This volume identifies and compares 'fiscal squeezes' (major efforts to cut public spending and/or raise taxes) in the UK over a century from 1900 to 2015. The authors examine how different the politics of fiscal squeeze and austerity is today from what it was a century ago, how (if at all) fiscal squeezes reshaped the state and the provision of public services, and how political credit and blame played out after austerity episodes. The analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, starting with reported financial outcomes from historical statistics and then going behind those numbers to explore the political choices and processes in play. This analysis identifies some patterns that have not been explained or even recognized in earlier works on retrenchment and austerity. For example, it identifies a long term shift from what it terms a 'surgery without anaesthetics' approach (deep but short-lived episodes of spending restraint or tax increases) in the earlier part of the period towards a 'boiling frogs' approach (episodes in which the pain is spread out over a longer period) in more recent decades. It also identifies a curious reduction of revenue-led squeezes in more recent decades, and a puzzle over why blame-avoidance logic only led to outsourcing painful decisions over squeeze in a minority of cases. Furthermore, the volume's distinctive approach to classifying types of fiscal squeezes and qualitatively assessing their intensity seeks to solve the puzzle as to why voter'punishment' of governments that impose austerity policies seems to be so erratic.

A thrilling ride inside the world of tax havens and corporate masterminds While the United States experiences recession and economic stagnation and European countries face bankruptcy, experts struggle to make sense of the crisis. Nicholas Shaxson, a former correspondent for the Financial Times and The Economist, argues that tax havens are a central cause of all these disasters. In this hard hitting investigation he uncovers how offshore tax evasion, which has cost the U.S. 100 billion dollars in lost revenue each year, is just one item on a long rap sheet outlining the damage that offshoring wreaks on our societies. In a riveting journey from Moscow to London to Switzerland to Delaware, Shaxson dives deep into a vast and secret playground where bankers and multinational corporations operate side by side with nefarious tax evaders, organized criminals and the world's wealthiest citizens. Tax havens are where all these players get to maximize their own rewards and leave the middle class to pick up the bill. With eye opening revelations, Treasure Islands exposes the culprits and its victims, and shows how: *Over half of world trade is routed through tax havens *The rampant practices that precipitated the latest financial crisis can be traced back to Wall Street's offshoring practices *For every dollar of aid we send to developing countries, ten dollars leave again by the backdoor The offshore system sits much closer to home than the pristine tropical islands of the popular imagination. In fact, it all starts on a tiny island called Manhattan. In this fast paced narrative, Treasure Islands at last explains how the system works and how it's contributing to our ever deepening economic divide.

Since the onset of the global economic crisis, activists, policy makers, and social scientists have been searching for alternative paradigms through which to re-imagine contemporary modes of thinking and writing about economic orders. These attempts have led to their re-engagement with fundamental anthropological categories of economic analysis, such as barter, debt, and the gift. Focusing on favours, and the paradoxes of action, meaning, and significance they engender, this volume advocates for their addition to this list of economic universals. It presents a critical re-interrogation of the conceptual relationships between gratuitous and instrumental behaviour, and raises novel questions about the intersection of economic actions with the ethical and expressive aspects of human life. Scholars of post-socialist politics and society have often used 'favour' as a by-word for corruption and clientelism. The contributors to this volume treat favours, and the doing of favours, as a distinct mode of acting, rather than as a form of 'masked' economic exchange or simply an expression of goodwill. Casting their comparative net from post-socialist Central, Eastern, and South Eastern Europe; to the former Soviet Union, Mongolia, and post-Maoist China, the contributors to this volume show how gratuitous behaviour shapes a plethora of different actions, practices, and judgements across religious and political life, imaginative practices, and local moral economies. They show that favours do not operate 'outside' or 'beyond' the economic sphere. Rather, they constitute a distinct mode of action which has economic consequences, without being fully explicable in terms of transactional cost-benefit analyses.

