![]() |
![]() |
Your cart is empty |
||
Books > Business & Economics > Finance & accounting > Finance > Public finance > General
The sustainability of public pension systems has become an important aspect for governments and institutions worldwide. This book addresses the multiple elements that influence the sustainability of pension systems with a special focus on central and eastern European countries. Supported by the results of econometric empirical studies, the authors discuss and analyse areas like social economy versus capitalist economy, globalization versus glocalization, population aging versus birth and fertility, emigration versus immigration, early retirement versus prolongation versus professional activity, the sustainability of public pension systems versus the adequacy of benefits provided, public pension systems compared to private pension funds and taxation of salary incomes versus subsidization of state social insurance.
How creditors came to wield unprecedented power over heavily indebted countries-and the dangers this poses to democracy The European debt crisis has rekindled long-standing debates about the power of finance and the fraught relationship between capitalism and democracy in a globalized world. Why Not Default? unravels a striking puzzle at the heart of these debates-why, despite frequent crises and the immense costs of repayment, do so many heavily indebted countries continue to service their international debts? In this compelling and incisive book, Jerome Roos provides a sweeping investigation of the political economy of sovereign debt and international crisis management. He takes readers from the rise of public borrowing in the Italian city-states to the gunboat diplomacy of the imperialist era and the wave of sovereign defaults during the Great Depression. He vividly describes the debt crises of developing countries in the 1980s and 1990s and sheds new light on the recent turmoil inside the Eurozone-including the dramatic capitulation of Greece's short-lived anti-austerity government to its European creditors in 2015. Drawing on in-depth case studies of contemporary debt crises in Mexico, Argentina, and Greece, Why Not Default? paints a disconcerting picture of the ascendancy of global finance. This important book shows how the profound transformation of the capitalist world economy over the past four decades has endowed private and official creditors with unprecedented structural power over heavily indebted borrowers, enabling them to impose painful austerity measures and enforce uninterrupted debt service during times of crisis-with devastating social consequences and far-reaching implications for democracy.
Despite the pressure for local councils to follow the lead of the private sector and develop shared service and partnership arrangements, the barriers in terms of culture, differences in priorities across councils and lack of experience are formidable - yet this is the most likely source of meeting government targets for reduced overheads and improved organizational effectiveness. By using extensive case studies drawn from across local councils in England, Ray Tomkinson explains the implications of sharing service delivery, addresses concerns about loss of control and accountability, and demonstrates the potential advantages. He shows how to set up collaborative ventures, formal partnerships, shared service centres or special purpose vehicles, while pointing out possible pitfalls, thus enabling senior managers to follow all the necessary project steps to create an appropriate shared service. It seeks to examine the evidence of the cost, effectiveness and quality improvements achieved from sharings. This ground-breaking book has been written for everyone in local government; it explores the political and cultural barriers, and legislative/legal framework for joint workings, explains how to find an appropriate governance vehicle, and how to gain the commitment of partners. It deals with political and managerial concerns, risk aversion and parochial issues, and the possible impact on the reputation and performance of both sharers. Shared Services in Local Government is the only comprehensive study for the UK and it will ensure any public sector organization pursuing this route is able to approach the task of creating a shared service with a real understanding of the issues involved.
Common wealth dividends are universal cash payments funded by fees on the private use of common resources like land, minerals, and the atmosphere as a carbon sink. Thomas Paine's 1797 pamphlet Agrarian Justice and Alaska's Permanent Fund Dividend are staples in the literature on Basic Income, but there is much more to common wealth dividends beyond these highlights, and common wealth dividends have a distinctive ethical justification and distinctive policy implications that merit discussion. This monograph, the most comprehensive study of common wealth dividends to date, will be of interest to students, teachers, and advocates of Basic Income and those in the field of environmental studies, including sustainable development, natural resource management, and climate policy.
