This book provides a complete analysis of educational production and costs using the nonparametric technique known as Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA). The book focuses on estimation of technical, allocative and scale efficiency in the public sector characterized by the influence of exogenous socio-economic variables. State of the art DEA models will be presented and fully discussed. Specific education topics important to policy makers including adequacy, efficiency, productivity, environmental costs and equity will be analyzed. To illustrate how these techniques can be applied to school systems worldwide, the authors use data on Australian elementary and high schools to develop nonparametric measures that will help inform current policy debate in Australia. They also discuss the applicability of these analysis techniques and methodologies to certain related scenarios.

The purpose of the book is to provide a comprehensive analysis of educational production using numerous DEA models that have been developed. Chapters 3 7 and 9 were developed in the literature as extensions to the basic DEA models. Each chapter explains why new advances in DEA were needed in order to carry out accurate analysis of educational production, and then presents the use of these new techniques within the context of educational performance, productivity, and cost. These extensions were based on public sector production in general, and educational production in particular. The models showed that traditional DEA improperly controlled for exogenous factors of production like the socioeconomic conditions prevalent in the education setting. In addition, models of educational funding typically use ad hoc and simple approaches that often assume that schools operate efficiently. This book uses economic and mathematical models to further our understanding of educational production while providing various measures of economic performance. The authors use current data on Australian schools to highlight important policy questions related to efficiency, economies of size and how scarce resources can best be spent to improve performance.

This research focus comes at an important watershed moment in the Australian Federal Governments current involvement in designing new nationally consistent funding models for both government and non-government schooling sectors with effect from 2014. A new National School Resourcing Standard is proposed to be implemented signaling a move to resource adequacy, school efficiency and value for money dimensions. These proposed innovative schooling resourcing developments will enable the Australian school efficiency and productivity studies to serve as the basis to evaluate the funding changes, in order to determine whether there have been significantly different student performance outcomes in the transition from a centralized to a new decentralized set of school funding arrangements."

John Levy's text presents microeconomic theory for use in analyzing and formulating public policy. It couples a direct and non-intimidating approach to essential theory with a presentation that is sophisticated at the policy level. It does not attempt to cover the entire body of economic theory, but rather presents those elements of theory most relevant to courses in public economics and public policy in such programs as public administration, policy analysis, health planning, environmental management, urban affairs, and urban planning. The text is divided into two parts. The first introduces basic concepts with an emphasis on their philosophical underpinnings and policy uses; the second consists of six essays on policy-related subjects, selected to make use of concepts presented in the first part. Among the unusual features of the book are the discussion of the tax expenditure concept, benefit cost analysis with numerical example, substantial discussions of the origins and philosophical implications of economic man as a behavioral model, and an entire chapter devoted to public choice.

As a result of the financial crisis, the weaknesses of the Eurozone, including the public debt crisis, materialized in severe depressions in certain of its country members. In this monograph, the author analyzes structural weaknesses of the Eurozone and argues that they can be traced to (i) institutional differences, (ii) differences in the economic structures, (iii) the fundamental inability of European Bureaucracy to deal with crises, and (iv) the extreme rigidity of markets which prevents a general equilibrium in product and credit markets. He concludes that whether the Eurozone is sustainable, depends on future monetary and credit policies, and discusses the implications of reforming it in the best interest of the international banking and financial system. The recent policies of the ECB of "cheap" credit expansion are examined in detail. The approach of the work is along the lines of von Mises' and Hayek's Austrian tradition; additionally, substantive international empirical evidence supporting this Austrian approach is presented.

Economic growth continues to transform the economic and political landscape of Asia. Equally the policies now being adopted to promote private sector participation, re-structure state entities, and reduce the presence of the state in the provision of public goods and services, are tied to fundamental transformations in Asia's state-society relations. The global cast of contributors present a timely analysis of the impact of neo-liberalism on Asia's developmental policies and the organisation of Asian states and markets. Ironically, the "developmental state" that has historically driven Asia's rapid economic transformation is now threatened by an increasingly dominant neoliberal agenda that aims to roll back the state in the name of market fundamentalism.

From its origins in Porto Alegre, Brazil, the diffusion of participatory budgeting to other parts of the world has been met with varying degrees of success despite its label as a product of democratic innovation. Drawing on in-depth empirical and theoretical analysis, this book sheds light on the diffusion dynamics of participatory budgeting and the processes of its framing and adaptation in France, Germany and the United Kingdom. It explores the question of participatory budgeting's national characteristics and potential for realising a more democratic society. Thus, the volume engages in a theoretically innovative and empirically grounded overview and critical assessment of participatory budgeting initiatives in three European countries. The double focus on frames in the diffusion and implementation of single cases and the systematic evaluation of their results offers a deeper understanding of "success factors" and results of participatory budgeting and other institutional processes of citizen participation.

