists writing in this volume, some supportive and some critical of Monetarism, ensure a variety of interpretations of the causes of, and responses to, the crisis. Overall, however, the book lays emphasis on two related factors which are frequently neglected in the current debates. Firstly, that the current economic crisis is a world crisis which is felt concomitantly, though in different forms and with different intensities, in the industrial countries, in the countries of the socialist bloc, and in the Third World. And although its manifestations in the industrial and in the developing countries have been quite different, the proposed policy answer has been fairly homogeneously Monetarist. Secondly, the message occurs throughout the book that in today's highly integrated world economy, national economic policies have lost much of their autonomy; Monetarist policies should therefore be assessed as to their consistency with external conditions and their effects on other countries. The contributors analyse the manifestations of the economic crisis in various parts of the world and give their individual views on Monetarist policies. Obviously there is no agreement, but that is not the purpose of this volume: its aim is to place the Monetarism discussion in the international context in which it should be conducted.

The election of the Clinton administration in the United States and the debate in the European Community about the consequences of the industrial policy clause in the Maastricht treaty have put industrial policy back on the academic and political agenda again. This volume brings together the key articles on industrial policy, ranging from general theoretical perspectives and overviews of the literature to studies of the experience of particular countries, including Japan and the newly industrialising countries of East Asia. Four articles are concerned with the industrial programmes of the European Community. This is a comprehensive and authoritative compilation of work on a theme of interest to economists and political scientists.

This innovative book proposes a new institutional arrangement for government to fulfil the needs of its citizens as well as possible. Existing aspects of federalism and direct democracy in Europe are strengthened, and as a result future developments arising in the region are coped with better. In this book Bruno Frey and Reiner Eichenberger propose a new model of federalism which includes new types of governmental units established by citizens from below. These units are called functional, overlapping and competing jurisdictions as they extend over task-specific areas and therefore overlap. They also provide competitive governance via direct and representative democratic institutions, and as jurisdictions they have independent power over taxation policy. This new model is more responsive to citizens' preferences and adjusts more dynamically to provide public services efficiently. The authors suggest that this new system should be allowed to develop in Europe to safeguard diversity and ensure that decentralization emerges effectively. It would also allow for the flexible integration of East European transition economies into the European Union and may also combine with traditional modes of government in developing countries. This book will be warmly welcomed by economists, political scientists and sociologists interested in the future of the European Union, by all those studying federal systems of government, and by those interested in the prospects for improving democratic institutions throughout the world.

Public Finance and Parliamentary Constitutionalism analyses constitutionalism and public finance (tax, expenditure, audit, sovereign borrowing and monetary finance) in Anglophone parliamentary systems of government. The book surveys the history of public finance law in the UK, its export throughout the British Empire, and its entrenchment in Commonwealth constitutions. It explains how modern constitutionalism was shaped by the financial impact of warfare, welfare-state programs and the growth of central banking. It then provides a case study analysis of the impact of economic conditions on governments' financial behaviour, focusing on the UK's and Australia's responses to the financial crisis, and the judiciary's position vis-a-vis the state's financial powers. Throughout, it questions orthodox accounts of financial constitutionalism (particularly the views of A. V. Dicey) and the democratic legitimacy of public finance. Currently ignored aspects of government behaviour are analysed in-depth, particularly the constitutional role of central banks and sovereign debt markets.

Through her judicious selection of previously published material, Dr Konzelmann investigates the key social, political and financial developments that have shaped the evolution of austerity economics. These include the early classical debates, the politicization of austerity, the Keynesian challenge to existing thought and the revival of pre-Keynesian 'Neo-Liberal' ideas during the 1970s. Discussion of the radical changes to economic thought and policy in the decades before the 2007-8 financial crisis and the key dimensions of the post 2007-8 debate bring the account right up to the present day. The editor's insightful and lucid introduction provides an illuminating guide to this crucial topic. The volume will be an invaluable resource for students and scholars seeking a wider understanding of austerity economics.

Since the late 1800s psychologists have been interested in discerning the strategies subjects employ to solve psychological tests (Piaget, 1928, Werner, 1940, Gesell, 1941). Much of this work, however, has relied on qualitative observations. In the 1970s, Edith Kaplan adopted this approach to the analysis of standardized neuropsychological measures. Unlike her predecessors, Dr. Kaplan and her colleagues emphasized the application of modern behavioral neurology to the analysis of the test data. Her approach was later termed the Boston Process Approach to neuropsychological assessment. While Edith Kaplan's work generates a great deal of enthusiasm, the qualitative nature of her analyses did not allow for its adoption by mainstream neuropsychologists. However, in recent years this limitation has begun to be addressed. Clinicians and researchers have developed new methodologies for quantifying the Boston Process Approach, leading to the emergence of a new field, which is collectively termed the Quantified Process Approach. Quantified Process Approach to Neuropsychological Assessment outlines the rationale for the emergence of this new approach and reviews the state of the art research literature and up to date clinical applications as they pertain to the evaluation of neuropsychiatric, head injured, and learning disabled patients. When available, norms and scoring forms are included in the appendices.