"National finance" is a new concept launched by the author in his book National Finance A Chinese Perspective, a unique monograph that differs from other financial publications dealing with general topics in public finance. The monograph intends to provide a full, well-developed and macro-level exposition of all major aspects of finance from the perspective of the central government, with focus laid on the most essential, immediate and intricate issues in national financial development, which are the "hard nuts" that have to be cracked on both central and regional levels and on the fronts of both offshore and onshore finance. It attempts to cope with a series of formidable challenges that a country, particularly its top government officials, must take in developing finance: how national finance should develop and overtake in the face of rising financial industries, how it should respond to the influx of AI+blockchain technologies, how a country guards against and copes with systematic or regional financial risks with security, fluidity and profitability serving as its cornerstones, how it can build up and promote the new international financial system and governance amid international financial powers around the world, and so on.
This book is based upon a comparative public administration research project, initiated by the Hertie School of Governance (Germany) and the Bertelsmann Foundation (Germany) and supported by a network of researchers from many EU countries. It analyzes both the regimes and the practices of local fiscal regulation in 21 European countries. The book brings together key findings of this research project. The regulatory discussion is not limited to the prominent issue of fiscal rules but focuses on every component of regulation. Beyond this, the book covers affiliated topics such as the impact of regulation for local governments, evolution of regulation, administrative costs and crisis prevention. The various book chapters throughout provide a broad picture of local public finance regulation in theory and in practice, using different theoretical and national lenses for the analysis. Furthermore, the authors investigate the effects of budgetary constraints and higher-level regulatory efforts on local governments and on democracy and public services in every European country. This book fills a gap with respect to the lack of discussion on local government finance from an international, comparative perspective and, in particular, the regulation of local public finance. With its mix of authors, this book will be useful for practitioners as well as for scholars and for theory-driven research.
Was the European Union ever a liberal dream? How did the common market impact the liberalization in its member states? Has the EU fostered more or less economic freedom in the Old Continent? This book explores the intellectual and political genesis of the European Union, focusing especially on its relationship to classical liberalism. It explains how the new enthusiasm for liberalization associated with Reagan and Thatcher helped revive the European project in the 1980s, while providing some insights on the current challenges Europe is facing as a result of the financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. The contributors highlight the role of liberal, pro-market ideas played in shaping the EU, the single market and the euro, and how these should be coming into play again if the European project is to be reanimated. This volume originates from a conference the Italian think tank Istituto Bruno Leoni hosted in 2019 and is dedicated to Alberto Giovannini (1955-2019). Giovannini was an influential macroeconomist and financial economist. His vast legacy of studies and ideas prompted this book in his honor, on the occasion of his untimely passing away.
This book contains selected papers of the International Conference on Industrial Economics Systems and Industrial Security Engineering (IEIS 2020), which is co-organized by Beijing Jiaotong University, Budapest University of Technology and Economics, in July 25-28 2020. This book aims to provide new research methods, theories and applications from various areas of industrial economics and engineering. In detail the included scientific papers analyze and describe communication processes in the fields of industrial economics, industrial system, industrial security and engineering and other related areas. The variety of papers delivers added value for both scholars and practitioners.
Government information systems are big business (costing over 1 per cent of GDP a year). They are critical to all aspects of public policy and governmental operations. Governments spend billions on them - for instance, the UK alone commits GBP14 billion a year to public sector IT operations. Yet governments do not generally develop or run their own systems, instead relying on private sector computer services providers to run large, long-run contracts to provide IT. Some of the biggest companies in the world (IBM, EDS, Lockheed Martin, etc) have made this a core market. The book shows how governments in some countries (the USA, Canada and Netherlands) have maintained much more effective policies than others (in the UK, Japan and Australia). It shows how public managers need to retain and develop their own IT expertise and to carefully maintain well-contested markets if they are to deliver value for money in their dealings with the very powerful global IT industry. This book describes how a critical aspect of the modern state is managed, or in some cases mismanaged. It will be vital reading for public managers, IT professionals, and business executives alike, as well as for students of modern government, business, and information studies.