Legislative initiative, in response to public demands for more accountability, require public agencies at all levels of government to measure organizational performance and to report on service efforts and accomplishments (SEA). What considerations should managers use in developing performance measurement protocols? What is the experience to date in the U.S. and abroad? This collection of original articles does not represent a consensus about the one best way for developing an SEA reporting system. Rather, it aims to put performance measurement in perspective by relating it to the budgeting, auditing, and policy making processes. Towards that end, the issues managers need to consider are examined in a critical way and from various points of view.

This book addresses the issues involved in developing Service Effort and Accomplishment (SEA) reports from various points of view. It addresses the context of SEA reporting and relates performance measurement to the budgeting process, auditing process, and policy making. It provides examples of successful performance measurement protocols from the U.S. and abroad.

Beyond the traditional two-dimensional analyses of defense economics and defense politics lies a rapidly growing field of research: the political economy of defense. As the study of the interface between economics, politics, and defense proliferates, this collective volume sets out to identify the nature of political economy of defense inquiry, surpassing a narrower focus on the economic consequences of military spending. The starting point for this collaborative effort was a series of panel discussions, organized by Andrew L. Ross, in which most of the contributors to this volume participated. The majority of chapters were written expressly for this book and have not been previously published. These analytical and empirical investigations are intended to illustrate the broad, encompassing scope of political economy of defense research and contribute to the development of a research agenda. Andrew L. Ross has brought together a timely and significant array of inquiry into the impact of defense spending on world politics and global economics. This book will be of great interest to political scientists, defense specialists, and economists studying the military-industrial complex.

Lotteries and state-sponsored gambling is big business. This is the first study that evaluates the business strategies of state lotteries on two fronts. First, it examines which of the lottery strategies produces the most consistent source of revenue for the state. Second, it analyzes possible overall gambling strategies that states will need to utilize as they seek to expand gambling revenue. This is must reading for those operating lotteries, state legislators, vendors to state lottery commissions, taxpayers, and scholars in public policy and government.

The whole question of state-sponsored gambling is explored, integrating both the business and policy strategies of operating a state lottery. Initially, gambling and lotteries were introduced into the public policy process in times of social unrest, brought on by the outbreak of war. Since regular sources of governmental revenue were diverted to the war effort, proceeds from gambling activites were used to finance the building of roads, canals, and schools. An Ethics of Tolerance also had to evolve in order to engender the public's acceptance of lotteries and gambling. Today, states are using gambling revenues to support education, public transportation, and aid to local towns and cities. Hence, gambling revenues must be maintained or increased. States now must decide whether they should introduce other gambling initiatives, possibly cannibalizing their existing activities in the process. The basic question, of whether it is actually possible for a state to establish an overall gambling strategy, is explored by an analysis of the gambling policies of Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. The future of gambling in the United States, as states move beyond lotteries to sanctioning casino gambling by private entrepreneurs, concludes this most relevant and provocative book.

This book is about how much people earn and why the distribution of earnings has been changing over time. The gap between the top and bottom in the United States has widened significantly since 1980. Why has this happened? Is it due to new technologies? What is the role of globalisation? Are there historical precedents?
The book begins with the "race" between technology and education, and shows that continuing technical progress does not necessarily imply a continuing rise in dispersion. It then examines the experience of 20 OECD countries over the twentieth century, material presented in the form of 20 country case studies. The book breaks new ground in assembling data on the distribution of individual earnings covering much of the twentieth century and drawing on a variety of under-exploited sources.
The findings overturn a number of widely-held beliefs. It is not the earnings of the low paid that have been most affected by the recent changes; widening is largely due to what is happening at the top. The recent rise in earnings dispersion is not unprecedented, but should be seen as part of a longer-run history of successive compression and expansion of earnings differences.

This volume deals with both a new theoretical framework and the application of new economics in a number of issues that test the capability of new economics to tackle a number of economic problems. It offers detailed analysis and informed comment on the type of new economics in the aftermath of the financial crisis and the '"great recession."