This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states. The euro induced huge capital flows from the northern to the southern countries of the Eurozone that triggered an inflationary credit bubble in the latter, deprived them of their competitiveness, and made them vulnerable to the financial crisis that spilled over from the US in 2007 and 2008. As private capital shied away from the southern countries, the ECB helped out by providing credit from the local money-printing presses. The ECB became heavily exposed to investment risks in the process, and subsequently had to be bailed out by intergovernmental rescue operations that provided replacement credit for the ECB credit, which itself had replaced the dwindling private credit. The interventions stretched the legal structures stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty which, in the absence of a European federal state, had granted the ECB a very limited mandate. These interventions created a path dependency that effectively made parliaments vicarious agents of the ECB's Governing Council. This book describes what the author considers to be a dangerous political process that undermines both the market economy and democracy, without solving southern Europe's competitiveness problem. It argues that the Eurozone has to rethink its rules of conduct by limiting the role of the ECB, exiting the regime of soft budget constraints and writing off public and bank debt to help the crisis countries breathe again. At the same time, the Eurosystem should become more flexible by offering its members the option of exiting and re-entering the euro - something between the dollar and the Bretton Woods system - until it eventually turns into a federation with a strong political power centre and a uniform currency like the dollar.

From the mid-1980s to the early 2000s, images of crisis and reform dominated talk of Cameroon's economy. Doing Business in Cameroon examines the aftermath of that period of turbulence and unpredictability in the northern city of Ngaoundere. Taking the everyday encounters between business actors and state bureaucrats as its point of departure, the book vividly illustrates the backstage and interconnected dynamics of four different sectors (cattle trade, trucking, public contracting, and NGO work). Drawing on his training in law and social anthropology, the author is able to clarify intricate policy dynamics and abstruse legal developments for readers. A widespread picture emerges of actors grappling with the long-term implications of selective or suspended enforcement of legal rules. The book deftly illuminates a set of shifting configurations in which economic outcomes like monetary gains or the circulation of goods are achieved by foregoing the possibility of relying on or complying with the law.

This volumes examines the interaction of labour market conditions and retirement decisions. Based on French and US data, it provides empirical evidence and quantitative analysis of retirement and labor market flows. It studies the horizon effect and uses French individual data and probit models to show that the horizon effect does matter for the probability of being employed before the early retirement age. It analyses the influence of the retirement age on labour-market equilibrium, as well as the impact of labour market conditions, especially the importance of unemployment risk, on retirement decisions.

This book is based on lectures conducted for two classes at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University: A Public Finance Seminar for PhD students in public administration and State and Local Public Finance for master's students in public administration.Topics covered include the role of voters in a federal system, the sorting of different households into different communities, the determinants of public service costs, the property tax and other sources of local (and state) revenue, fiscal aspects of economic development, and intergovernmental aid (especially for education).The notes for the Ph.D. class also cover several more advanced topics, such as the estimation of education production and cost functions, the capitalization of school quality into house values, and tax competition among jurisdictions. The focus in these notes is on the highly decentralized federal system in the United States, but many of the principles and much of the behavioral analysis in the class apply to other countries as well.These notes draw on Professor Yinger's extensive teaching experience and publication record in state and local public finance. They should prove useful to many teachers, scholars, and students who find topics in state and local public finance that they wish to pursue.

For effective program evaluation, it is necessary to specify a counterfactual state, i.e., what would have happened without the program. Conventional approaches to program evaluation, preoccupied with technical and value issues, fail to address directly the need for counterfactual arguments. They also fail to recognize the indispensable role of positive theories of technical and behavioral processes in making these arguments. In order to understand the impact of the General Revenue Sharing (GRS) program on the fiscal behavior of municipal governments, Patrick Larkey develops and demonstrates an unconventional approach to program evaluation that overcomes these failures. Drawing on the positive theories of budgetary decisionmaking processes as well as longitudinal revenue and expenditure data from primary sources, the author specifies, estimates, and tests four "bureaucratic process" models for each of five city governments receiving GRS funds. Using these models to generate complex, counterfactual hypotheses, he then compares the counterfactual patterns with observed patterns to understand the fiscal effects of GRS. Originally published in 1979. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Since the opening of the Ottoman Archives, research on the history of the Ottoman Empire prior to 1800 has resulted primarily in the publication of individual financial and administrative records, sometimes with analysis. Dr. Shaw's study is the first effort to use all the available records concerning an individual province, synthesizing them into an exhaustive study of Egypt's administration under Ottoman rule, from its conquest in 1517 until the French invasion of Egypt in 1798. A unique work of scholarship, the book shows in detail the changes made over the centuries, and is based both on the local archives and on the Imperial Ottoman archives located in Istanbul. Originally published in 1962. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The European Union (EU) has emerged as a central actor in financial governance. Hardly any corner of European financial markets remains untouched by EU rules, and key regulatory competences have been shifted from national authorities to supranational ones. At the same time, the global context has become ever more important for how and to what effect the EU regulates its financial markets. On the one hand, EU policymaking is embedded in global initiatives such as the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision. On the other hand, the EU now rivals the USA in its ability to shape global rules. Scholars and practitioners cannot make sense of EU rulemaking without studying its links to global financial governance, just as to understand how global initiatives evolve they have to appreciate the rise of the EU as a global regulatory force. This book charts and analyses this centrality of the European-global link in financial governance for the first time. Its chapters, written by experts in the specific fields, cover the whole breadth of financial markets. They range from banking, auditing and accounting to derivatives trading, money laundering, and tax governance. This book offers comprehensive coverage of: how and why global and European financial governance have co-evolved over time; how global and European rules, institutions, and actors are linked today; and what this implies for future global and European financial governance. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand the dynamics of either global or European financial regulation.