This expanded and enlarged third edition of Theodore Pelagidis and Michael Mitsopoulos' popular Who's to Blame for Greece? covers almost a decade of Greece's economic crisis from 2009 to 2019, as well as recent developments in the first months of 2020. It provides an overview of recent developments in the Greek economy and outlines the most important obstacles to a return to robust and sustainable growth rates. It considers the new optimism being developed in Greece after the crisis, but also the policy challenges facing Greece emanating from a deeply hurt economy in the aftermath of the crisis and the structural problems that persist. The book covers the most recent issues that affect the Greek economy including, the migration crisis at the borders with Turkey as well as a faltering global economy hit by the Covid-19 pandemic. This book will appeal to researchers, practitioners and policy makers interested in the EU and the political economy of Greece and offers valuable updates on the second edition.
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.
Information and communication technology (ICT) is central to reforming governance, innovating public services, and building inclusive information societies. Countries are learning to weave ICT into their strategies for transforming government as enterprises have learned to use ICT to innovate and transform their processes and competitive strategies. ICT-enabled transformation offers a new path to digital-era government that is responsive to the challenges of our time. It facilitates innovation, partnering, knowledge sharing, community organizing, local monitoring, accelerated learning, and participatory development. In Transforming Government and Building the Information Society, Nagy Hanna draws on multi-disciplinary research on ICT in the public sector, and on his rich experience of over 35 years at the World Bank and other aid agencies, to identify the key ingredients for the strategic integration of ICT into governance and poverty reduction strategies. The author showcases promising practices from around the world to outline the strategic options involved in using ICT to maximize developmental impact-transforming government institutions and public services, and empowering communities for inclusion and grassroots innovation. Despite the ICT promise, Hanna acknowledges that reforming governance and empowering poor communities are difficult long-term undertakings. Hanna moves beyond the imperatives and visions of e-transformation to strategic design and implementation options, and draws practical lessons for policymakers, reformers, innovators, community leaders, ICT specialists and development experts.
On its 30th anniversary in 2004 responsibility for hosting the G8 Summit fell into the hands of an allegedly unilateralist America. An America still reeling from the shock of the September 11th terrorist attacks, the resulting economic recession, bitter divisions with its NATO allies and disappointment with the United Nations Institutions over the 2003 Iraq war. So why does America still need the G8? New Perspectives on Global Governance offers new insight into the role of the Group of Eight's major market democracies and challenges the assumption that the G8 is simply a forum for binding a unilateralist hegemonic America. In contrast to seeing the G8 as a means of imposing an American world order this unique collection of new writings suggests that a now vulnerable America must rely on the G8 as a central instrument of foreign policy. America needs the G8 to achieve its security, economic and political interests in the world and to shape the twenty-first central global order it so desperately wants.
This book scientifically tests the assertion that accommodative monetary policy can eliminate the "crowd out" problem, allowing fiscal stimulus programs (such as tax cuts or increased government spending) to stimulate the economy as intended. It also tests to see if natural growth in th economy can cure the crowd out problem as well or better. The book is intended to be the largest scale scientific test ever performed on this topic. It includes about 800 separate statistical tests on the U.S. economy testing different parts or all of the period 1960 - 2010. These tests focus on whether accommodative monetary policy, which increases the pool of loanable resources, can offset the crowd out problem as well as natural growth in the economy. The book, employing the best scientific methods available to economists for this type of problem, concludes accommodate monetary policy could have, but until the quantitative easing program, Federal Reserve efforts to accommodate fiscal stimulus programs were not large enough to offset more than 23% to 44% of any one year's crowd out problem. That provides the science part of the answer as to why accommodative monetary policy didn't accommodate: too little of it was tried. The book also tests whether other increases in loanable funds, occurring because of natural growth in the economy or changes in the savings rate can also offset crowd out. It concludes they can, and that these changes tend to be several times as effective as accommodative monetary policy. This book's companion volume Why Fiscal Stimulus Programs Fail explores the policy implications of these results.
