The aim of this book is to analyse specific sets of macro and structural policies in selected Eastern European countries. The book includes studies on the major Western CIS countries, Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, plus a set of cross-country and regional studies. The analysis in this book contributes importantly to the discussion about the economic prospects of the CIS countries.

The 22 papers in this volume illustrate the itinerary of Henry Tulkens on the occasion of his retirement from teaching. The volume presents contemporary analysis of Tulkens classic papers on public sector economics. The collection is structured in four parts: I. Decentralized resource allocation processes for public and private goods - II. Environment, public goods and externalities - III. Efficiency analysis - IV. Fiscal competition and optimality.

This book presents a new approach to the public sector of the economy through the presentation of various issues relating to public-private partnerships in different economic systems.

This book examines the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Resolution proposed by Chairman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin and the House Committee on the Budget. The Congressional Budget Office provides a long-term analysis of the budget proposal and the Congressional Research Service explores the health care changes offered by this budget.

By 2040, over half of India's population will live in cities and towns. How many of them will live in slums? To prevent intense migration pressure on the handful of metros and state capitals and the resulting urban dehumanisation, policymakers must urgently focus on reviving India's small towns and big villages. Yet, most small town municipalities are in shambles; they lack resources, planning, data, maps, incentives and proper accounting. Corruption and power politics dog them, and citizens have no say or role in their running. This book looks at the kaleidoscope of municipal finance issues in India, keeping the small towns at the core, and argues for a radical change in the constitution and working of these municipalities, with effective devolution of funds, functions, and functionaries from the state level. It contends that municipal bodies need to function independently and with real participation of citizens to be the force of change that gives birth to a new urban India.

The annual federal budget deficit is the amount by which federal government outlays exceed revenues for a given fiscal year, with surpluses generated when revenues exceed outlays. Budget deficits or surpluses are often used to gauge national fiscal health, as budget balances over time determine levels of federal debt held by the public, and corresponding net interest payments required for debt service. During an economic downturn, budget deficits could be viewed as effective fiscal policy, with lawmakers enacting tax cuts and increasing federal spending to simulate economic activity. This book examines to what extent major legislative changes from 2001 to 2009 caused the budget to move from surplus to deficit.

The federal budget is central to Congress's ability to assert its "power of the purse". Federal budget decisions express Congress's priorities among competing aims and reinforce Congress's influence on federal policies. The budget also affects, and is affected by, the national economy as a whole. The federal budget over the next few fiscal years will likely face significant challenges to both revenues and outlays as a result of recent turmoil in the economy and financial markets. This new book explores the federal budget outlook and economic implications as concerns remain about the federal government's long-term fiscal situation. The rising costs of federal health care programs and the effects of the baby boom generation's retirement present serious challenges to fiscal stability.

Broken down into five sections explaining how public budgets are developed, Canadian Public Finance presents a comprehensive account of the budget process of the federal, provincial, and territorial governments. With a specific focus on the public policy process, Genevi ve Tellier walks readers through the five steps involved in the budget process including agenda-setting, formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Taking a close look at how much influence key decision-makers actually have over the budget process, Tellier highlights recent events that reveal the political, social, and economic constraints that impact budgetary decisions. Tellier uses key words and textboxes at the end of each chapter to reflect on current issues and new developments in the world of public finance, such as gender-sensitive budgets, performance-based budgeting, and fiscal transparency.

Addressing the chronic underestimation of capital and operating costs in urban transportation projects, this book provides a detailed analysis of the cost estimating process using case studies from three U.S. cities and outlines a practical framework for this process. The work goes beyond a simple quantitative approach to explaining cost underestimation and looks at the planning process as a tool for both argumentation and structuring the argumentation. This approach highlights the difficulties in several components of the estimating process and suggests specific and practical actions to address these problems. The proposed framework will strengthen the estimating function and the link between analysis and decision in urban transportation planning. This work will be of interest to scholars and practitioners in transportation planning, urban planning, and transportation engineering.

