This book explores public budgeting in India. As government finances play an important role in the social and economic development of a nation, it focuses on public budgeting in the context of India. The respective chapters not only discuss the underlying principles of budgeting, but also address the practical issues related to the government's financial operations and their macro-economic implications. Recently there has been considerable debate surrounding the size of government, with the neo-liberal framework advocating a very limited governmental role. This book provides comprehensive information on the practical aspects of public budgeting with regard to how governments raise revenues, how they are spent, the nature of public services provided, and their implications for the social and economic development of the country against the backdrop of public budgeting theory. The topics covered include the constitutional fiscal framework; theories, structure and issues related to budgets; mechanisms of budget construction, budget execution, public budgeting and performance assessment; government accounting; and financial accountability.

This collection brings together legal scholars, canonists and political scientists to focus on the issue of public funding in support of religious activities and institutions in Europe. The study begins by revolving around the various mechanisms put in place by the domestic legal systems, as well as those resulting from the European law of human rights and the law of the European Union. It then goes on to look at state support and particular religious groups. The presentation of European and national law is supplemented by theoretical and interdisciplinary contributions, with the main focus being to bring into discussion and map the relationship between the funding of religions and the economy and to infer from it an attempt at a systematic examination or theorization of such funding. This collection is essential reading for those studying Law and Religion, with particular focus on the countries of the UK, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, The Netherlands, Spain and Turkey. The views expressed during the execution of the RELIGARE project, in whatever form and or by whatever medium, are the sole responsibility of the authors. The European Union is not liable for any use that may be made of the information contained therein.

Does the European Union need closer fiscal integration, and in particular a stronger fiscal centre, to become more resilient to economic shocks? This book looks at the experience of 13 federal states to help inform the heated debate on this issue. It analyses in detail their practices in devolving responsibilities from the subnational to the central level, compares them to those of the European Union, and draws lessons for a possible future fiscal union in Europe.

More specifically, this book tries to answer three sets of questions: What is the role of centralized fiscal policies in federations, and hence the size, features and functions of the central budget? What institutional arrangements are used to coordinate fiscal policy between the federal and subnational levels? What are the links between federal and subnational debt, and how have subnational financing crises been handled, when they occurred? These policy questions are critical in many federations, and central to the current discussions about future paths for the European Union.

This book brings to the table new, practical insights through a systematic and comprehensive comparison of the EU fiscal framework with that of federal states. It also departs from the decentralization perspective that has been prominent in the literature by focusing on the role of the centre (which responsibilities are centralized at the federal level and how they are handled, rather than which functions belong to the local level). Such an approach is particularly relevant for the European Union, where a fiscal union would imply granting new powers to the centre.

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.

This book examines how credit and finance schemes affect the financial lives of vulnerable people around the world. These schemes include payday lending, matched savings, and financial literacy in the Global North, and micro-credit and mobile banking in the Global South. Buckland sets these schemes within the context of financialization and seeks to identify strengths, weaknesses, and ways to enhance the well-being of vulnerable people. This book's coverage of a wide range of financial products and geographic regions makes for a unique and innovative perspective on this topic. It presents a balanced critique of credit and finance schemes under the assumption that reform is the most practical means to improve human well-being.

This collection of essays deals with aspects of the recent fiscal crisis in developing countries. Macro aspects cover theoretical underpinning of fiscal policy, the size of the required adjustment and the link between internal and external transfers. Micro aspects cover the relation between private and public investment, the experience of tax and expenditure reforms and the impact of fiscal adjustment on the poor. The essays are by applied economists, who analyze real-life issues.

The Friedman-Lucas Transition in Macroeconomics: A Structuralist Approach considers how and to what extent monetarist and new classical theories of the business-cycle can be regarded as approximately true descriptions of a cycle's causal structure or whether they can be no more than useful predictive instruments. This book will be of interest to upper-division undergraduates, graduate students, researchers and professionals concerned with practical, theoretical and historical aspects of macroeconomics and business-cycle modeling.

With all levels of governments currently, and for the foreseeable future, under significant fiscal stress, any new transit funding mechanism is to be welcomed. Value capture (VC) is one such mechanism, which involves the identification and capture of a public infrastructure-led increase in property value. This book reviews four major VC mechanisms: joint development projects; special assessment districts; impact fees; and tax increment financing; all of which are used to fund transit in the United States. Through the study of prominent examples of these VC mechanisms from across the US, this book evaluates their performance focusing on aspects such as equity, revenue-generating potential, stakeholder support, and the legal and policy environment. It also conducts a comparative assessment of VC mechanisms to help policy makers and practitioners to choose one, or a combination of VC mechanisms. Although the book focuses on the US, the use of the VC mechanisms and the urgent need for additional revenue to fund public transportation are world-wide concerns. Therefore, an overview of the VC mechanisms in use internationally is also provided.

