In this volume, a wide range of leading policy makers and practitioners reflect on the aims and objectives of monetary policy and on what it can achieve, The contributors include: * Tony Blair * Sir Samuel Brittan * Gordon Brown * Kenneth Clarke * Eddie George * Geoffrey Howe * Nigel Lawson * Peter Liley * Gordon Richardson * Lionel Robbins * Jonathon Sacks * Hans Tietmeyer. Policy Makers on Policy represents twenty five years of monetary policy. This topical collection brings together major politicians and thinkers, and will be of great interest to anyone concerned with contemporary policy-making, economics or politics.

The subnational dimension of infrastructure has emerged as one of the greatest challenges in contemporary public finance policy and management. Ensuring the efficient provision of infrastructure represents a challenge for all countries irrespective of their level of centralization or decentralization. This book proposes an innovative approach for the strengthening of decentralized public investment and infrastructure management. Decentralization and Infrastructure in the Global Economy: From Gaps to Solutions covers the most important aspects of infrastructure investment in a decentralized setting. It discusses infrastructure gaps and the quality of subnational spending; how functional responsibilities, financing and equalization can be designed; sector-specific arrangements in high expenditure areas, such as health, education and roads; key steps of the public investment cycle and management; and analyses the political economy and corruption challenges that typically accompany decentralized infrastructure projects. This book challenges some of the well-accepted principles of intergovernmental fiscal relations and will be useful to researchers and practitioners of public finance policy and management.

This new four volume collection gathers together the key literature from the field of Infrastructure Finance from the past 20 years. Organized thematically, and drawing on a range of disciplines, the collection will discuss economic principles and policy, explore project financing, public-private partnership policy and finance, and examine infrastructure as an asset class.

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.

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.

The debt problems of poor countries are receiving unprecedented attention. Both federal and non-governmental organizations alike have been campaigning for debt forgiveness for poor countries. The governments of creditor nations responded to that challenge at a meeting sponsored by the G-7, International Monetary Fund, and World Bank, all of which upgraded debt relief as a policy priority. Their initiatives provided for generous interpretations of these nations' abilities to sustain debt, gave them opportunities to qualify for debt relief more rapidly, and linked debt relief to broader policies of poverty reduction. Despite this, the crisis has only deepened in the first years of the new millennium. This brilliant group of contributions assesses why this has occurred. In plain language, it considers why debt relief has been so long in coming for poor countries. It evaluates the cost of a persistent overhang in debt for those countries. It also examines, head on, whether enhanced debt relief initiatives offer a permanent exit from over-indebtedness, or are merely a short-term respite. Above all, this volume for the first time addresses the issues on the ground: that is, the views and opinions about debt relief on the part of leaders in advanced nations, and the probability of further support for the most impoverished lands. In this approach, the editors and contributors have made an explicit and successful attempt to be inclusive and relevant at all stages of the analysis. This volume covers the full range of the poorest countries, with contributions by John Serieux, Lykke Anderson and Osvaldo Nina, Befekadu Degefe, Ligia Maria Castro-Monge, and Peter B. Mijumbi. Collectively, they offer a sobering scenario: unless measures are put in place now, in anticipation of further crises, the future of the very poorest nations will remain bleak and troublesome. John Serieux completed this volume as a senior researcher and specialist in international finance for the North-South Institute, an independent research institute based in Ottawa, Canada. Before that he was a lecturer at the graduate program in economics at Chancellor College, at the University of Malawi. His major works are in domestic and foreign resource mobilization. Yiagadeesen Samy is completing his doctoral research in economics at the University of Ottawa in international trade and economics of development. His key interest is now in trade and labor standards.

This book investigates the reasons for persistent public deficits and delayed fiscal reform in Japan, placing a special emphasis on political economy aspects. Japan is confronted with the need to pursue fiscal discipline for fiscal consolidation and implement structural reforms for reorganizing fiscal expenditures. Focusing on particular policy fields including social security, female labor supply, public works, and intergovernmental transfer schemes, the book clarifies economic and political elements that have hindered effective steps toward these two goals. Facing population aging and a business downturn, the Japanese government was urged to increase social security expenditures and the budget for Keynesian stimulus policies. As elucidated in the book, the institutional design has worked to over-represent the demands of elderly generations and local interest groups and to expand these expenditures. Rigorous theoretical and numerical analyses reported throughout the book consequently provide readers with insights into incentive designs and institutional reforms necessary for fiscal consolidation, also presenting points of view for public policy and public debate.

The effects of the intergovernmental grant system have long been a topic of debate among politicians, economists, and political scientists. Until now, however, the question of the impact of grants on the aggregate public sector has been largely neglected. In this volume, Schwallie offers the first detailed study of the extent to which grants-in-aid have affected the size of government. In the process, he provides a good introduction to both the normative and positive theories of intergovernmental grants and a useful summary of grants-in-aid research over the past 25 years. With the aid of economic models that analyze governmental fiscal decision making, econometric findings, and recent empirical studies, Schwallie develops a well-defined theory that explains how a system of intergovernmental grants might affect aggregate public sector size.

