The central goal of this volume was to assemble outstanding scholars and policymakers in the field of financial markets and institutions and have them articulate significant market developments in their particular areas of expertise during the past few decades.Not just a celebratory volume, Public Policy and Financial Economics selected internationally recognized financial economists who have worked with Professor Kaufman during his years of scholarly research, and have a combined mastery of specialized financial markets themes and, very importantly, knowledge of public policies in the areas. All 15 chapters offer unique, innovative, and exciting expositions of several critical topics in financial economics.

This authoritative new volume contains a selection of the most important articles and papers spanning over 20 years on budgeting and managing public spending. It is divided into five succinct parts, covering the main areas of the field including the political-economic environment, approaches to expenditure budgeting and implementing the budget. Donald Savoie does not limit his examples to just one country - budgeting and spending is discussed in a variety of countries, including the UK, Australia, New Zealand, America, Canada and Spain. He has also written a new introduction to accompany the piece. All those with an interest in government spending, budgeting and how finances are controlled will find this work - which includes articles and papers not immediately accessible - an essential reference tool.

Non-communicable diseases have surpassed infectious diseases as the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in developed countries. Prevention and treatment of the causes and consequences of lifestyle-related diseases forms an important part of health policy in the twenty-first century. Public health economics - from quantifying the problem, to evaluating interventions and developing toolkits to assist decision makers - is an essential area for any postgraduate student and researcher with an interest in applied economics to understand. There are a wide range of techniques from mainstream economics and health economics that can be applied to the evaluation of public health policy and public health issues. In this book, Brown presents examples from developed countries to illustrate how economic tools can be applied to public health. Further, cross-country comparisons illustrate how contextual factors related to healthcare systems, demographics and environmental factors may impact on outcomes and the cost-effectiveness of public health policies, in order to aid understanding and help students apply theory into practice.

This comprehensive and authoritative book offers a global approach to the modern economics of the family, family law and family policy. Beginning with the division of labour in the family, this book deals with the economics of marriage, the demand for children, inter-generational relationships, and the economics of inheritance. The family is analysed using the theory of utility maximisation assuming that individuals wish to achieve the greatest possible satisfaction with limited resources and imperfect knowledge. The family is examined from both long and short term perspectives, and it is assumed that the family is cooperative with incentives for altruistic behaviour greater than in any other social group. Francisco Cabrillo then develops the analysis to include a discussion of the economics of family policy, an area not widely discussed in the existing literature, with special reference to the European Union. He makes use of simple and clear analytical models, such as neoclassical optimization and game theory, to explain the rationality of individual behaviour in the family and the responses to the incentives created by public policies. The Economics of the Family and Family Policy will be essential reading for economists interested in the family, public policy as well as sociologists and policymakers.

In Educating Public Interest Professionals and the Student Loan Debt Crisis, Robert Leslie Fisher examines the student loan debt crisis and its effects on America's citizens and economies. Exploring the shortage of professionals in fields such as education, medicine, and law, Fisher analyzes the causes and effects of the student loan debt crisis in America and argues for higher wages, student loan debt forgiveness, and an updated financial model to pay for training for public interest professionals. Supported by economic research and a sociological background, Fisher proposes a path forward that will ease the student loan debt crisis and revitalize the economy.

This book analyses the relationship between stakeholder engagement practices and organizational sustainability across sectors and disciplines. It illuminates the relationships between the inputs and processes, vital for all kinds of organizations to engage stakeholders. Then, it describes the mutually-valued outcomes that can produce broader organizational impacts and sustainability. Each chapter is structured around a logic model that provides an analytical framework to engage the reader in strategic analysis and offer practical applications for adaptation and implementation in any organization. The book encourages the reader to systematically consider the descriptive, instrumental, and normative aspects of stakeholder theory as a precursor to designing stakeholder engagement practices.

Bureaucracy and Public Economics brings together in one volume the classic book and related articles which put forward the first formal economic theory of the behaviour of bureaucracies. William Niskanen Jr. has consistently argued that bureaucrats have personal objectives - that differ from those of both their political supervisors and the general public - which they further by use of their monopoly power. He develops his argument to contend that government budgets have become too large and should be curtailed. All of Professor Niskanen's major contributions to this field have been brought together in this one volume including his pioneering article on 'The Peculiar Economics of Bureaucracy', the full text of the book 'Bureaucracy and Representative Government' and his recent reassessment of the larger body of scholarship on the economics of bureaucracy. Scholars, students and teachers of public economics will welcome this volume which, by making some of the key contributions in the field more widely accessible, will provoke discussion, debate and further research.