This book offers a critical assessment of the history of the euro, its crisis, and the rescue measures taken by the European Central Bank and the community of states. The euro induced huge capital flows from the northern to the southern countries of the Eurozone that triggered an inflationary credit bubble in the latter, deprived them of their competitiveness, and made them vulnerable to the financial crisis that spilled over from the US in 2007 and 2008. As private capital shied away from the southern countries, the ECB helped out by providing credit from the local money-printing presses. The ECB became heavily exposed to investment risks in the process, and subsequently had to be bailed out by intergovernmental rescue operations that provided replacement credit for the ECB credit, which itself had replaced the dwindling private credit. The interventions stretched the legal strictures stipulated by the Maastricht Treaty which, in the absence of a European federal state, had granted the ECB a very limited mandate. These interventions created a path dependency that effectively made parliaments vicarious agents of the ECB's Governing Council. This book describes what the author considers to be a dangerous political process that undermines both the market economy and democracy, without solving southern Europe's competitiveness problem. It argues that the Eurozone has to rethink its rules of conduct by limiting the role of the ECB, exiting the regime of soft budget constraints and writing off public and bank debt to help the crisis countries breathe again. At the same time, the Eurosystem should become more flexible by offering its members the option of exiting and re-entering the euro - something between the dollar and the Bretton Woods system - until it eventually turns into a federation with a strong political power centre and a uniform currency like the dollar.

Examining the causes of the acute Latin American debt crisis that began in mid-1982, North American analysts have typically focused on deficiencies in the debtor countries' economic policies and on shocks from the world economy. Much less emphasis has been placed on the role of the region's principal creditors--private banks--in the development of the crisis. Robert Devlin rounds out the story of Latin America's debt problem by demonstrating that the banks were an endogenous source of instability in the region's debt cycle, as they overexpanded on the upside and overcontracted on the downside.

Originally published in 1993.

The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These paperback editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Restoring Public Debt Sustainability: The Role of Independent Fiscal Institutions represents the first comprehensive survey of a new generation of independent fiscal institutions, established to promote transparency in public finances through real-time monitoring of the soundness of budgetary policymaking. The chapters, authored by heads of the institutions, as well as distinguished policy analysts and academics, explore the rationale and experience of these fiscal watchdogs. Consequently, useful lessons and implications are drawn for the design and practical operation of such institutions. The timeliness of the volume is underscored by the potential role of fiscal watchdogs in containing the public debt crisis that has engulfed a number of countries. Indeed, the recent proliferation of these institutions has been in response to the need for enhancing policy credibility of highly indebted governments in financial markets and, more generally, for strengthening the quality of economic governance. The first part of the book deals with key analytical and institutional issues: the political environment, the scope and limits of these institutions, the delegation of monetary policymaking to an independent body, and the implications of rising public indebtedness. The second part contains case studies of institutions that, for the most part, were born as a result of domestic political developments. The third part presents the experience of institutions whose origins can be traced directly or indirectly to an earlier or a recent financial crisis. The chapters are written from a multidisciplinary - economic, financial, political, legal - perspective, intended for academics, researchers, and practitioners alike.