This book examines the international political economy of China's exchange rate policy making from theoretical and empirical perspectives. It identifies the limitations in the existing Economics studies on the RMB exchange rate and the research gap of the Comparative Political Economy (CPE) and International Political Economy (IPE) approaches to exchange rate politics. The author develops a three-level game framework for China's exchange rate policy making based on revision and synthesis of the existing CPE and IPE approaches, which provides a richer portrait of the dynamism and complexity of China's exchange rate policy making. The book has applied the three-level game framework to empirically analyzing China's exchange rate policy making under the Hu-Wen administration. The book also discusses some further exploration of China's exchange rate policy in the Xi era and comparative case study of exchange rate policy making. It is a timely and rigorous study on the role that international and domestic politics play in forging China's exchange rate policy making in the twenty-first century.
This book gathers selected papers from the 29th Eurasia Business and Economics Society (EBES) Conference, held in Lisbon, Portugal. While the theoretical and empirical papers presented cover diverse areas of economics and finance in various geographic regions, the main focus is on the latest research concerning accounting/audits, banking, the economics of innovation, and empirical studies on emerging economies and international trade. Studies on labor economics and public economics, as well as regional studies, round out the coverage.
A comprehensive account of the rise and fall of the mortgage-securitization industry, which explains the complex roots of the 2008 financial crisis. More than a decade after the 2008 financial crisis plunged the world economy into recession, we still lack an adequate explanation for why it happened. Existing accounts identify a number of culprits-financial instruments, traders, regulators, capital flows-yet fail to grasp how the various puzzle pieces came together. The key, Neil Fligstein argues, is the convergence of major US banks on an identical business model: extracting money from the securitization of mortgages. But how, and why, did this convergence come about? The Banks Did It carefully takes the reader through the development of a banking industry dependent on mortgage securitization. Fligstein documents how banks, with help from the government, created the market for mortgage securities. The largest banks-Countrywide Financial, Bear Stearns, Citibank, and Washington Mutual-soon came to participate in every aspect of this market. Each firm originated mortgages, issued mortgage-backed securities, sold those securities, and, in many cases, acted as their own best customers by purchasing the same securities. Entirely reliant on the throughput of mortgages, these firms were unable to alter course even when it became clear that the market had turned on them in the mid-2000s. With the structural features of the banking industry in view, the rest of the story falls into place. Fligstein explains how the crisis was produced, where it spread, why regulators missed the warning signs, and how banks' dependence on mortgage securitization resulted in predatory lending and securities fraud. An illuminating account of the transformation of the American financial system, The Banks Did It offers important lessons for anyone with a stake in avoiding the next crisis.
This timely book offers bold new fiscal policy options that can complement current automatic stabilizers and counter-cyclical monetary policy to combat recessions. Dr. Seidman acknowledges that most economists are justifiably skeptical of Congress's ability to implement discretionary counter-cyclical fiscal policy in a timely and effective manner, as indicated by the government's heavy reliance on monetary policy to stabilize the economy in recent decades. He argues for an independent fiscal policy board or the Federal Reserve to decide changes in the magnitude of Congress's fiscal policy package of stimulus or restraint. Any recommendations would go into effect immediately without a congressional vote, subject only to congressional override. With thought provoking proposals like this, Dr. Seidman provides a fresh look at practical fiscal policy tools based on the most prominent research in the field.
This timely book offers bold new fiscal policy options that can complement current automatic stabilizers and counter-cyclical monetary policy to combat recessions. Dr. Seidman acknowledges that most economists are justifiably skeptical of Congress's ability to implement discretionary counter-cyclical fiscal policy in a timely and effective manner, as indicated by the government's heavy reliance on monetary policy to stabilize the economy in recent decades. He argues for an independent fiscal policy board or the Federal Reserve to decide changes in the magnitude of Congress's fiscal policy package of stimulus or restraint. Any recommendations would go into effect immediately without a congressional vote, subject only to congressional override. With thought provoking proposals like this, Dr. Seidman provides a fresh look at practical fiscal policy tools based on the most prominent research in the field.