This book aims to explore if and how securitization changed financial intermediation and lending behaviour by reviewing the pre- and post-financial crisis theoretical and empirical literature. The book's distinctive feature is bringing the growing post-crisis empirical evidence to the attention of a wider audience by critically appraising it against pre-crisis arguments. With its thought-provoking insights, this book is of particular interest for students, practitioners and academics.

First published in 1984. This book brings together and develops the economic theory relating to the design and operation of systems of non-central government - positing major developments in several areas. It considers what functions systems most suitably perform in non-central governments, and their appropriate size and structure. How these authorities might finance themselves - by taxes, charges or loans - is analysed in detail. It also examines the use of grants by higher tiers of government and how such programmes should be designed. Concentrating on contemporary economic concerns, it relates the theory to practice in countries such as Australia, Canada, West Germany, the UK and USA.

Public spending on infrastructure plays an important role in promoting economic growth and poverty alleviation. Empirical studies unequivocally show that under-investment in infrastructure limit economic growth. At the same time, numerous other studies have shown that investment in infrastructure can be a highly effective tool in fighting poverty reduction1. In that context, the financing of infrastructure has been a critical element of most economic growth and poverty reduction strategies in developing countries, since the start of this millennium. This bookprovides a comparative analysis of the aggregate and sectoral implications of higher spending on infrastructure in three very different Asian countries: China, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Particular attention is paid to the role of alternative financing mechanisms for increasing public infrastructure investment, namely distortionary and non-distortionary means of financing. The book will be of interest to scholars and policy-makers concerned with economic growth in developing countries."

There is a growing interest in Public-Private Partnerships (PPPs), particularly in infrastructure and public services. Under the scope of PPPs, renegotiations are becoming more relevant, as empirical evidence suggests that most PPP projects are inevitably renegotiated, i.e., the original contract needs to be adapted to new and unforeseen circumstances. Renegotiations have a substantial impact on the contract and performance of a PPP and usually represent significant costs for users and taxpayers. However, very little is known about the management and, mainly, the process of renegotiating that will, very likely, occur. This book provides a set of case-studies of PPP renegotiations in the transport sector. The authors illustrate the Portuguese experience, a country that has been using PPP extensively, particularly in transport. The case studies provide an extensive and detailed analysis on each aspect of the project and the renegotiation. What drives renegotiations? Why are some projects more renegotiated than others? What are the results? How can the performance of renegotiation processes be improved? These and other questions provide the basis for the discussions in this book. The novelty and value of the book come mainly from the extent of information available. Each case-study deals with these questions in much more detail than what is common in the case-studies approach.

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.

At a time when state assistance to the arts sector has come under considerable scrutiny both in Europe and the United States, this book comprehensively examines the evolution of, and rationale for, state involvement with the so-called 'high' arts on both continents. This book offers an overview of the key economic issues arising in relation to the state and the arts in these regions, with a detailed analysis of the European and American models of state assistance to the high arts sector.John O'Hagan examines in detail the various channels - regulation, taxation and direct expenditure - through which the state interacts with the arts and compares and contrasts the experiences of America and Europe. Regulatory measures considered include the guarantee of artistic freedom, copyright, resale royalties for artists, and trade restrictions. He also considers taxation measures to support the arts, including deductions for charitable contributions to the arts, property tax exemption, and relief on artists' income. The discussion on direct expenditure covers state ownership of institutions, revenue funding and matching grants as well as new avenues of expenditure such as community arts/arts centres, and new revenue sources for this expenditure, such as lottery funding. Finally the book covers the non-profit making arts sector, and examines why it, and not the commercial sector, receives private and state funding. The State and the Arts will be indispensable for students and academics of public and social policy, cultural economics and public management. It will also be of considerable interest to policymakers and key players in the arts sector.