At the turn of this century, the American national debt stood at just under $6 trillion and the deficit at a mere $86 billion. Today, the national debt has topped $15 trillion, and the yearly deficit for 2012 is projected at a whopping $1.2 trillion. This new, second edition of Deficits: Why Should I Care? updates all the statistics, charts, and forecasts, while adding a new chapter on how global economies now, for better or worse, affect the U.S. debt and the annual budget deficit. It also includes a new appendix detailing how the U.S. political parties view the debt issue. According to the U.S. Treasury Department's Annual Report on the Public Debt, the debt is estimated to hit $19.6 trillion by 2015. The federal government has borrowed roughly 40 percent of its total budget for the last several years, a trend that could leave the U.S. in an economic crisis. Astronomical interest payments, a debt burden to your children and grandchildren, and an increased reliance on foreign creditors are just a few of the problems. Although the U.S. has experienced soaring unemployment, stagnant production, and a crippled housing market, foremost on many economists' minds are rising deficits and ballooning debt.Others feel fears of the national debt are overblown or pale in comparison to today's economic problems. This clear, concise book will give you the need-to-know on the debt. You will learn: * How to calculate deficits and the national debt * The history of U.S debt and its recent unparalleled growth over the years * How and why the government borrows money * The economic arguments for, and against, accruing a debt * Could we become like Greece if we don't cut our deficit? * The impact of the debt on interest rates and inflation * The impact of the debt on the value of the dollar and U.S. economic power This book also answers key questions: Can the government go bankrupt? Why have there seemingly been no repurcussions of the large debt to date and is that likely to change? When the interest on the debt becomes higher than the revenue of the government, what happens? And many more practical insights into the government debt controversy. Business professionals, parents, retirees, and students are all concerned about the debt. This quick read will provide an understanding of the ramifications of the rising debt and what the consequences may be.What you'll learn * Why the debt now could be a problem when people have been crying wolf about it for for the last 40 years * How the world economy affects the U.S. debt and deficit * What the government can do to reduce the debt and the implications--especially for such programs as Medicare and Social Security * The long-term implications of the debt * Methods and tactics for balancing the budget * When accruing a debt makes sense and when it does not * Action steps for monitoring the debt Who this book is for Deficit: Why Should I Care? is written for the busy business professional, concerned parent, retired worker, or student. While academic and theoretical texts on the subject lack brevity, this book will help you understand the seriousness of the debt issue in a clear, concise format. This work has been condensed into eight need-to-know chapters, each containing the key points necessary for understanding this complex economic issue affecting the economic future of all Americans.Whether you are a businessperson concerned about the economy, a parent anxious about the debt burden of your children and grandchildren, a retiree fretful about programs like Social Security, or a student who needs additional information to supplement a textbook, this is the book for you. The appendix provides a website selection covering government agencies, economic sources, and academic sites to assist you in finding the most up-to-date information on the debt drama.

Sovereign debt is a complex and highly topical area of law and this work represents a new main reference book on the subject bringing together contributions from world leading practitioners, scholars and regulators. Divided into five parts the book opens with a part on restructuring which analyses contractual provisions and the role of institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. The second part, on enforcement, considers the position of a sovereign as a defendant analyzing the availability of special immunities and matters of defense and arbitration pertinent to sovereign debt. Part three of the book is concerned with complicating factors such as economic, political or banking crises and how these relate and complicate the task of addressing an unsustainable sovereign debt stock. In this section the particular and topical issues concerned with restructuring in a monetary union are explained. The fourth part provides economists' explanations of why and how sovereigns borrow and the causes of a sovereign debt, which enriches understanding by providing context to the purely legal aspects of the work. The book closes with a section which covers proposed reform to sovereign debt systems. Dedicated to the leading expert Lee Buchheit, this work contains comprehensive and rigorous analysis on sovereign debt management which no specialist should be without.

This new edition restructures and updates the political economy view of the responsibilities and limitations of government. Public-choice and behavioural concepts are prominent. Gender issues are included. Technical concepts are explained from first principles. Economic theory is rigorously applied. Excessive technicality is avoided. The book integrates traditional public finance topics - taxation, public goods, externalities, and income redistribution - with political self-interest, bureaucracy, voting, rent seeking, corruption, and the common-pool problem of public spending. Social justice is viewed as income equality, equality of opportunity, or the right to benefit from one's own effort. Public policies studied include the environment, education, health insurance, welfare payments and entitlements under moral hazard, unemployment insurance, paternalistic impositions, and defence and public safety. This book is ideal for advanced undergraduate and graduate courses that combine economic theory with a real-world perspective on the politics of public finance and public policy. A broad scope makes the book suitable for students in all countries.