This volume argues that the virtues of the market system, private property, and freedom of exchange can be applied to enhance the quality of life. Although people recognize in the abstract that markets work better than government in allocating resources, government's presence in the economy increases as government intervenes to deal with different problems. This book shows how the market mechanism that has enhanced material well-being is better suited than government planning to improve the quality of life. After examining general principles guiding both market and government allocation of resources, the book then examines specific policy issues, including environmental protection, health care, regulation of product quality, and land use planning.

The book first examines the general principles that guide both market and government allocation of resources to show why market mechanisms work better than government planning to enhance the quality of life. Then specific policy issues are examined to provide examples of how market forces can be harnessed to improve the quality of life. Some of those issues are environmental protection, health care, the regulation of product quality, and land use planning.

The major industrialized countries are undergoing a significant demographic transition associated with low fertility rates combined with reduced mortality rates. A major consequence of the current transition is that populations are expected to age substantially over the next forty years. This innovative book studies the effects of population ageing with the associated factor of immigration, on social expenditure and public finance. The authors begin by providing an introduction to some of the main issues concerning population ageing and migration. This is followed by a discussion of the demographic and economic aspects of the transition towards an older population which is taking place in the major industrialized countries. Within this framework the impacts of ageing on government budgets and the labour market are analysed. The book then turns to a discussion of some of the economic, social and demographic issues related to immigration. Particular emphasis is placed on the Australian economy, which provides an interesting case study in view of its high immigration levels, particularly over the last fifty years. The authors project population structure and social expenditure patterns under a variety of assumptions concerning the number and composition of immigrants. The quantitative techniques developed to produce these projections can be applied without modification to any other country. Population Ageing, Migration and Social Expenditure will be of use to academics and students with an interest in public finance, public policy and population studies.

An examination of an early version of the debate over money, debt, and taxes sheds light on current debates regarding public finance, a balanced budget, and paying off the public debt. Stabile shows that while special interest lobbying during the constitutional convention produced tax loopholes as part of the Constitution, determined leaders were able to get a reluctant population used to paying taxes and were capable of putting together plans of public finance that attained their goals. Such historical evidence challenges the view that political leaders are incapable of passing the unpopular taxes needed to balance the federal government's budget and pay off the public debt. Taking a political economy approach that describes how political leaders took economic ideas and made them work, this book combines intellectual history with economic history. Previous books on public finance history have focused on economic issues regarding taxes. Exploring the intellectual history of the debates over money, debt, and taxes as the three potential forms of public finance, Stabile provides insight into the constitutional debate alive at the end of the 20th century.

This book revisits an important chapter of financial history in the Middle East and the Balkans from 1870 1914. During this period, capital flows in the form of sovereign debt increased rapidly throughout the region. The spiral of heavy government borrowing eventually culminated in defaults on foreign obligations in the Ottoman Empire (1875), Egypt (1876), Greece (1893) and Serbia (1895). In all four cases, introducing international financial control over the finances of the debtor states became the prevalent form of dealing with defaults. The different cases of international financial control became increasingly refined and they marked important milestones in the evolution of the global governance of sovereign debt before 1914. For the defaulting states however, the immediate impact of international financial control was infringement of sovereignty. The extent of international financial control and the borrowing capacity of debtor states varied in each case as well as the degree of resistance towards it. This book documents the characteristics of international financial control in a comparative perspective. It relates sovereign debt, default and international financial control to political and fiscal systems, and raises questions about the tension between national sovereignty and global capital. It sheds light on the impact of international financial control on the long-term credibility and fiscal capacity of the debtor states in question. The author demonstrates that the governments' decisions to borrow internationally, and their attitudes towards international financial control, were heavily influenced by domestic political and fiscal factors.

The book presents arguments against the taxpayers'-funded bailing out of failed financial institutions, and puts forward suggestions to circumvent the TBTF problem, including some preventive measures. It ultimately argues that a failing financial institution should be allowed to fail without fearing an apocalyptic outcome.

This book is intended to give readers detailed information and perspectives on the reform of financial management reform practices in a variety of national settings around the world. The chapters explore the reform agenda in each nation and factors that stimulated change. Each chapter addresses the extent of the influence of ""New Public Management"" concepts and practices on reform implementation. The nations, whose experience is represented in this book, are among the most often cited examples of progressive change to be examined and perhaps emulated by governments in other nations. In the introductory chapter the editors address the question whether and to what extent the financial management reforms detailed in this book reveal real progress or a progression of questions and dilemmas faced but not solved over the past several decades.