Schwallie relates models of fiscal decision making to the effect of intergovernmental grants on recipient government fiscal decisions and defines the optimal behavior of both grantor and recipient governments. Several chapters offer a measured critique of both the empirical research on intergovernmental grants and theoretical models proposed to explain grantor and recipient behavior. Finally, Schwallie proposes his own general equilibrium theory of intergovernmental grants, which not only explains the existence of intergovernmental grants, but also provides a structure for measuring their impact on aggregate public sector size. Tables, figures, and diagrams illustrate points made in the text. Students of public finance, economists, grant administrators, and policymakers will find this an illuminating discussion of the impact, focus, and implications of the present intergovernmental grant system.

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.

This book examines the interpretation of the risk-based approach (RBA) and its application across the banking industry. It explores the ways conflicting risk interpretation and deconstruction of money laundering risk have unintended consequences across the banking industry. Furthermore, it offers a theoretical framework that can be adopted and implemented by risk practitioners to address money laundering (ML) risks. The interpretation and application of the RBA influences the way money laundering risk is perceived, presented, and managed, often resulting in misalignment among stakeholders. Moreover, AML practitioners interpret money laundering (ML) risk as an entity that can be contained, largely in ignorance of the fact that ML risk is self-referential. The book therefore addresses complex inter-system feedback phenomena that lead to de-risking and re-risking, and offers a new ML risk communication framework on this basis. It will be of value to researchers and also to stakeholders within financial institutions, financial intelligence units and regulators in the fight against money laundering.

This is a third edition of a successful textbook that provides a contemporary account of how social services in the UK are paid for. The new edition brings the textbook up-to-date with its fast-moving subject area, explaining the finance of human services - health care, education, housing, social security a nd social care-through a review of the economic literature. It also gives an account of how the cash to pay for the services actually reaches schools, hospitals and social service departments, right from the start of the process, examining how government raises taxes, through to allocation of the funds. Both comprehensive and expertly written, this textbook will continue to feature as key reading for a variety of Social and Policy related courses.

Even before the advent of COVID19, India's economy was in a depression. The condition of vast masses of people, particularly those in the informal sector, was grave. Then the Indian government, responding to the COVID pandemic, imposed the most stringent lockdown measures in the world. The lockdown had a particularly severe impact on the majority of India's people, who number well over one billion. At the same time, the Indian government, compared to other world governments, has provided virtually no financial aid to cushion economic blows to its population. Crisis and Predation explains that this shocking tightfistedness stems from the fact that global financial interests, as well as India's ruling neofascist government, explicitly oppose any sizable expansion of government spending by India. Crisis and Predation, a project of the Mumbai based Research Unit for Political Economy, lays out in meticulous and harrowing detail the economic - and human - crisis currently unfolding in India. As the COVID situation unfolds and pandemic deaths skyrocket, prevailing emergency conditions encourage reliance on security forces, state surveillance, detention of political activists, and censorship of independent media. And yet, this book contends, India could defy the pressures of global finance in order to address the basic needs of its people, an objective within the reach of India's present material capacity. But this would require imposing controls on destabilizing flows of foreign capital and being prepared to forgo foreign capital flows in the future, in other words, a course of democratic national development. For that, Indian rulers would need just what they currently lack: a positive vision of democracy and class alliance to bring it about. This hard hitting and carefully researched book, offering devastating financial analysis, also offers hope for change.

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.

A volume in Conducting Research in Education Finance: Methods, Measurement, and Policy Perspectives Series Editors David C. Thompson, Kansas State University and Faith E. Crampton, University Wisconsin-Milwaukee There is a void in the literature on how to conduct research in the finance and economics of higher education. Students, professors, and practitioners have no concise document that examines the field, provides history, definitions of terms, sources of data, and research methods. Higher Education Finance Research: Policy, Politics, and Practice fills that void. The book is structured in four parts. The first section provides a brief history and description of the general organization of American higher education, the sources and uses of funds over the last 100 years, and who is served in what types of institutions. Definitions of terms that are unique to higher education are provided, and some basic rules for conducting research on the economics and finance of higher education are established. Although in some ways, conducting research in higher education funding is similar to that for elementary/secondary education, there are some important distinctions that also are provided. The second section introduces guiding philosophies, sources of data, data elements/vocabulary, metrics, and analytics related to institutional revenues and expenditures. Chapters in this section focus on student oriented revenues, institutionally-oriented revenues, and funding formulas. The third section introduces accountability-related concepts by first examining the accountability movement in higher education and performance-based approaches applied in budgeting and funding, then looking at methods to determine public and private returns on investment in postsecondary education, and closing with an examination of finance from the perspective of the primary consumer: students. The fourth and last section of the book focuses on presenting postsecondary finance research to policy audiences to assist in connecting academic research and policy making. Chapters focus on accounting for time considerations in analysis, the placing of data in context to make the data and findings relevant, and ways to effectively communicate findings to various policy-making audiences.

