This book covers a wide range of topics in education finance. It is designed to introduce the literature on education finance to scholars and prospective scholars and can be used as a textbook for a graduate-level education finance class. The topics in the book include the incidence of the property tax as a source of revenue for elementary and secondary education, how much more it costs to reach a state's education targets in a high-poverty school district than in a rich district, the design of state education aid programs, the impact of school quality on house values, the cost implications of school district consolidations, and the impact of state aid on school infrastructure.

This Palgrave Pivot identifies the key legal, economic, and policy issues surrounding the allowance to use and interpret electronic data consistently and in a scientifically valid manner in U.S. courts. Evidence based on the analysis of large amounts of electronic data ("Big Data") plays an increasing role in civil court disputes, providing information that could not have been obtained from a witness stand. While Big Data evidence presents opportunities, it also presents legal and public policy challenges and concerns. How can one be sure that deviations found in Big Data fall outside the norm? If statistical analyses can be conducted and presented different ways, how can judges and juries make sense of conflicting interpretations? When does Big Data extraction stop being investigative and instead become an invasion of privacy? This book traces the history of Big Data use in U.S. courts, couples current case studies with legal challenges to explore key controversies, and suggests how courts can change the way they handle Big Data to ensure that findings are statistically significant and scientifically sound.

The use of behavioural science to inform policy is one of the main developments in the social sciences over the last several decades. In this book, Adam Oliver offers an accessible introduction to the development of behavioural public policy, examining how behavioural economics might be used to inform the design of a broad spectrum of policy frameworks, from nudges, to bans on certain individual behaviours, to the regulation of the commercial sector. He also considers how behavioural economics can explain and predict phenomena as a challenge to economists' assumptions around how people perceive time, utility and money. The book offers an intellectual foundation for all those concerned with behavioural public policy, from academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students with a diverse range of disciplinary perspectives, such as economics, political science, sociology and anthropology, to policy makers and practitioners working directly with behavioural public policy in their everyday working lives.

There is a long-standing difference amongst public economists between those who think that collective choice must be formally acknowledged, and those who derive their policy recommendations from a social planning framework in which politics plays no role. The purpose of this book is to contribute to a meaningful dialogue between these two groups, in the belief that the future of both political economy and of normative public finance lies somewhere between the two approaches. Some of the specific questions addressed in the book include: does public finance need political economy? Should collective choice play a role in the standard of reference used in normative public finance? What is a 'failure' in a non-market or policy process? And what have we learned about the theory and practice of public finance from three decades of empirical research on public choice? The book also provides a practitioner's view of the political economy of redistribution. The distinguished list of authors, many of whom are pre-eminent in their fields, includes Robin Boadway, Geoffrey Brennan, Albert Breton, AnIbal Cavaco Silva, Walter Hettich, Gebhard Kirchgassner, Dennis Mueller, William Niskanen, Hirofumi Shibata, Eugene Smolensky, Heinrich Ursprung, Frans van Winden, Stanley Winer and Donald Wittman. The importance of political economy to any understanding of why public policy evolves as it does is now widely accepted by public finance scholars and practitioners. This book goes a step further by considering the role of collective choice in defining what constitutes 'good' or 'better' policy. It will be an essential companion for all scholars of public finance and political economy.

Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business's instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization. In Chile, business's multiple sources of instrumental power, including cohesion and ties to right parties, kept substantial tax increases off the agenda. In Argentina, weaker business power facilitated significant reform, although specific sectors, including finance and agriculture, occasionally had instrumental and/or structural power to defend their interests. In Bolivia, popular mobilization counterbalanced the power of economic elites, who were much stronger than in Argentina but weaker than in Chile. The book's in-depth, medium-N case analysis and close attention to policymaking processes contribute insights on business power and prospects for redistribution in unequal democracies.

This book shows through argument and numerous policy-related examples how understanding moral philosophy can improve economic analysis, how moral philosophy can benefit from economists' analytical tools, and how economic analysis and moral philosophy together can inform public policy. Part I explores the idea of rationality and its connections to ethics, arguing that when they defend their formal model of rationality, most economists implicitly espouse contestable moral principles. Part II addresses the nature and measurement of welfare, utilitarianism and cost-benefit analysis. Part III discusses freedom, rights, equality, and justice - moral notions that are relevant to evaluating policies, but which have played little if any role in conventional welfare economics. Finally, Part IV explores work in social choice theory and game theory that is relevant to moral decision making. Each chapter includes recommended reading and discussion questions.