The untold story of how FDR did the unthinkable to save the American economy The American economy is strong in large part because nobody believes that America would ever default on its debt. Yet in 1933, Franklin D. Roosevelt did just that, when in a bid to pull the country out of depression, he depreciated the U.S. dollar in relation to gold, effectively annulling all debt contracts. American Default is the story of this forgotten chapter in America's history. Sebastian Edwards provides a compelling account of the economic and legal drama that embroiled a nation already reeling from global financial collapse. It began on April 5, 1933, when FDR ordered Americans to sell all their gold holdings to the government. This was followed by the abandonment of the gold standard, the unilateral and retroactive rewriting of contracts, and the devaluation of the dollar. Anyone who held public and private debt suddenly saw its value reduced by nearly half, and debtors--including the U.S. government-suddenly owed their creditors far less. Revaluing the dollar imposed a hefty loss on investors and savers, many of them middle-class American families. The banks fought back, and a bitter battle for gold ensued. In early 1935, the case went to the Supreme Court. Edwards describes FDR's rancorous clashes with conservative Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes, a confrontation that threatened to finish the New Deal for good-and that led to FDR's attempt to pack the court in 1937. At a time when several major economies never approached the brink of default or devaluing or recalling currencies, American Default is a timely account of a little-known yet drastic experiment with these policies, the inevitable backlash, and the ultimate result.

This title considers such issues as the effect of local government policies on migration, the optimal size of cities, tax and expenditure capitalization, the economics of intergovernmental transfers, tax exporting, and tax competition.

This three-volume set presents over 100 of the most influential articles in defence economics, which have been selected for their enduring value and importance and for their contribution to an understanding of the field.Topics covered in volume I include definitions of the field of defence economics, an examination of the demand side of defence economics, including the demand for military expenditures and the study of alliances, and an exploration of the impacts of defence spending on growth and development. Volume II examines the supply side of the subject, and covers the military production function, military personnel and weapon procurement. The supply side is further addressed in Volume III, which covers the defence industrial base, learning curves, costs, pricing and profits, industrial policies and the arms trade. This volume also discusses disarmament, conversion, peace and public policy and concludes with a section on non-conventional conflicts such as terrorism, insurrections and revolutions.

The Chinese Maritime Customs Service, which was led by British staff, is often seen as one of the key agents of Western imperialism in China, the customs revenue being one of the major sources of Chinese government income but a source much of which was pledged to Western banks as the collateral for, and interests payments on, massive loans. This book, however, based on extensive original research, considers the lower level staff of the Chinese Maritime Customs Service, and shows how the Chinese government, struggling to master Western expertise in many areas, pursued a deliberate policy of encouraging lower level staff to learn from their Western superiors with a view to eventually supplanting them, a policy which was successfully carried out. The book thereby demonstrates that Chinese engagement with Western imperialists was in fact an essential part of Chinese national state-building, and that what looked like a key branch of Chinese government delegated to foreigners was in fact very much under Chinese government control.

What are skill-mix innovations and why are they relevant? This systemic analysis of health workforce skill-mix innovations provides an overview of the evidence and lessons for implementation across multiple countries. The authors focus on six core segments of health systems: health promotion and prevention, acute care, chronic care, long-term and palliative care, as well as access for vulnerable groups and people living in underserved areas. In addition, the book analyses the roles of educational systems, workforce planning and policy, and financing within individual countries' healthcare organisations from a cross-country perspective. Although implementing skill-mix changes may be prone to stakeholder opposition or other barriers, this book helps identify ways to steer the process. The authors ultimately determine what skill-mix innovations exist, who may benefit from the changes and how to implement these changes within health systems. This Open Access title is the sixth book in Cambridge's European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies series.

Thoroughly updated and expanded with a new chapter on blockchain and increased coverage of cryptocurrency, as well as new data, this established advanced undergraduate textbook approaches the subject via first principles. It builds on a simple, clear monetary model and applies this framework consistently to a variety of monetary questions. Starting with trade being mutually beneficial, the authors demonstrate that money makes people better off, and that government money competes against other means of payments, including other types of government payments. After developing each of these topics, the book tackles the issue of money competing against other stores of value, examining issues associated with trade, finance, and modern banking. From simple economies to modern economies, the authors address the role banks play in making more trade possible, concluding with the information problems plaguing modern banking.

