Public budgets follow rules of presentation and use terms that make sense to few outside the world of public finance. Moreover, practices vary widely among the thousands of governments across the globe, between federal, state, and local levels of government in the United States, and among nonprofit organizations, many of which provide services similar to governments. Understanding Government Budgets, Second Edition offers a detailed examination of each of the different types of information found in budgets, featuring annotated examples from a variety of organizations. It expands on explanations in the previous edition by including a wealth of examples from governments abroad and from the nonprofit sector. The book stresses that the choices made about content, format, and organization influence the story a budget tells. Designed to help citizens, students, and policy makers become more informed users of public budgets, this book makes the format of budgets and the information they contain accessible and understandable, providing users with the tools they need to make better sense of public organizations and their performance. Complete with online instructor support material including sample problems, in-class exercises, and discussion questions for each chapter, Understanding Government Budgets, Second Edition is perfect for undergraduate or graduate-level courses in budgeting and public administration, and offers a useful guide to budgets for citizens with an interest in how government operates.

The Global Debt Bomb describes the rapid increase in public and private debt in the G7 nations since the 1960s, why this debt has grown so quickly, and what the economic, political, and social consequences of this rise in debt have been. International in focus, this book broadens the debate on public debt to include household and corporate debt, avoids alarmist rhetoric, and puts our current problems in historical perspective.

The central message of The Global Debt Bomb is that the debt-induced financial crisis that affected the Pacific Rim and much of the developing world in 1998 will likely spread to the industrialized countries in Europe and North America when current market and asset "bubbles" burst. How to prevent or mitigate another possible crisis is the primary contribution of this book.

Within a historical perspective, Clayton clearly explains the "culture of debt" - its definition, how it got to be such a major burden, why we can't live without it, and ways to manage it more efficiently. He addresses the development of debt over the course of the 20th century in both the US and world economies. This comprehensive multidisciplinary analysis covers all aspects of debt - benefits and necessity; the impact (both good and bad) on individuals, corporations and governments; and lessons to be learned from the past. Clayton, drawing on current research and extensive primary data in economics, political science, and history, concludes that with our rapacious accumulation of debt and common-place use of "debt-finance", our society has set itself up for a significant financial decline.

This comprehensive new text breaks the mould of traditional Public Sector Economics texts. It provides the student with a solid grounding in theory and focuses on how this theory can be applied to a broad range of contemporary issues such as health and education, the monopoly regulation and privatisation, as well as taxes and incentives. This approach teaches the student to understand how the public sector interacts with the rest of the economy, why governments act in the way they do, enabling them to evaluate policies and their alternatives.

Economists and political scientists deal with three major areas of concern: the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets, the planned federal reforms in the health-care field that will shift costs to the state and local sectors, and trends in federal aid. Focusing on the impact of US devolution of responsibility and costs to the states, they find that the state economies can accommodate the challenges generally, but that the effect of welfare reform is too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.

Eighteen years of Conservative stewardship ensured that the Labour government's education policy did not begin with a tabula rasa, for its starting point has been defined by the previous government to a greater extent than any other incoming government has found. In this book the practitioners discuss the micro effect of the policies in their schools. This book will make an important contribution to continuing debate about the best way forward for state education in England and Wales.

This volume is a follow-up to the earlier "Urban Economics, Volume 2" of "Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics," edited by Edwin Mills. The earlier volume, published in 1987, focussed on urban economic theory. This new handbook, in contrast, focuses on applied urban research. The difference is of course in emphasis. The earlier volume was by no means entirely concerned with theoretical research and this one is by no means entirely concerned with applied research.

There have certainly been important theoretical developments during the last decade, and they are surveyed at appropriate places in this volume. However, there has been an outpouring of high quality applied research in urban economics, as in other specialties. The reasons for the rapid growth of applied research are not difficult to identify; improved theoretical frameworks within which to do applied research; improved econometric techniques and software; more and better data; and, probably most important, ever cheaper computing power, which is being ever more widely distributed within the research community, providing increasingly easy access to and analysis of, data.

Selection and classification of topics to include in this handbook has inevitably depended on the editors' perceptions of subjects on which important research has been undertaken. It has also depended on the availability of authors who were able and willing to write critical surveys of large amounts of international research. An attempt was made to include authors and have them survey research from a variety of countries. However, there is still a US bias in applied urban research, partly related to the availability of data and computers but also to the sheer size of the US research community.