This book provides a self-contained presentation of the statistical tools required for evaluating public programs, as advocated by many governments, the World Bank, the European Union, and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. After introducing the methodological framework of program evaluation, the first chapters are devoted to the collection, elementary description and multivariate analysis of data as well as the estimation of welfare changes. The book then successively presents the tools of ex-ante methods (financial analysis, budget planning, cost-benefit, cost-effectiveness and multi-criteria evaluation) and ex-post methods (benchmarking, experimental and quasi-experimental evaluation). The step-by-step approach and the systematic use of numerical illustrations equip readers to handle the statistics of program evaluation. It not only offers practitioners from public administrations, consultancy firms and nongovernmental organizations the basic tools and advanced techniques used in program assessment, it is also suitable for executive management training, upper undergraduate and graduate courses, as well as for self-study.

This volume - the summary of a five-year research programme - describes and assesses the Scandinavian approach to local public finance. A key role of local finance in Scandinavia is redistribution in the form of a wide array of social services that are largely financed at the central level.

The Japanese population is aging faster than any other in the world. The per centage of Japan's population aged 65 and above was only 7.1% in 1970, but just 30 years later, in 2000, it reached 17.2%. A declining birth rate and a rising average life expectancy will continue to push this trend further. This situation is causing serious problems for Japanese society.Structural reforms, especially tax and social security reforms, to accommodate this drastic demographic change have become an urgent policy issue. The purpose of this book is to establish guidelines for tax and social security reforms in Japan in terms that are both efficient and equitable. In this study, an extended life-cycle general equilibrium model is employed to rigorously take account of the rapidly aging Japanese population. The simulation approach adopted in our analysis permits us to calculate the effects of alternative policy packages on capital accumulation and economic welfare. This enables us to make proposals for concrete economic policies."

In this ambitious book, the authors challenge mainstream economic theory by reconsidering the principle of individualism as its foundation. They refer to that version which fails to recognize the existence of the interests of society as such, and thus excludes the role of the state as an independent market player seeking to realize these interests. The outcome is a new theoretical concept called "Economic Sociodynamics." The book reveals this concept in detail, in particular its key notions of the sociodynamic multiplier and the rational behavior of the state.

This book is an introduction to the history of - and current measurement practice of - inflation for the United Kingdom. The authors describe the historical development of inflation measures in a global context, and do so without using formal mathematical language and related jargon that relates only to a few specialist scholars. Although inflation is a widely used and quoted statistic, and despite the important role inflation plays in real people's lives - through pension uprating, train tickets, interest rates and the work of economists - few people understand how it is created. O'Neill, Ralph and Smith mix historical data with a description of practices inside the UK statistical system and abroad, which will aid understanding of how this important economic statistic is produced, and the important and controversial choices that statisticians have made over time.

This pioneering study shows that economic integration in the Americas is not simply a matter of removing trade barriers. Economic Integration in the Americas addresses the pervasive effects of economic integration on the economy as a whole.This important book examines elements of financial integration and capital mobility in North America and addresses in turn the effects of the North American Free Trade Association on Mexico, comparisons between NAFTA and the European Union, the impact of NAFTA on issues such as social protection, migration and Canadian agricultural policy, and finally, regionalism and multilateralism in the Western hemisphere. While drawing on the experience of European integration, the authors recognize that new, broader analyses are required in the Western hemisphere to allow for the ranges of country size, natural resource endowments and per capita incomes. Sensitive to the political interests involved in economic integration between unequal partners, Economic Integration in the Americas offers students, researchers and policymakers a better understanding of policy at both national and supranational levels.

This collection of essays is a state-of-the-art analysis of key issues confronting the European Union. Identifying European economic integration as one of the defining features of modern international economics, the authors examine many aspects and consequences of this integration which remain as yet obscure and unexplored. In this book, after addressing general issues concerned with European integration, the authors include empirical and theoretical analyses of the monetary union, social policy reform and social union, public finance in the EU, the EU's agriculture and technology policies, and direct foreign investment into the EU. In particular, the volume includes detailed discussion of Greek membership of the EU, supplying a context in which many of the general issues of industrial adjustment, investment and politics can be examined. Using a wide range of topics, methodologies and perspectives, Economic Integration and Public Policy in the European Union offers a stimulating and wide-ranging presentation which will be of interest to economic theorists, empirical social scientists, policymakers and the informed general reader.