Few would doubt that the conditions of governance have changed-and continue to change-as the early 21st century seems to enter a period of profound uncertainty. Yet, at the same time, the world seems alive with a cacophony of approaches-old and new-on how to improve governance and, ultimately, policy outcomes. This collection-the first in a series of annual editions-seeks to address the implications of the current state of the world in terms of "good governance", i.e. the effective, efficient, and reliable set of legitimate institutions and actors dedicated to dealing with matters of public concern, be it in the field of financial markets (the focus of this edition), health care, security, or migration, and across local, national and international levels. Researchers at The Hertie School of Governance (Berlin, Germany) and other experts examine the current state of governance challenges and innovations from a variety of inter-disciplinary perspectives. This edition features a special set of chapters on the challenges of financial and fiscal governance, the tradeoffs faced by governance actors, and the new arrangements that have emerged or are required to not only address the ongoing crisis but also ensure greater stability into the future. This special section is complemented by chapters introducing basic concepts and models; exploring other global challenges and the reasons behind seemingly lackluster responses to them and highlighting the need for responsible sovereignty; conceptualizing governance innovation and introducing key examples; and assessing existing indicators of governance, while proposing a new framework for collecting, interpreting and applying governance-related information.

Public-private collaboration in infrastructure projects takes place in a variety of institutional frameworks worldwide. This volume considers the different cultural, political and legal settings in the US, UK, Japan and other countries and regions where policymakers are reconsidering traditional mechanisms for raising and deploying capital. By focusing on concrete examples in specific countries, the editors and contributors draw useful lessons for strong sector performance in telecommunications, power, water and social infrastructure. Innovative strategies that work can be modified and refined in other sectors and other countries. Going beyond ideological debate, this volume presents a pragmatic approach to best practice, one that combines market-oriented solutions with governmental oversight according to the specific cultural and institutional situations. Regulators, academics, policymakers, politicians, and students in public policy, finance and economics will find this volume practical and original.

In the light of better and more detailed administrative databases, this open access book provides statistical tools for evaluating the effects of public policies advocated by governments and public institutions. Experts from academia, national statistics offices and various research centers present modern econometric methods for an efficient data-driven policy evaluation and monitoring, assess the causal effects of policy measures and report on best practices of successful data management and usage. Topics include data confidentiality, data linkage, and national practices in policy areas such as public health, education and employment. It offers scholars as well as practitioners from public administrations, consultancy firms and nongovernmental organizations insights into counterfactual impact evaluation methods and the potential of data-based policy and program evaluation.

A textbook that examines how societies reach decisions about the use and allocation of economic resources While economic research emphasizes the importance of governmental institutions for growth and progress, conventional public policy textbooks tend to focus on macroeconomic policies and on tax-and-spend decisions. Markets, State, and People stresses the basics of welfare economics and the interplay between individual and collective choices. It fills a gap by showing how economic theory relates to current policy questions, with a look at incentives, institutions, and efficiency. How should resources in society be allocated for the most economically efficient outcomes, and how does this sit with society's sense of fairness? Diane Coyle illustrates the ways economic ideas are the product of their historical context, and how events in turn shape economic thought. She includes many real-world examples of policies, both good and bad. Readers will learn that there are no panaceas for policy problems, but there is a practical set of theories and empirical findings that can help policymakers navigate dilemmas and trade-offs. The decisions faced by officials or politicians are never easy, but economic insights can clarify the choices to be made and the evidence that informs those choices. Coyle covers issues such as digital markets and competition policy, environmental policy, regulatory assessments, public-private partnerships, nudge policies, universal basic income, and much more. Markets, State, and People offers a new way of approaching public economics. A focus on markets and institutions Policy ideas in historical context Real-world examples How economic theory helps policymakers tackle dilemmas and choices

The shadow economy (also known as the black or underground economy) covers a vast array of trade, goods and services that are not part of the official economy of a country. This original and comprehensive Handbook presents the latest research on the size and development of the shadow economy, which remains an integral component of the economies of most developing and many developed countries. The volume explores the driving forces behind the shadow economy and highlights important regional variations. The expert authors address the whole spectrum of issues including tax moral, government institutions, corruption and illicit work. Importantly the book also examines recent progress in how the shadow economy is measured and estimated. This well-documented and authoritative study will appeal to economists and researchers, as well as academics and students in the fields of economics, political science and social science. It will also be of interest to anyone seeking a comprehensive investigation into the workings of shadow economy.