A decade after the Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession, developed economies continue to struggle under excessive household debt. While exacerbating inequality and political unrest, this debt - when combined with wage stagnation and a shrinking welfare state - has played a key role in maintaining economic growth and allowing households faced with rising costs of living to make ends meet. In Bankruptcy: The Case for Relief in an Economy of Debt, Joseph Spooner examines this economic model and finds it increasingly unsustainable. In a call to action to reduce debt burden, he turns to bankruptcy law, which is uniquely situated as a mechanism of social insurance against the risks of a debt-dependent economy. This book should be read by anyone interested in understanding the problem of consumer debt and how best to address it.

A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culprits-financial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flows-yet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It carefully takes the reader through the development of a banking industry dependent on mortgage securitization. Fligstein documents how banks, with help from the government, created the market for mortgage securities. The largest banks-Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Citibank, and Washington Mutual-soon came to participate in every aspect of this market. Each firm originated mortgages, issued mortgage-backed securities, sold those securities, and, in many cases, acted as their own best customers by purchasing the same securities. Entirely reliant on the throughput of mortgages, these firms were unable to alter course even when it became clear that the market had turned on them in the mid-2000s. With the structural features of the banking industry in view, the rest of the story falls into place. Fligstein explains how the crisis was produced, where it spread, why regulators missed the warning signs, and how banks' dependence on mortgage securitization resulted in predatory lending and securities fraud. An illuminating account of the transformation of the American financial system, The Banks Did It offers important lessons for anyone with a stake in avoiding the next crisis.

Written during the Second World War against the background of the economic and political futility of the 1930s, this book deals with the changing role of government, and particularly fiscal policy as an instrument for regulating the national income and its distribution. Arguing that the war had an economic basis - the inability of the great industrial nations to provide full employment at rising standards of real income - the book discusses how the failure to achieve a world order in the political sphere must be sought in the facts of economic frustration.

In the past 10 years spirituality and spiritual care have been much debated in professional healthcare literature, highlighting the need for a recognised definition of spiritual care to enable appropriate assessment of, and response to, spiritual issues. This accessible and highly relevant book surveys the numerous statements, guidelines and standards highlighted by these discussions, and equips healthcare professionals with the knowledge, skills and competence to provide the essence of spiritual care within their professional practice. Practical and evidence-based, this manual proves that delivery of good, professional spiritual care can build on intuitive human skills, and can be taught, learned, assessed and quantified. It gives readers the opportunity to move on from uncertainties about their role in the delivery of spiritual care by allowing them to asses and improve their understanding, skills and clinical practice in this area of care. Spiritual Care for Healthcare Professionals clearly grounds spiritual care in clinical practice. It is highly recommended for supporting academic study and encouraging healthcare practitioners to reflect on their practice and develop skills in spiritual assessment and care. Aimed at all healthcare professionals, it can be used by individual practitioners for continuing professional development as well as by academic staff developing educational programmes.

In a dramatic and well-argued challenge to the prevailing wisdom, Prosperity and Public Spending, first published in 1988, contends that the failure of Keynesian economics has been due to its timidity. Far from contracting, the government must expand its powers and activities, in order to achieve and maintain economic prosperity. The need for such expansion arises from the fact that the system has developed from a craft-based economy to a mass-production network with sophisticated international finance. This "transformational growth" brings about irreversible and sometimes devastating changes, requiring government action. Professor Nell argues that a lack of government action in the decade prior to the book's initial publication was responsible for the stagnation of the economy and he asserts that this could only be overcome by a determined policy intervention and the political will to achieve dominance over private capital.

This important book is concerned with the evaluation of changes in income distribution and the analysis of tax and transfer systems. The book begins with an introduction to the measurement of inequality and poverty, stressing the role of value judgements. The following six chapters deal with cross- sectional comparisons, including the analysis of a labour market model of income distribution, the choice of transfer system, marginal indirect tax reform, and the distributional effects of inflation. The next seven chapters are concerned with dynamic aspects of income distribution. These examine the complex relationship between cross-sectional and lifetime distributions, relative income mobility, and the effects of income mobility on temporary and permanent poverty. The Dynamics of Inequality and Poverty will be essential reading for students and scholars of public sector economics, welfare economics and social economics, along with those directly concerned with policy formulation.