The recent shift away from reactive to creative public policy management has caused considerable problems in Central and Eastern Europe. This book questions whether public management reforms as applied in OECD countries can make a real contribution to establishing new forms of public management in Central and Eastern Europe. The book defines the main problems facing public administrations in transitional countries and provides a comparative evaluation of the relevance for these countries of reform measures undertaken in OECD states. In the first part an historical perspective on the role of the state in Europe is presented. Parts two and three present country case studies which focus on the key areas of public management and the attempts made to address its current problems. The case studies describe the constitutional and political framework in which the system of public management operates and present a critical analysis of ongoing reform processes. They focus on reforms at the central government level, changes in local-central government relations, and the high profile areas of health and education policy. The authors look at the characteristics of the policy process, financial and human resource management and the accountability system. In conclusion, they question whether models of public administration and strategies for reform applied in Western capitalist economic systems, can really provide solutions to the particular problems of Central and Eastern Europe, or whether those problems might be aggravated by copying Western models and strategies. Innovations in Public Management will be welcomed by policy makers and practitioners in both Western Europe and OECD countries as well as those working in transitional countries through its fresh comparative approach and analysis of the real applicability of reform strategies. It will also be welcomed by academics and students interested in public administration, public policy and government.

Local communities in all countries are increasingly aware of resource scarcity and are pressing for more say in how funds are used. Developments in Local Government Finance examines key issues for economists interested in local government and, in particular, the functioning of institutions at regional and local levels.Local government organization and finance are addressed from a variety of approaches by the authors who critically examine the current intergovernmental distribution of responsibility for service provision and revenue raising. Adopting a multilateral approach to theory and policy, this major book stresses the need for real, and not just formal, devolution and greater local accountability. The contributors highlight how instruments for financing local government and for pursuing interpersonal and geographical equity can vary considerably between countries with broadly similar systems, yet be surprisingly similar for countries with quite different institutional arrangements. Particular reference is made to emerging problems in the European Union and the experience of Switzerland, a country where fiscal federalism and tax harmonization are living together in a unique equilibrium of forces. Developments in Local Government Finance presents a major contribution to the understanding of local government and finance for both students and practitioners.

The European economy is still in recession, even though there are some weak indications of stabilization. This book examines important aspects of the crisis in selected countries of Southern Europe, the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The intensity of the crisis and its economic and social repercussions have varied from country to country, generally impacting the core countries less than those on the periphery. The countries in the latter group currently face significant structural challenges with regard to improving productivity and competitiveness, including the areas of investment, climate, the labour market, and the public sector. The book not only illustrates the scope of the problem, but also informs readers on the policies implemented to address it, and discusses the progress some of the economies have already made. Special topics include the convergence hypothesis, agriculture and growth, Public-Private Partnership in Infrastructure (PPPI), and the labour market.

This book discusses the evolution of the third tier of the Indian federal system, with a focus on rural local governance (commonly known as Panchayati Raj) against the backdrop of important theoretical and empirical literature on the relevance and effectiveness of service delivery in the decentralized system. It evaluates the quintessence of the functioning of the Panchayati Raj in the past two decades of its existence. This pioneering book also discusses the treatment of the third-tier government in the inter-governmental fiscal transfer framework and the delineation of the unique institution of local self-government in the Northeastern Indian States. In the light of the loosely evolved fiscal relations between three levels of government, it has been observed that local self-governments in the bottom tier have not been truly empowered yet. The book argues in favor of integrating the third-tier government into the Indian federal system and suggests how this could be achieved.

This book is about money. Not about how to make money, but how to use it and use it well. A range of stimulating articles from leading international thinkers and writers forms a thought-provoking collection on how we can all use money to achieve positive social change.The range of topics discussed is broad, from questions of economics and government policy, corporate and individual responsibility to how voluntary organisations can ensure that their money is used wisely.Issues raised include: Does the way we use money betray the next generation? Is dishonesty within our financial systems making it too difficult for consumers to make informed decisions? Are we wasting money on good intentions that do not match real need? How can individuals, foundations and others with social concerns ensure that all their assets are used effectively?