This book sheds new light on the Greek economic challenges and helps readers understand the current debt crisis. Chapters from leading experts in the field identify and outline potential solutions to the on-going decline of the Greek economy by considering both Eurozone-adopted current policy framework explanations and potential alternative explanations. In contrast to the standard chronological approach toward the Greek debt crisis typically adopted by other texts, this book draws on the experience and views of specialized economists and offers divergent opinions that could potentially form alternative solutions. It will be of interest to researchers and academics interested in the Greek economy, modern financial modelling, and risk management.
How does social spending relate to economic growth and which countries have got this right and wrong? Peter Lindert examines the experience of countries across the globe to reveal what has worked, what needs changing, and who the winners and losers are under different systems. He traces the development of public education, health care, pensions, and welfare provision, and addresses key questions around intergenerational inequality and fiscal redistribution, the returns to investment in human capital, how to deal with an aging population, whether migration is a cost or a benefit, and how social spending differs in autocracies and democracies. The book shows that what we need to do above all is to invest more in the young from cradle to career, and shift the burden of paying for social insurance away from the workplace and to society as a whole.
What is the appropriate design for environmental regulation? Gert Tinggaard Svendsen sheds new light on the appropriate mix of economic instruments to implement environmental regulation in the context of the world-wide attempts to abate CO2 emissions. Gert Tinggaard Svendsen offers a detailed and comprehensive study of two alternative methods for controlling CO2 emissions - tradable permits and taxation - using examples of varying success from the United States and Europe. He applies a blend of environmental economic theory and public choice theory to analyse these methods and reveals that they both have merits. He proposes a design incorporating the best features of the two approaches because it is both cost-effective and politically and administratively feasible. In the case of C02 regulation, a CO2 permit market based on the US experience with free historical emissions should be applied in relation to industry, electric utilities and environmental organisations. The author proposes that a CO2 tax should be applied to non-organized interests, such as households and the transport sector, based on the EU experience. In particular, these policy recommendations are applied to potential CO2 permit markets in Europe and the United States. The interdisciplinary approach and the resulting policy recommendations make this book relevant to policymakers and academics across the social sciences. It will be particularly pertinent to those interested in environmental economics and public choice economics.
This Handbook responds to the needs and aspirations of current and future generations of development economists by providing critical reference material alongside or in relation to mainstream propositions. Despite the potential of globalisation in accelerating growth and development in low and middle-income countries through the spread of technology, knowledge and information, its current practice in many parts of the world has led to processes that are socially, economically and politically and ecologically unsustainable. It is critical for development economists to engage with the pivotal question of how to change the nature and course of globalisation to make it work for inclusive and sustainable development. Applying a critical and pluralistic approach, the chapters in this Handbook examine economics of development paths under globalisation, focusing on sustainable development in social, environmental, institutional and political economy dimensions. It aims at advancing the frontier of development economics in these key aspects and generating more refined policy perspectives. It is critically reflective in examining effects of globalisation on development paths to date, and in terms of methodological and analytical approaches, as well as forward-thinking in policy perspectives with a view to laying a foundation for sustainable development.
This book provides a comprehensive treatment of traditional as well as newer topics in local public, fiscal and financial management principles and practices. It covers traditional topics of local public management, local revenue administration with special emphasis on property tax administration, local budgeting and accounting, and methods of capital finance. Newer topics covered include political economy of local government, fiscal rules for local fiscal discipline, local government integrity and performance accountability, and municipal mergers and inter-municipal cooperation based upon relative importance and political, fiscal and administrative autonomy of local governments. The treatment is non-technical and suitable for a wide variety of audiences including scholars, instructors, students, policy advisors, and practitioners. |
![]() ![]() You may like...
EU Policymaking at a Crossroads…
Sybille M'Unch, Hubert Heinelt
Hardcover
R3,480
Discovery Miles 34 800
Financial Mathematics - A Computational…
K. Pereira, N. Modhien, …
Paperback
R326
Discovery Miles 3 260
Federalism in China and Russia - Story…
Alexander Libman, Michael Rochlitz
Hardcover
R3,023
Discovery Miles 30 230
|