The Late Middle Ages (c.1300-c.1500) saw the development of many of the key economic institutions of the modern unitary nation-state in Europe. After the 'commercial revolution' of the thirteenth century, taxes on trade became increasingly significant contributors to government finances, and as such there were ever greater efforts to control the flow of goods and money. This book presents a case study of the commercial and financial links between the kingdom of England and the duchy of Aquitaine across the late-medieval period, with a special emphasis on the role of the English Plantagenet government that had ruled both in a political union since 1154. It establishes a strong connection between fluctuations in commodity markets, large monetary flows and unstable financial markets, most notably in trade credit and equity partnerships. It shows how the economic relationship deteriorated under the many exogenous shocks of the period, the wars, plagues and famines, as well as politically motivated regulatory intervention. Despite frequent efforts to innovate in response, both merchants and governments experienced a series of protracted financial crises that presaged the break-up of the union of kingdom and duchy in 1453, with the latter's conquest by the French crown. Of particular interest to scholars of the late-medieval European economy, this book will also appeal to those researching wider economic or financial history.

This volume reflects on the consequences of the increasingly globalized nature of our world for public sector management. Globalization has triggered rapid growth in trade, global financial transactions and cross-country ownership of economic assets. The implications of these multifaceted processes for the welfare of today's and tomorrow's societies are unclear. What is clear, however, is that an increasing number of problems are too complex to be tackled solely at the level of national states. As a result, the size, functions and modi operandi of the public sector in a globalized world are emerging topics in academia and practice.

Using a comparative framework, this volume presents case studies of issues of public procurement and discusses how procurement professionals and policy makers in different regions are responding to these challenges. This book discusses current issues in public procurement. Over the past few decades, public procurement has had to evolve conceptually and organizationally in the face of unrelenting budget constraints, government downsizing, public demand for increased transparency in public procurement, as well as greater concerns about efficiency, fairness and equity. Procurement professionals have also had to deal with a changeable climate produced by emerging technology, environmental concerns, and ongoing tension between complex regional trade agreements and national socioeconomic goals. The first section discusses innovation and reforms in public procurement and how practitioners are adapting to and making use of new technologies. The second section addresses the challenges of maintaining transparency, equity, and fairness in public procurement. The final section discusses preferential public procurement and introduces strategies for building sustainable public procurement systems. By combining theory and analysis with evidence from the real world, this book is of equal use to academics, policy makers, and procurement professionals.

The main objective of this book is to develop a strategy and policy measures to enhance the formalization of the shadow economy in order to improve the competitiveness of the economy and contribute to economic growth; it explores these issues with special reference to Serbia. The size and development of the shadow economy in Serbia and other Central and Eastern European countries are estimated using two different methods (the MIMIC method and household-tax-compliance method). Micro-estimates are based on a special survey of business entities in Serbia, which for the first time allows us to explore the shadow economy from the perspective of enterprises and entrepreneurs. The authors identify the types of shadow economy at work in business entities, the determinants of shadow economy participation, and the impact of competition from the informal sector on businesses. Readers will learn both about the potential fiscal effects of reducing the shadow economy to the levels observed in more developed countries and the effects that formalization of the shadow economy can have on economic growth.

In international commentary and debate on the effects of the Great Recession and austerity, Ireland has been hailed as the poster child for economic recovery and regeneration out of deep economic and fiscal contraction. While the genesis of Ireland's financial, economic, and fiscal crisis has been covered in the literature, no systematic analysis has yet been devoted to the period of austerity, to the impact of austerity on institutions and people, or to the roots of economic recovery. In this book a group of Ireland's leading social scientists present a multidisciplinary analysis of recession and austerity and their effects on economic, business, political, and social life. Individual chapters discuss the fiscal and economic policies implemented, the role of international, and, in particular, of EU institutions, and the effects on businesses, consumption, work, the labour market, migration, political and financial institutions, social inequality and cohesion, housing, and cultural expression. The book shows that Ireland cannot be viewed uncritically as a poster child for austerity. While fiscal contraction provided a basis for stabilizing the perilous finances of the state, economic recovery was due in the main to the long-established structure of Irish economic and business activity, to the importance of foreign direct investment and the dynamic export sector, and to recovery in the international economy. The restructuring and recovery of the financial system was aided by favourable international developments, including historically low interest rates and quantitative easing. Migration flows, nominal wage stability, the protection of social transfer payments, and the involvement of trade unions in severe public sector retrenchment - long-established features of Irish political economy - were of critical importance in the maintenance of social cohesion.

Originally published in 1956, as number 17 in the Occasional Papers of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research series, this book presents an investigation into the cost of the National Health Service. Using the technique of 'social accounting', the text was written 'to trace for the National Health Service as a whole in England and Wales, and for each of its main branches, the changes in factor cost and in the amount of resources absorbed since the Service was established'. Appendices are included and numerous tables are incorporated throughout. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in socio-economic history and the development of the National Health Service.

This collection of essays honouring Dan Felsenthal and Moshe Machover reconsiders foundational aspects of the measurement of voting power. The specific case of voting power in two-tier systems - for instance the US system and the EU system - is analysed. Furthermore major power indices - Penrose, Banzhaf, Shapley-Shubik and others are revisited. The book proposes new voting procedures and studies well-known procedures and/or apportionment methods either from a technical or historical point of view.