Public budgeting structure, process, legal framework and policy with examples from industrialized and developing countries

"Public Budgeting in Context" examines budgeting at all levels of U.S. government--federal, state, and local--and in a sample of governments around the world. The book assesses the context of public budgeting in these governments, especially the legal foundations for its practice and how the process and final budgets are impacted by governance structures, laws, various budget actors and different branches of government. The author presents focused attention on the influences on government budgets of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government, the bureaucracy, the public and the media. In light of worldwide fiscal malaise, especially during and since the Great Recession, this book illustrates the heightened complexity of the budgeting environment that pervades all governments today--industrialized or developing, large or small.

For those who like to dive into the details, the book presents numerous examples of public budgeting as practiced and points to the wealth of data available for analyses of the budgetary context and process, budget shares and results regarding virtually any government of interest. Chapters cover the constitutional and statutory provisions for budgeting in selected governments. Budget and policy agenda setting and executive leadership, legislative budget powers and the influence of the judiciary on modern government budgets are exposed. Budget execution requirements of the bureaucracy, the input of customers, clients and citizens to government budgets, and media influences on public budgets and agencies are highlighted. Budget mechanics--budget types, formats, timelines and reforms--are introduced and compared. Taxes and intergovernmental revenues are considered, with predominant tax choices at every level of government in the United States and those in a select, developing country represented. The book introduces an emerging method for investigating the outcomes of government spending--human rights budget analysis--and includes as an example the assessment of budget reform and results of public health spending in one selected government.

Highlights of "Public Budgeting in Context"Offers a comprehensive text for understanding public budgeting in governments of a variety of contexts and capacities and across different levelsWritten by a noted expert in the field of public budgeting and financial managementContains illustrative examples from industrialized and developing countriesGuides to innumerable datasets with information about governments and their budgetsIncludes a companion website filled with templates for budget and fiscal analysis

Unravel the complex issues of modern public budgeting using this unique presentation of its practice in a variety of governments in the U.S. and a select sample from around the world.

Public administration can be broadly described as the development, implementation and study of branches of government policy. The pursuit of the public good by enhancing civil society, ensuring a well-run, fair and effective public service are some of the goals of the field. Furthermore, government debt (also known as public debt or national debt) is money owed by any level of government, either central government, federal government, municipal government or local government. As the government draws its income from society as a whole, public debt can be seen as an indirect debt of the taxpayers. Conversely, non-governmental organisation (NGO) is a term that has become widely accepted for referring to a legally constituted, non-governmental organisation created by natural or legal persons with no participation or representation of any government. In the cases in which NGOs are funded totally or partially by governments, the NGO maintains its non-governmental status, thereby excluding government representatives from membership in the organisation. This book gathers the latest research from around the globe in the discussion of these fields and related issues.

Appropriations are one part of a complex federal budget process that includes budget resolutions, appropriations (regular, supplemental, and continuing) bills, rescissions, and budget reconciliation bills. The process begins with the President's budget request and is bounded by the rules of the House and Senate, the Congressional Budget and Impoundment Control Act of 1974 (as amended), the Budget Enforcement Act of 1990, and current program authorisations. This book is a guide to the regular appropriations bills that Congress considers each year. It is designed to supplement the information provided by the House Committee on Appropriations and Senate Subcommittee on Legislative Branch of the Senate Committee on Appropriations. It summarises the current legislative status of the bill, its scope, major issues, funding levels, and related legislative activity.

The book presents the economic policy model known as "Social Market Economy" in Germany, the country where it originated. Although the model has since been adopted as core objective in the EU Treaty of Lisbon, experts still disagree on its exact nature. The author contributes to this debate by presenting the German economic system from an external perspective and looking at the extent to which it enabled the country increase its weight in international relations. The systems history, identity, political and economic concepts, including ordoliberalism, are analyzed. Its potential and shortcomings are assessed by comparing it to other forms of capitalism. A brief enquiry is made into whether the "Social Market Economy", or aspects of it, are applicable to other countries, including in Eastern Europe. Providing both theoretical and practical aspects, the book offers a valuable resource for researchers, public administration professionals, and policymakers.