A volume in Conducting Research in Education Finance: Methods, Measurement, and Policy Perspectives Series Editors David C. Thompson, Kansas State University and Faith E. Crampton, University Wisconsin-Milwaukee There is a void in the literature on how to conduct research in the finance and economics of higher education. Students, professors, and practitioners have no concise document that examines the field, provides history, definitions of terms, sources of data, and research methods. Higher Education Finance Research: Policy, Politics, and Practice fills that void. The book is structured in four parts. The first section provides a brief history and description of the general organization of American higher education, the sources and uses of funds over the last 100 years, and who is served in what types of institutions. Definitions of terms that are unique to higher education are provided, and some basic rules for conducting research on the economics and finance of higher education are established. Although in some ways, conducting research in higher education funding is similar to that for elementary/secondary education, there are some important distinctions that also are provided. The second section introduces guiding philosophies, sources of data, data elements/vocabulary, metrics, and analytics related to institutional revenues and expenditures. Chapters in this section focus on student oriented revenues, institutionally-oriented revenues, and funding formulas. The third section introduces accountability-related concepts by first examining the accountability movement in higher education and performance-based approaches applied in budgeting and funding, then looking at methods to determine public and private returns on investment in postsecondary education, and closing with an examination of finance from the perspective of the primary consumer: students. The fourth and last section of the book focuses on presenting postsecondary finance research to policy audiences to assist in connecting academic research and policy making. Chapters focus on accounting for time considerations in analysis, the placing of data in context to make the data and findings relevant, and ways to effectively communicate findings to various policy-making audiences.

The recent global financial crisis has challenged conventional wisdom, and our conception of globalization has been called into question. This challenging and timely book revisits the relationship between globalization, the crisis and the state from an interdisciplinary perspective, with law, economics and political science underpinning the analysis.The expert contributors consider the Washington Consensus and its aftermath across Australia, China, the EU, New Zealand and South Africa in light of the financial crisis, encompassing public policy issues including banking reform, privatisation and state owned enterprise. The clash between market and state capitalism and the response of market capitalism to the crisis are also explored. This book draws together truly multidisciplinary discussions of the main issues for contemporary society in the face of globalization, and defines how these issues relate to each other. As such, it will prove a stimulating read for academics, researchers, postgraduate students and policymakers with an interest in law, economics and politics. Contributors: M. Ariff, T. Booth, L. Boulle, J. Broehmer, J. Chen, J.H. Farrar, G.A. Hodge, C.-C. Huang, D.G. Mayes, A. Noon, L. Parsons, M. Regan, C.D. Stoltenberg, S. Watson, M. Wilson, X. Yang

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.

'Governments should spend no more than their tax income.' Most people in Europe and North America accept this statement as simple common sense. It resonates with the deeply engrained economic metaphors that dominate public discourse, from 'living within your means' to 'balancing the budget' - all necessary, or so conventional wisdom holds, to avoid the dangers of debt, taxation and financial ruin. This book shows how these homely metaphors constitute the 'debt delusion' a set of plausible-sounding yet false ideas that have been used to justify damaging austerity policies. John Weeks debunks these myths, explaining the true story behind public spending, taxation, and debt, and their real function in the management of our economies. He demonstrates that disputes about public finances are not primarily technical matters best left to specialists and experts, as many politicians would have us believe, but rather fundamentally questions about our true political priorities. Requiring no prior economic knowledge, this is an ideal primer for anyone wishing to cut through the rhetoric and misinformation that dominate political debates on economics and become an informed citizen.

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 study of budgeting and financial administration in developing countries, which probes reasons for failure and solutions for improvement. The contributors are all involved in relating prescription to practice, and theory to reality in this area. Their essays all seek to provide practical advice to administrators caught up in the ever-changing, unpredictable contemporary environment.

The Thatcher administration of 1979 to 1990 had a profound and apparently lasting effect on British theatre and drama. It is now roughly a decade since the fall of Margaret Thatcher and, with the benefit of hindsight, it has become possible to disentangle fact from fantasy concerning her effect on the British theatre. During her administration, there was a significant cultural shift which affected drama in Britain. While some critics have argued that the theatre was simply affected by financial cutbacks in arts subsidies, this volume challenges that view. While it looks at the economic influence of Thatcher's policies, it also examines how her ideology shaped theatrical and dramatic discourse. It begins by defining Thatcherism and illustrating its cultural influence. It then examines the consequences of Thatcherite policies through the agency of the Arts Council of Great Britain.

Having established this political and cultural environment, the book considers in detail the effect of Thatcher's administration on the subject-matter and dramatic and theatrical discourse of left-wing drama and on the subsidized political theatre companies which proliferated during the 1970s. Attention is then given to the development of constituency theatres, such as Women's and Black Theatre, which assumed an oppositional cultural stance and, in some cases, attempted to develop characteristic theatrical and dramatic discourses. The penultimate chapter deals with the effect of Thatcherite economic policy and ideology on new writing and performance, while the final chapter draws conclusions and suggests that the cultural shift perpetrated by the Thatcher regime has altered the status of subsidized theatre from an agency of cultural, spiritual, social, or psychological welfare to an entertainment industry which is viewed as largely irrelevant to the workings of society.

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.