In this book, leading experts take a long-term view of the trends and policies of most relevance in achieving the structural readjustment required by the current crisis, which for too long has been viewed merely as an economic recession. A wide variety of issues are addressed, including the implications of the massive movement of wealth from advanced countries to emerging ones and the increasing income inequality evident within many countries. Prospects for growth toward the mid-century and beyond are discussed, with consideration of lessons from the past and the impact of various constraints, including corruption. The policies and reforms required to restore economic dynamism within the EU and more generally, to foster the "Good Economy" are discussed, recognizing the need for measures to promote innovation, entrepreneurship, well-being and high levels of environmental performance. The book comprises a selection of contributions presented at the XXV Villa Mondragone International Economic Seminar. For the past quarter of a century, this seminar has brought together leading experts to engage in debates on pressing economic questions. This book, based on the most recent gathering, will be of interest to all who are concerned about the challenges to growth, well-being and social inclusion that will have to be confronted in the coming decades.

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 book provides 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.

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.

Public housing was once an important strand in western housing policies, but is seldom seen as a mainstream policy instrument for the future. In contrast, in many East Asian countries large public housing programs are underway. Behind these generalizations, there are exceptions, too. By including perspectives of scholars from across the world, this book provides new insights into public housing in its various forms. It contains in-depth chapters on public housing in five East Asian countries and six Western countries, together with three comparative overview chapters.

This book describes a system of mathematical models and methods that can be used to analyze real economic and managerial decisions and to improve their effectiveness. Application areas include: management of development and operation budgets, assessment and management of economic systems using an energy entropy approach, equation of exchange rates and forecasting foreign exchange operations, evaluation of innovative projects, monitoring of governmental programs, risk management of investment processes, decisions on the allocation of resources, and identification of competitive industrial clusters. The proposed methods and models were tested on the example of Kazakhstan’s economy, but the generated solutions will be useful for applications at other levels and in other countries. Regarding your book "Mathematical Methods and Models in Economics", I am impressed because now it is time when "econometrics" is becoming more appreciated by economists and by schools that are the hosts or employers of modern economists. ... Your presented results really impressed me. John F. Nash, Jr., Princeton University, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences The book is within my scope of interest because of its novelty and practicality. First, there is a need for realistic modeling of complex systems, both natural and artificial that conclude computer and economic systems. There has been an ongoing effort in developing models dealing with complexity and incomplete knowledge. Consequently, it is clear to recognize the contribution of Mutanov to encapsulate economic modeling with emphasis on budgeting and innovation. Secondly, the method proposed by Mutanov has been verified by applying to the case of the Republic of Kazakhstan, with her vibrant emerging economy. Thirdly, Chapter 5 of the book is of particular interest for the computer technology community because it deals with innovation. In summary, the book of Mutanov should become one of the outstanding recognized pragmatic guides for dealing with innovative systems. Andrzej Rucinski, University of New Hampshire This book is unique in its theoretical findings and practical applicability. The book is an illuminating study based on an applied mathematical model which uses methods such as linear programming and input-output analysis. Moreover, this work demonstrates the author’s great insight and academic brilliance in the fields of finance, technological innovations and marketing vis-à-vis the market economy. From both theoretical and practical standpoint, this work is indeed a great achievement. Yeon Cheon Oh, President of Seoul National University

This monograph offers a detailed analysis of the creation, pilot implementation, and possible wide adoption of the real property tax at the local level in China. Starting in 2003, as China's economy gradually recovered from the Asian financial crisis that started in 1998, the real property market entered a period of rapid expansion, followed immediately by rampant speculation, rising housing costs, and official corruption. Over the last ten years, the price of real property in most cities has more than tripled, especially in metropolitan areas. In an effort to curb this, the government has instituted a number of property-market controls, including property tax pilot programs in Shanghai and Chongqing. While this is the latest of a number of fiscal reforms, it is a very important one that carries with it the ability to change the landscape of public finance, intergovernmental relations, and local governance in China. It represents a fundamental change in the provision of public services, the relationship between local governments and tax payers, and the status of localities in the government structure. Taking a public choice perspective, the authors argue that the local property tax should be used not solely as a means of controlling housing prices but should be fully employed as a fiscal and budgetary institution that will contribute to mitigating multifarious socio-economic problems resulting from economic growth, rapid urbanization, and widening income disparity. As this program is the first of its kind, so this book is the first detailed study of property tax in China; as such, it will appeal to researchers of public finance and public policy. It will also be of great interest to policymakers in China and in other countries that are considering adopting or reforming their versions of the local property tax. It fills the gap in a growing body of literature about the inner workings of Chinese economics and policy.