This book aims to provide knowledge on how infrastructure is planned and built in a typical developing country, and what key variables are there in the system limiting the efficient use of public investments in infrastructure. The book begins with a comprehensive literature review on construction and economic development, and trade and economic development. The focus of the book is on the case of Vietnam, with lessons drawn for other developing economies. The book employs the mixed use of data to provide a stronger basis for analysis and interpretation of related government policies. Based on the research findings, the book recommends significant capacity building work for Vietnam to develop capacities that would remove constraints on the efficient use of public investments in infrastructure. The general principles of significant capacity building work which are useful for policy implications are introduced in the book. Analysts, academics, public and private communities in developing countries can adopt the research findings as guiding principles to bring about changes in their current use of public investments in infrastructure, thus supporting their trade and economic growth in the long term.

This book provides a thorough legal analysis of sovereign indebtedness, examining four typologies of sovereign debt bilateral debt, multilateral debt, syndicated debt and bonded debt in relation to three crucial contexts: genesis, restructuring and litigation. Its treatise-style approach makes it possible to capture in a systematic manner a phenomenon characterized by high complexity and unclear boundaries. Though the analysis is mainly conducted on the basis of international law, the breadth of this topical subject has made it necessary to include other sources, such as private international law, domestic law and financial practice; moreover, references are made to international financial relations and international financial history so as to provide a more complete understanding. Although it follows the structure of a continental "tractatus, "the work strikes a balance between consideration of doctrinal and jurisprudential sources, making it a valuable reference work for scholars and practitioners alike."

This textbook uses modern political economy to introduce students of political science, government, economics, and public policy to the politics of the policymaking process. The book's distinct political economy approach has two virtues. By developing general principles for thinking about policymaking, it can be applied across a range of issue areas. It also unifies the policy curriculum, offering coherence to standard methods for teaching economics and statistics, and drawing connections between fields. The book begins by exploring the normative foundations of policymaking--political theory, social choice theory, and the Paretian and utilitarian underpinnings of policy analysis. It then introduces game theoretic models of social dilemmas--externalities, coordination problems, and commitment problems--that create opportunities for policy to improve social welfare. Finally, it shows how the political process creates technological and incentive constraints on government that shape policy outcomes. Throughout, concepts and models are illustrated and reinforced with discussions of empirical evidence and case studies. This textbook is essential for all students of public policy and for anyone interested in the most current methods influencing policymaking today. * Comprehensive approach to politics and policy suitable for advanced undergraduates and graduate students* Models unify policy curriculum through methodological coherence * Exercises at the end of every chapter* Self-contained appendices cover necessary game theory* Extensive discussion of cases and applications

In this book the authors demonstrate how the economics of insurance, risk reduction, and damage control or limitation can be combined with concepts of collective choice and collective behavior to improve analysis of the escalating threats faced by alliances throughout the world. The book develops a theory of risk management as integrating likelihood of loss, magnitude of loss, and isolation from loss into a consolidated model. It extends existing concepts of individual risk management by a single person to decision theory for an entire country, managed by a government bureaucracy and lodged in a universe of overlapping alliances. The authors uncover a tendency, inherent in any bureaucracy for policy coordination in the realm of risk control to fail because of misunderstanding, disinterest, or perverse incentives. Understanding such incentives is essential to any sort of progress in risk management of proliferating national and global threats. Self-protection aims to reduce the chances of loss. This reduction may require the use, or threat or promise of use, of defensive military weapons or, depending on context, the use of offensive military weapons. Japan's constitution limits Japan to use of defensive measures only, even if Japan and the USA have formed a military alliance. This places Japan at an "economic corner solution" of providing only self-insurance. However, the Abe government intends to change the interpretation of the constitution so that Japan can provide a full range of self-protection as well as self-insurance. With the prospect of such constitutional change, this book becomes of special relevance to Japan's national security.