This study paper examines the economic consequences of immigration for public finances in Denmark. Using new figures for the period 2004-2008, net transfers are calculated and presented as an extension to the figures that already existed for the period 1991-2001. The net transfers are calculated from a marginal perspective, which means that the included public expenditures and incomes can be traced to each individual person in the sample. The study is therefore suited for analyzing the economic consequences if more/less people immigrate. A consistent pattern to emerge throughout the study is that net transfers from Western first- and second-generation immigrants to state funds are positive, while those from non-Western first- and second-generation immigrants are negative. The new calculations show that net transfers from non-Western first- and second-generation immigrants fell from DKK (Danish Kroner) -12.8 billion in 2004 to DKK -9.1 billion in 2008, largely due to the improved employment situation in Denmark. However, the results also show that the composition chosen of the group of non-Western immigrants has a significant effect on the calculation of net transfers, in that these transfers are reduced to DKK -2.2 billion if refugees are excluded from this group.

A fast-paced, behind-closed-doors account of the Federal Reserve's decision making during the 2008 financial crisis, showing how Fed policymakers overcame their own assumptions to contain the disaster. The financial crisis of 2008 led to the collapse of several major banks and thrust the US economy into the deepest recession since the Great Depression. The Federal Reserve was the agency most responsible for maintaining the nation's economic stability. And the Fed's Open Market Committee was a twelve-member body at the epicenter, making sense of the unfolding crisis and fashioning a response. This is the story of how they failed, learned, and staved off catastrophe. Drawing on verbatim transcripts of the committee's closed-door meetings, Mitchel Abolafia puts readers in the room with the Federal Reserve's senior policymaking group. Abolafia uncovers what the Fed's policymakers knew before, during, and after the collapse. He explores how their biases and intellectual commitments both helped and hindered as they made sense of the emergency. In an original contribution to the sociology of finance, Stewards of the Market examines the social and cultural factors that shaped the Fed's response, one marked by missed cues and analytic failures but also by successful improvisations and innovations. Ideas, traditions, and power all played their roles in the Fed's handling of the crisis. In particular, Abolafia demonstrates that the Fed's adherence to conflicting theories of self-correcting markets contributed to the committee's doubts and decisions. A vivid portrait of the world's most powerful central bank in a moment of high stakes, Stewards of the Market is rich with insights for the next financial downturn.

People covered by public pensions are often the subject of "pension envy": that is, their benefits might seem more generous and their contributions lower than those offered by the private sector. Yet this book points out that such judgments are often inaccurate, since civil servants hold jobs with few counterparts in private industry, such as firefighters, police, judges, and teachers. Often these are riskier, dirtier, and demand more loyalty and discretion than would be required of a more mobile labor force in the private sector. The debate challenges traditional ideas about how the public employee labor contract is structured and raises questions about how such employees are attracted to the public sector, retained and motivated on the job, and retired, via an entire compensation package of wages and benefits. Authors explore aspects of these schemes, addressing the cost and valuation debate, along with the political economy of how public pension asset pools are perceived and managed, an increasingly important topic in times of global financial turmoil. The discussion also explores ways that public pensions can be strengthened in the US, Japan, Canada, and Germany.
The volume captures a vigorous debate currently underway by academics, financial experts, regulators, and plan sponsors, all seeking to define a new future for public retirement systems. It will be of substantial interest to a wide range of readers, since public sector employees and their representatives will naturally find the comparisons and arguments over valuation of keen interest. Public pension administrators and policymakers seeking an explanation of what makes these plans so costly will gain a new understanding of how the arguments stack up. Private sector employers and plan sponsors can learn much from efforts to reform these retirement systems in states and countries around the world. Finally, investors and the taxpaying public more generally may be at risk to cover these long-term promises, so it behooves them to pay close attention to the financing and investment practices of these plans, along with their valuation.
This volume represents an invaluable addition to the Pension Research Council / Oxford University Press series as it includes actuarial, economic, and financial perspectives making it useful for academics, retirement plan administrators, and public employees wishing to understand the challenges facing public pensions.

Benefiting from the authors' many years of teaching undergraduate and graduate students and practitioners, here is a clear, comprehensive, practice-oriented text for public budgeting courses. Rather than presenting each budgeting concern in mind-numbing detail, the book offers a commonsensical view of public budgeting and its importance to current and future public managers. The text is designed to show readers how managers relate to budgeting and how their actions make a difference in the operation and performance of public organizations. The book covers the historical development of public budgeting, sources of public revenues, revenue management, budgeting processes and formats, operating techniques, politics within public budgeting, and more. "Budgeting for Public Managers" is concise, clearly written, well illustrated, and grounded in the real-world concerns of public managers. Each chapter concludes with a helpful list of additional reading and resources for readers who want to dig deeper into budgeting practice and application.