This book is a compilation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) theory and practices, with special reference to the Indian context. Over the last few decades, which have seen the onset of globalization, emergence of the industrial sector and an increased focus on community development, much attention has been focused on the role of corporations towards developing those societies where their operations are based. The introduction and evolution of CSR theories and practice in the developed countries has given CSR theorists and practitioners the guidance to appropriately place and implement CSR initiatives to help develop their role in the developed societies. However, while ample literature exists on such CSR practices, little has been done to aid the development of CSR in developing countries. Characterized by peculiar economic, political and social settings, the developing world needed its own blueprint for how CSR works and how it could best succeed. The need for doing is especially pertinent to a country like India, which is presently at a very crucial threshold, economically, politically and socially. Given the need to contextualize CSR theory and practice to the developing context, several CSR theories and practices have been explored in this book, which will provide readers with a thorough understanding of CSR and its successful implementation.

Drawn from the results of five seminars this unique book looks at the four areas of: public sector reform; essential features for public leaders; public leadership in action; and the outline of a public leadership approach for the future. It seeks to give public leadership a firm foothold within the study of leadership in general.

Ever since newspaper companies first turned to their governments for support in the 1950s, print media has been supported by state aid in many parts of the world. Today, the principles and practicalities of these subsidies have been called into question, endangering the secure funding of expensive high-quality press output. This book provides a comprehensive analysis of today’s global challenges in the print news media’s struggle for survival. It presents current practices concerning government subsidies to newspapers for political, economic, and socio-cultural purposes against the background of declining readership and revenues, increased inter-media competition, austerity budgets imposed on national economies and shifting audience tastes. Using the insights of theoretical debates in the fields of media economics, media governance, and modern management theory, the book analyses these issues by investigating the power of government subsidies to shape and control newspaper markets. It brings together experts in these fields to combine theory with industry practices, aiming to help all parties involved to understand the complexity of issues and requirements necessary to preserve the social benefits of print media.

This book describes the history of the IMF from its birth, through the Bretton Woods era, and in the aftermath. Special attention is paid to integrating IMF history with the macro-economic policies of member countries and of other international institutions as well. This collection of work presents a clear understanding, inter alia, of the influence of the United States over IMF policy via the National Advisory Committee; the dealings of the IMF with the UK on pound sterling policy; the institutional change of the IMF brought about by Per Jacobsson, the third managing director; and France, Italy, Germany, Canada, and Japan vis-à-vis IMF consultations. It also provides the reader with topics concerning the bankers’ acceptance market function and international liquidity issues in relation to IMF policy; the final chapter sheds light on the long-standing relations between the IMF and China, from the Bretton Woods Agreement to the contemporary period. All the chapters are archive-based academic studies providing deep insights with historical background, which makes this book the first thoroughly independent achievement in the field of IMF history. This book is highly recommended to readers interested in contemporary monetary and financial history and those who seek to obtain a coherent image of postwar international institutions and markets.

Inequality and taxation are fundamental problems of modern times. How and when can democracies tax economic elites? This book develops a theoretical framework that refines and integrates the classic concepts of business's instrumental (political) power and structural (investment) power to explain the scope and fate of tax initiatives targeting economic elites in Latin America after economic liberalization. In Chile, business's multiple sources of instrumental power, including cohesion and ties to right parties, kept substantial tax increases off the agenda. In Argentina, weaker business power facilitated significant reform, although specific sectors, including finance and agriculture, occasionally had instrumental and/or structural power to defend their interests. In Bolivia, popular mobilization counterbalanced the power of economic elites, who were much stronger than in Argentina but weaker than in Chile. The book's in-depth, medium-N case analysis and close attention to policymaking processes contribute insights on business power and prospects for redistribution in unequal democracies.

Today's financial system is considerably more complex than in years past, as new financial instruments have been introduced that are not well understood even by the people and institutions that invest in them. Numerous high-risk opportunities are available, and the number of people who unwittingly wander into such ventures seems to grow daily. There is also the realization that people's lives are affected by the financial system without their overt participation in it. Despite no active participation, pensions can be emasculated by a sudden decline in interest rates, or a rise in rates can increase the monthly payments on a mortgage, credit cards or other debt. This book looks at the history of the American banking system, including the passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913, the implementation of deposit insurance, along with certain other provisions of the Glass-Steagall Act of 1933, the Bretton-Woods agreements, the forces of technological innovation and the Dodd-Frank Act, passed by Congress in 2010 for regulatory reform. This book will be of interest to undergraduate and graduate level students that want to gain a broad understanding of how the financial system works, why it is important to the economy as a whole, and what its strengths and weaknesses are. Also, readers should gain an understanding of what the Federal Reserve, other regulators and other central banks are doing, and will be in a position to critique their actions and say with some depth of understanding why they agree or disagree with them.