The European Union (EU) has reached crisis point. Populist and Nativist forces are militating against years of austerity economics, distant elites, and a rising tide of migration. Despite the EU's shortcomings, this book seeks to determine the future of the EU, outlining how the institution can learn lessons from the elements that have plunged much of Europe into social, economic and political turmoil. This book argues for reform not revolution. By interviewing politicians, economists, representatives of national bodies and EU citizens, this book provides unique insights never before disclosed and makes a major contribution to current debates on the future of the EU and the Eurozone.

This book talks about the past realities, evolving roles and future directions of sovereign wealth fund (SWF) managers in these areas: Investment behavior of SWF managers up to this point due to their massive size: How sovereign wealth funds may behave differently from commercial investment houses managing comparable amounts of assets The evolving role of these SWF managers as "investors of last resort" during the Financial Crisis, and whether there are better ways to understand their investing behavior given that they can destabilize entire market segments Future market scenarios given the likely roles SWF managers going forward, when they may be the only type of entities available with sufficient balance sheets to offer a credible solution to the underlying cause of the Financial Crisis, which is global imbalance. Analyses in this book were developed by working with real-life portfolios of comparable size, making them realistic and useful for investors, allocators as well as policymakers to understand sovereign wealth investments as well as their investment and policy implications.

America is currently involved in one of the worst economic crises of modern times. As alarm increases over how the government will balance the budget, handle the debt, and maintain prosperity for the future, the minutia of debts and deficits remains incomprehensible to many. Why is it so hard to find ways to resolve the fiscal crisis? This brief and intelligible book is a guide to understanding both the difficulties involved in managing the federal budget and why the on-going fiscal crisis is so significant for America's future. In order to introduce the reader to the basic composition of federal spending and to the ways that the government raises revenue, Hudson begins his guide with a "map" clarifying how to navigate the federal budget. He defines basic financial vocabulary and outlines concepts by using clear charts and diagrams that both provide basis for discussion and illustrate key points. With this budget map in mind, the second part of the book lays out how the partisan divide in America helps explain the fiscal crisis. Hudson analyzes the debate on the extent of the fiscal crisis, the ways that political parties have tried to solve it, and the political events and institutions that have surrounded the crisis. This citizen's guide reveals how differing views of America inform the arguments over deficits and debt. By the time readers finish the book, they will understand that the conflict over deficits and debt is not simply about where to cut or add spending, but instead is a struggle over national priorities and visions for the future.

Confronted with rising citizen discontent, the Reinventing Government movement, and new technological challenges, public organizations everywhere are seeking means of improving their performance. Their quest is not new, rather, the concern with improving the performance of government organizations has existed since the Scientific Management Movement. "Public Sector Performance" brings together in a single volume the classic, enduring principles and processes that have defined the field of public sector performance, as written in the words of leading practitioners and scholars. Taken as a whole, this volume provides a performance compass for today's public managers, helping them to reconstruct the public's confidence in, and support of, government.Defined here as managing public organizations for outcomes, performance is examined in all its varied dimensions: organizing work, managing workers, measuring performance, and overcoming resistance to performance-enhancing innovations. The selected articles are interesting, thought provoking, and instructive. They are classics in that they have been widely cited in the scholarly literature and have enduring value to public managers who seek to understand the many dimensions of performance. The book is organized into three sections: Performance Foundations, Performance Strategies, and Performance Measurement. Excerpts from additional selected articles feature special topics and wisdom from performance experts.

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.

Decentralism of political power to regions and local government occurs worldwide in response to demands from the periphery. Such devolution of power raises a number of problems - political, financial, and legal. By gathering together important papers from a series of workshops sponsored by the SNS Constitutional Project and the Center for European Integration Studies, this volume presents a number of these problems from a truly interdisciplinary perspective. The authors believe that fiscal federalism, while originating in formally federal states, is relevant also to the analysis of state-local relationships in unitary states with some degree of regional or local authority. Among the topics they cover are the division of responsibilities and powers of taxation, bailouts, systems of equalization, and state grants, as well as problems related to democracy and citizens' rights. While the book's primary focus is Nordic, its international perspective is enhanced by contributions from Europe, Canada, and the U.S.

This book discusses contemporary banking and monetary policy issues from the perspective of the Austrian School of Economics. Based on the heritage of the Austrian school, leading scholars and practitioners offer a coherent diagnosis and analysis of the factors leading to Europe's current financial crisis. The first part of the book discusses Ludwig von Mises's and Friedrich August von Hayek's ideas on banking and monetary policy from both historical and economic standpoints. It includes contributions on Austrian monetary dynamics and micro-foundational business cycle theory, von Mises's concepts of liquidity and solvency of fractional-reserve banks, and liberalism of Austrian economics. The second part analyzes the measures taken by the European Central Bank (ECB) in light of the ideas of von Mises and Hayek. It includes contributions on non-neutrality of money, ECB monetary policy, and the future of the ECB. The third and final part presents discussions on monetary reforms, including contributions on Bitcoins, Cryptocurrencies and anti-deflationist Paranoia.