How does government taxing and spending affect an economy, and how can we determine whether government policies promote a society's economic objectives? What economic activities should governments undertake? Should they do less? How should an optimal tax system be designed? What information is required to determine the best possible distribution of income? And what are the advantages (or otherwise) of a federalist structure of government?

These are the kind of dizzying questions addressed by those working in public sector economics, and this new title in the Routledge series, Critical Concepts in Economics, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subdiscipline's vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output.

Edited by Richard W. Tresch, author of a leading graduate textbook in the field, and a proponent of the mainstream theory of the public sector, this new Routledge Major Work brings together in four volumes the foundational and the very best cutting-edge scholarship to provide comprehensive coverage of many of the subdiscipline's most important topics.

Volume I (?Public Expenditures?) assembles the key work on the responses of governments to markets for desired goods and services that operate inefficiently or not at all. The main questions addressed include: what markets should a government become involved in to restore efficiency to the economy? How should it proceed in each instance to promote efficiency? And what are the factors that impede its efforts to restore efficiency?

Volume II (?Taxation?) collects the most important research on taxation and the principal normative issue of how best to design good taxes from an economic perspective (i.e. taxes that are simple, equitable, and do the least harm to a government's pursuit of efficiency). Issues explored here include the two main positive economic questions associated with taxation: how do the main taxes that governments use affect economic behaviour, primarily the supply of labour, saving and investment, and the incentives to evade paying these taxes; and tax incidence?who bears the burden of these taxes?

Volume III (?Distribution?) brings together the best work on the pursuit of equity by governments through its taxes and transfer payments. Fundamental questions tackled include the optimal amount of redistribution a government should undertake through taxes and transfers, and how it should best design its transfer programmes to meet distributional goals.

The scholarship assembled in the final volume (?Federalism?) explores the special problems that arise from having a tiered system of (supra-)national, state or provincial, and local governments. Primary issues within federalism include questions about which levels of government should perform the various legitimate functions of government, and how the movement of people in response to state/provincial and local taxes and expenditures affect the quest for equitable and efficient government policies. This volume also covers the important subsidiary debate over the use and effects of grants-in-aid from higher-level to lower-level governments.

Fully indexed and with a useful introduction to the collection, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context, Public Sector Economics is an essential work of reference. It is destined to be valued by scholars and students as a vital research resource.

Despite the pressure for local councils to follow the lead of the private sector and develop shared service and partnership arrangements, the barriers in terms of culture, differences in priorities across councils and lack of experience are formidable - yet this is the most likely source of meeting government targets for reduced overheads and improved organizational effectiveness. By using extensive case studies drawn from across local councils in England, Ray Tomkinson explains the implications of sharing service delivery, addresses concerns about loss of control and accountability, and demonstrates the potential advantages. He shows how to set up collaborative ventures, formal partnerships, shared service centres or special purpose vehicles, while pointing out possible pitfalls, thus enabling senior managers to follow all the necessary project steps to create an appropriate shared service. It seeks to examine the evidence of the cost, effectiveness and quality improvements achieved from sharings. This ground-breaking book has been written for everyone in local government; it explores the political and cultural barriers, and legislative/legal framework for joint workings, explains how to find an appropriate governance vehicle, and how to gain the commitment of partners. It deals with political and managerial concerns, risk aversion and parochial issues, and the possible impact on the reputation and performance of both sharers. Shared Services in Local Government is the only comprehensive study for the UK and it will ensure any public sector organization pursuing this route is able to approach the task of creating a shared service with a real understanding of the issues involved.

This innovative book sheds new light on the various transfer processes of economic knowledge from the academic environment to the outside world. The internationally acclaimed group of authors considers the transfer of knowledge in the teaching of economics, through public policy advice, and the spread of ideas across disciplinary boundaries. The economics profession is mainly concerned with the production of economic knowledge rather than the transfer of this knowledge outside the academic economics environment. The process of the production of knowledge and its final use has not been thoroughly investigated, and so relatively little is known about how this knowledge benefits public policy, private sector decisionmaking and the transfer of ideas across the social sciences. The leading contributors, including James M. Buchanan, Bob Coates, Bruno S. Frey, Heinz Konig, Anne Krueger and Charles Wyplosz, examine the transfer of knowledge from an interdisciplinary perspective addressing psychological, sociological and cultural issues. They also look at the theoretical analysis of the transfer of economic knowledge, focusing on public choice and political economy interpretations of economic policy advice, as well as institutional and management issues of policy advice. Finally they consider the challenges of teaching economics and explore the possibility of applying the new media for transferring economic knowledge.