For more information on the Handbooks in Economics series, please see our home page on http: //www.elsevier.nl/locate/hes

The authors of this work examine the dominant view that voluntary activity promotes social capital and hence good government, but also explore alternative models for the creation of social capital. Theoretical discussion is combined with detailed case studies to provide a new explanation of :
* the origins and nature of social capital
* its effects on political participation and policy-making
* the role of the voluntary sector
Contributors go on to examine the possibility that current changes in the voluntary sector may in fact undermine social capital and consider the consequences.
This book is an important step forward in this rapidly growing field of research and adds a unique European perspective to a debate which has been largely US-focussed.

The recent devolution to the states of responsibilities previously held by the federal government -- a key goal of the deficit-reduction, smaller-government agenda of the 1990s -- has far-reaching implications for state budgets. At the moment, a strong economy has put most states into a strong enough fiscal condition to shoulder such burdens as welfare reform and public investment. But beneath the current surpluses are structural problems that are unlikely to withstand the next economic downturn; as a result, any essential public needs will be left unmet. This book deal with three major areas of concern: first, the effect of moving large numbers of welfare recipients into labor markets; second, the planned federal reforms in the health care field that will shift costs to the state and local sector; and third, trends in federal aid. A basic finding of these essays is that state economies can accommodate these challenges generally speaking, but the effect of recent welfare reform presents a problem too long-range to be adequately assessed in the near-term.

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.

In "Honest Numbers and Democracy," Walter Williams offers a revealing history of policy analysis in the federal government and a scorching critique of what's wrong with social policy analysis today. Williams, a policy insider who witnessed the birth of domestic policy analysis during the Johnson administration, contends that the increasingly partisan U.S. political environment is vitiating both "honest numbers" -- the data used to direct public policy -- and, more importantly, honest analysts, particularly in the White House.

Drawing heavily on candid off-the-record interviews with political executives, career civil servants, elected officials and Washington-based journalists, Williams documents the steady deformation of social policy analysis under the pressure of ideological politics waged by both the executive and legislative branches. Beginning with the Reagan era and continuing into Clinton's tenure, Williams focuses on the presidents' growing penchant to misuse and hide numbers provided by their own analysts to assist in major policy decisions.

"Honest Numbers and Democracy" is the first book to examine in-depth the impact of the electronic revolution, its information overload, and rampant public distrust of the federal government's data on the practice of policy analysis.

A hard-hitting account of the factors threatening the credibility of the policymaking process, this book will be required reading for policy professionals, presidential watchers, and anyone interested in the future of U.S. democracy.

In the public sector at the moment resources are scarce - or at the very least finite and limited - how they are allocated is therefore of crucial importance.
This book analyses this process and examines the competing values that underlie the public service ethic, including the role of markets and quasi-markets, in the delivery of public services.
Topics discussed include:
* whether people should be denied the public services they need because public bodies are short of money
* what balance we should strike between markets and public organisations to provide public services
* whether the use of markets has gone too far and whether we need to return to a public service ethic

The widespread restructuring and privatization of UK public services has fundamentally changed the nature of society. This text is an examination of all aspects of public sector management. It includes: recent developments in the public sector and policy making; analysis of the role of markets and quasi markets in the allocation and delivery of public services; the heuristics and dialectics of resource allocation; news stories from the press, such as the story of "child B" to illustrate arguments; and two diagnostic inventories "Monksbane and Feverfew" and "RAPS" which readers can use to assess their own values about public services.

The main focus of downsizing has shifted from the private to the public sector. The cutbacks began in the Department of Defense. Now the goal is a federal civilian workforce reduction of 12 percent by the year 2000.

This pioneering study looks at the management of workforce reductions in the public sector both in theory and in practice. Three case studies -- of the Defense Logistics Agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Food and Drug Administration -- illustrate the organizational, managerial, and human dimensions of attempting to improve performance with reduced resources. The author draws on extensive interviews with senior executives and middle managers in the three agencies; at the General Accounting Office, the Office of Personnel Management, and the National Performance Review; the Senior Executives Association and the Federal Managers Association; and scholars and researchers.

In a larger sense, this work pushes the boundaries of knowledge concerning organizational change and makes a significant contribution to organization theory. It offers important new insights not only for public sector managers but for organization theorists and management specialists whose work on downsizing has been presumed but not shown to be applicable to the public sector.