First published in 1980, Public Spending Decisions attempts to answer some important questions regarding public spending and its relationship with economic and financial stringency. By the beginning of the 1970s the expectation of continuing economic growth had become implicit in the attitudes of politicians, administrators, and the public in Britain; likewise, the assumption of the growth of public spending had become embedded in the machinery and processes of both local and central government. How then were the local authorities and government departments affected by the abrupt halt in the growth of public spending during 1970s? How were the decisions made about the allocation of increasingly scares resources? How did the treasury ensured that the spending limits it established were not exceeded and what are the implications of changes in the attitudes of decision makers towards the growth of the public sector? The contributors are distinguished scholars in the field of local and central government. This book is a must read for scholars of public policy, public administration, finance, and economics.

A plain-English explanation of federal deficits and debt and the threat they pose to our nation and our children's future In this immensely timely book, Andrew Yarrow brings the sometimes eye-glazing discussion of national debt down to earth, explaining in accessible terms why federal debt is rising (and will soon rise much faster), what effects it may have on Americans if debt is not brought under control, why our government borrows, and what it will take to pay it all back. The picture Yarrow paints should concern all Americans. Specifically, he brings to light how rising Medicare, Social Security, and other spending on one hand, and insufficient government revenues on the other, make a mockery of fiscal responsibility. Deficits and debt, Yarrow asserts, are crowding out spending on needed investments in science, environment, infrastructure, and other domestic discretionary programs and could severely harm our nation's and our citizens' future. But he makes clear that this does not have to be a doomsday scenario. If we act in a bipartisan fashion to restore fiscal health, our legacy to the next generation can be much more than trillions of dollars of IOUs.

The aim of this book is to document, on a solid and convincing foundation, two public policy mistakes of the United States Government that have been extremely costly. First, the failure to combine stocks with long-term government bonds in the Social Security Trust Fund, the way other nations do, has resulted not only in an investment shortfall well into the trillions of dollars, but has also reduced US and global economic growth and increased the national debt. Second, by employing the Unified Budget concept beginning in 1970, the US Government has since then understated its financial deficits by more than $4 trillion and in doing so it has shielded the increase in the debt owed to the public by roughly half.This study puts forth the notion of Social Security as a minimal safety net is consistent with the views of both Adam Smith and Friedrich Hayek and that private social security accounts are inefficient and subject to moral hazard and huge productivity losses. It also introduces a novel approach to long-term investing suitable for perpetual funds consistent with the empirical phenomena of risk premia and mean reversion, including no asset sales and the use of short-term borrowing on a rollover basis to cover negative net inflows.The study also proposes that payroll taxes be re-labeled Social Security Contributions and that the Social Security System be made independent and professionally managed based on the Federal Reserve System model.

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.

There is no magic formula for balancing fiscal policy and economic performance. As a scholar and policy advisor, Vito Tanzi has made a major contribution to identifying links between public finance and macro- and microeconomic consequences. His findings bear relevance in both developing and industrialized economies. The essays in this volume and its companion, Fiscal Policy and Economic Reforms, highlight many of these interconnected issues, for instance the interaction between budgetary policy and economic aggregates, such as employment, inflation and growth, and the implication of economic linkages for designing fiscal policies. Further areas of interconnection include expenditure policies and alternative deficit financing strategies, and the trade-offs between macro- and microeconomic objectives. The list of contributors includes Max Corden, John Makin, Ronald McKinnon and Richard Musgrave.

The People's Republic of China has completed the first decade of economic reform with remarkable achievements. At the same time, it is encountering severe economic problems in runaway inflation, crippling shortages, and large trade imbalances. This work uses a macroeconomic framework of development and financial repression theories to examine the PRC's performance. Improvements in the PRC's financial productivity, according to the author, can be achieved if Chinese leaders either (1) relax the real interest rate ceiling to discourage unproductive investment and free financial resources or (2) hasten the development of the equity market.

Fiscal policy is an incredibly important tool for governments across the world, with many countries facing dilemmas in crafting fiscal policies to meet changing demographic needs, greater demands for social welfare and sudden spending due to shocks such as terrorism. This important book looks at fiscal policy in the Asian Pacific economies and with a broad array of contributors will be a useful tool to students, researchers and professionals working in international economics and finance.

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 sheds new light on the critical importance of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), a remarkably successful central bank that is a model for developing oil exporters worldwide. As a "swing producer", Saudi Arabia has traditionally stepped in to make up for oil supply shortfalls in other OPEC countries, or to scale back their own production when overabundance might lead to a price crash. Since 2014, Saudi Arabia has changed its policy in response to the rise of American shale oil, in search of a long-term strategy that will, once again, help balance supply and demand at a steady price. In its informal dual role of central bank and sovereign wealth fund, SAMA must navigate the paradoxes faced by monoline oil producing countries: the need for diversification vs. dependence on oil-based revenue; the loss of foreign exchange reserves that follows oil-financed government spending; the unreliability of revenue from oil; the challenges of using a Western model for supervising Shariah-compliant banks; and the need to have a balancing mix of oil and financial assets. As SAMA (now the Saudi Arabian Monetary Authority) reassesses its role in 2017, this history and guide to current policy issues will prove invaluable for policymakers in oil producing economies looking to apply lessons from the past as they plan for the future.