Despite the success of policymakers and the European Central Bank in calming down financial markets since the summer of 2012, European leaders are still facing formidable challenges in making the single currency work in a complex environment. This book starts with a review of the necessary elements of a currency union and highlights the reasons why the system has run into its present troubles. It points to important policy recommendations to be drawn from a structural analysis of the currency union, achievements and failures of the currency union and ways to improve fiscal sustainability and arrive at stable macroeconomic performance for the union. It highlights the importance and the effectiveness of structural reforms that have to accompany fiscal consolidation and discusses the appropriate tools of crisis management and why a restructuring of the Eurozone is not the right step. Based on these considerations, a long-term target picture for the Eurozone as a part of the EU is outlined, providing a valuable contribution to a hopefully intense public debate in the coming years.

This instructor's manual complements the textbook Money: Theory and Practice which provides an introduction to modern monetary economics for advanced undergraduates, highlighting the lessons learned from the recent financial crisis. The manual provides teachers with exercises and examples that reflect both the core New Keynesian model and recent advances, taking into account financial frictions, and discusses recent research on an intuitive level based on simple static and two-period models.

Budgeting for the federal government is an enormously complex process. This book provides a comprehensive explanation of the federal budget process, including an overview and separate chapters on the framework for budget enforcement; the President's budget; the congressional budget resolution and reconciliation; revenues and borrowing; authorisations and direct spending; annual appropriations; and the implementation of spending laws. In addition, a thorough explanation is provided pertaining to the federal budget process; the understanding of how it works and how the data is interpreted. Excerpts from legislation, standard forms and other documentation developed at each stage of the budget process are exhibited. Appended materials include a listing of milestones in the federal budget process, citations to major budgetary laws and a glossary of budgetary terms.

This book presents latest research in the field of Political Economy, dealing with the integration of economics and politics and the way institutions affect social decisions. The focus is on innovative topics such as an institutional analysis based on case studies; the influence of activists on political decisions; new techniques for analyzing elections, involving game theory and empirical methods.

Decisions about "who gets what, when, and how" are perhaps the most important that any government must make. So it should not be remarkable that around the world, public officials responsible for public budgeting are facing demands --from their own citizenry, other government officials, economic actors, and increasingly from international sources --to make their patterns of spending more transparent and their processes more participatory.

Surprisingly, rigorous analysis of the causes and consequences of fiscal transparency is thin at best. Open Budgets seeks to fill this gap in existing knowledge by answering a few broad questions: How and why do improvements in fiscal transparency and participation come about? How are they sustained over time? When and how do increased fiscal transparency and participation lead to improved government responsiveness and accountability?

Contributors: Steven Friedman (Rhodes University/University of Johannesburg); Jorge Antonio Alves (Queens College, CUNY) and Patrick Heller (Brown University); Jong-sung You (University of California --San Diego) and Wonhee Lee (Hankyung National University); John M. Ackerman (National Autonomous University of Mexico and Mexican Law Review); Aaron Schneider (University of Denver) and Annabella Espa?a-Naj?ra (California State University?Fresno); Barak D. Hoffman (Georgetown University); Jonathan Warren and Huong Nguyen (University of Washington); Linda Beck (University of Maine?Farmington and Columbia University), E. H. Seydou Nourou Toure (Institut Fondamental de l'Afrique Noire), and Aliou Faye (Senegal Ministry of the Economy and Finance).

The international community has committed to scaling up aid and improving aid delivery to low-income countries to help them meet the Millennium Development Goals. Other 'emerging' donors, public and private, are increasing their assistance, and debt-relief initiatives are creating space for new borrowing. Remittances to low-income countries have been on a precipitous rise, and many countries are benefiting from high commodity prices. ""Fiscal Management of Scaled-Up Aid"" explores approaches to the sound fiscal management that will be required to ensure effective and sustainable use of these flows. With a medium-term perspective and efficient use of resources in mind, this paper addresses questions that shape fiscal policy response to scaled-up aid. Drawing on IMF Fiscal Affairs Department technical assistance to member countries, it outlines factors that should be taken into account in preparing an action plan for public financial management reform, and proposes specific measures that will assist countries in strengthening fiscal institutions.