The main focus of downsizing has shifted from the private to the public sector. The cutbacks began in the Department of Defense. Now the goal is a federal civilian workforce reduction of 12 percent by the year 2000. This pioneering study looks at the management of workforce reductions in the public sector both in theory and in practice. Three case studies -- of the Defense Logistics Agency, the Bureau of Reclamation, and the Food and Drug Administration -- illustrate the organizational, managerial, and human dimensions of attempting to improve performance with reduced resources. The author draws on extensive interviews with senior executives and middle managers in the three agencies; at the General Accounting Office, the Office of Personnel Management, and the National Performance Review; the Senior Executives Association and the Federal Managers Association; and scholars and researchers. In a larger sense, this work pushes the boundaries of knowledge concerning organizational change and makes a significant contribution to organization theory. It offers important new insights not only for public sector managers but for organization theorists and management specialists whose work on downsizing has been presumed but not shown to be applicable to the public sector.

Financial Regulation presents an important restatement of the purposes and objectives of financial regulation. The authors provide details and data on the scale, nature and costs of regulatory problems around the world, and look at what sort of countries and sectors require special attention and policies. Key topics covered include: * the need to recast the form of regulation * incentive structures for financial regulation * proportionality * new techniques for risk management * regulation in emerging countries * crisis management * prospects for financial regulation in the future.

Presenting emphases on and approaches to issues such as government spending, reporting, pricing and fiscal federalism, the Handbook of Public Finance demonstrates the utility of integrating public finance theory with actual public policy practices. It discusses applications in major subfields of public finance, including public education, environmental regulation, energy policy, social welfare programs, and local and state politics. Other topics of discussion include the theory and practice of tax incidence analysis; the marginal costs of taxation and regulation, the economics of expenditure incidence, discounting and the social discount rate; passive use benefits, and public sector pricing.

This wide-ranging, up-to-date and detailed account of all aspects of public economics covers topics as varied as:

* classical theorems of welfare economics
* the theory of public expenditure
* the effects of taxation on savings, labour supply investment and risk-taking
* commodity, income and expenditure taxation
* public sector and cost-benefit analysis
* fiscal federalism.

Written by Raghbendra Jha, an author with an established reputation, this book fills the gap in literature on this topic and will be a valuable reference for undergraduates in the fields of economics and public finance.

Modern Public Economics covers this popular subject area in an accessible and user-friendly way. Topics are coherently explored and include welfare economics, taxation theory, applied problems in public economics and fiscal federalism. All results are explicitly derived, making analysis of topics much clearer for students. The book also interweaves topics from the frontiers of research, giving students a basis from which to participate in contemporary discussions. This book will be of great use to advanced undergraduates and also postgraduates in Public Economics.

This text clarifies and consolidates existing knowledge about the development of the Treasury's role in public policy making. The book focuses on three main areas: the development of the Treasury from earliest times to the present, giving special attention to the last 25 years; the Treasury's current structure and organization at both ministerial and official level, including the radical changes that were introduced in 1995 as a result of the 1994 Fundamental Expenditure Review; the Treasury's role in the financing and responsibility of Next Steps Agencies, including brief case studies of the Civil Service College, the Contributions Agency and the Royal Mint. The structure and organization of the Treasury was radically changed in 1995 following a new statement of its aim, mission and objectives. These changes are explained here, with details of its new directorate and team structure.

Talk about government cutbacks is as common as actual program elimination is rare. Even the most ardent proponents of downsizing government are reluctant to name the programs they have in their sights.

This short and very readable book examines why and when policies or organizations are terminated, how they can be terminated successfully, and what often prevents them from being terminated. The author reviews the literature on termination and a variety of case studies in order to identify the theories of termination that have been supported by research. He advances seven conclusions about program terminations that should be taped to the refrigerator of every social scientist, citizen, and public official committed to achieving a balanced budget by 2002.

Talk about government cutbacks is as common as actual program elimination is rare. Even the most ardent proponents of downsizing government are reluctant to name the programs they have in their sights.

This short and very readable book examines why and when policies or organizations are terminated, how they can be terminated successfully, and what often prevents them from being terminated. The author reviews the literature on termination and a variety of case studies in order to identify the theories of termination that have been supported by research. He advances seven conclusions about program terminations that should be taped to the refrigerator of every social scientist, citizen, and public official committed to achieving a balanced budget by 2002.

Compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the CPI is used to index Social Security payments and many other federal programs, as well as to adjust tax brackets. Today, the accuracy of the CPI is being hotly debated, particularly in light of the Boskin Commission report that concluded in December 1996 that the CPI overstates inflation by 1.1%. If accepted and applied in the formulation of economic policy, the report would have major implications for balancing the federal budget. It would have a direct impact on the lives of Americans who are beneficiaries of government programs as well as on everyone who pays taxes. In this book, Dean Baker introduces and explains the significance of the debate, presents the full text of the Boskin Commission report and finally discusses in a far-reaching and insightful analysis both the Commission's research methodology and its conclusions.

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.