Public-private partnerships are becoming increasingly important in the local economic development efforts of many cities. This collection of essays compares U.S. cities with those in western Europe. Conceptual issues are discussed, and comparisons at the city level illustrate the process, pitfalls, and results of such partnerships. Readers will be able to understand the types of partnership arrangements used in each country. Factors contributing to the success of these arrangements are discussed and compared. Scholars and students of local economic development and public finance, as well as public officials and economic development practitioners will benefit from the unique comparative framework used in this volume.

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.

With the passage of the Federal Reserve Act of 1913, the United States formally established a middle ground between the competing forces of the bankers' need for private control and the populist call for governmental oversight. But despite its role as the nation's only centralized banking authority, and its importance as a decision-making body, the Federal Reserve as an institution has always been fiercely protective of its own independence. In this work, Bernard Katz sheds light on this important arm of the government, by profiling each member of the board of governors from the inception of the Federal Reserve in 1914 through January 1991.

Katz's work begins with a preface and introduction that detail the creation of the Federal Reserve and the role played by the board of governors within the organization. Sixty-seven biographical sketches then profile each of the board's chairmen and vice-chairmen, providing detailed information on their backgrounds, training, politics, and even the pettiness and insecurities of their lives. Each contributor also chronicles the economic issues that surrounded each board member's tenure, as well as controversies within the board and the relationships and debates with specific presidents and administrations. This unique reference work will be a major addition to both public and academic libraries, and a valuable resource for students of the Federal Reserve system, monetary policy, and money and banking.

This book is the first comprehensive, full-scale treatment of the law, politics and economics with regard to the policies and policy instruments for budget stabilization at the state level. Covering the period from 1946 through 2008 in the United States, it provides details on the methods and results of empirical tests of the effects of budget stabilization instruments on government operations, public service provision, and some other aspects of social and economic life. With the lingering effects of the most recent financial crisis and economic downturn, and the subsequent Tea Party movement advocating smaller government and deficit reduction, this book carries timely and important theoretical as well as practical implications, particularly in regard to the potential for counter-cyclical fiscal policy in mitigating negative impacts during a recession. The first contribution of the book is in public finance theory: it provides insights into the applications of the stabilization function in the context of strong government, thereby refining Keynesianism. The second aspect is in Public Choice: the creation and functioning of budget stabilization funds offer extra evidence to demonstrate that the general public provides input and voice in more than the conventional ways when it comes to policy making, even in an area dominated by strong government. The third aspect is in policy making, exploring the opportunities for refining policy tools in preparation for future downturns.

Beyond the New Public Management is an important book which provides a comprehensive analysis of current conceptual debates in public management and governance; and critically reviews attempts made over the last two decades to apply the 'new public management' model in developed and developing countries. The book brings together a number of outstanding specialists who examine the range of ideas and concepts of the new models of reform, paying particular attention to the 'new public management' model and to strategies of good governance. It evaluates progress made by governments and aid donors in putting these ideas into practice. Using case studies from both the developed and developing world, it emphasises the extent to which public management and governance reforms are being applied throughout the international arena. The examples used focus on the problems of policy and institutional transfers between the industrialised world and developing countries. Multidisciplinary in its approach, the book draws on literature and research from management studies, political science, sociology, economics and development studies; and points to issues likely to dominate the future research agenda. This thoughtful and wide-ranging book will be essential reading for academics, students and practitioners of public management, public policy, governance and development.

This book is about bounded rationality and public policy. It is written from the p- spective of someone trained in public economics who has encountered the enormous literature on experiments in decision-making and wonders what implications it has for the normative aspects of public policy. Though there are a few new results or models, to a large degree the book is synthetic in tone, bringing together disparate literatures and seeking some accommodation between them. It has had a long genesis. It began with a draft of a few chapters in 2000, but has expanded in scope and size as the literature on behavioural economics has grown. At some point I realised that the geometric growth of behavioural - search and the arithmetic growth of my writing were inconsistent with an am- tion to be exhaustive. As such therefore I have concentrated on particular areas of behavioural economics and bounded rationality. The resulting book is laid out as follows: Chapter 1 provides an overview of the rest of the book, goes through some basic de?nitions and identi?es themes.

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-a-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.

This book investigates whether legal reforms intended to create a market-friendly regulatory business environment have a positive impact on economic and financial outcomes. After conducting a critical review of the legal origins literature, the authors first analyze the evolution of legal rules and regulations during the last decade (2006-2014). For that purpose, the book uses legal/regulatory indicators from the World Bank's Doing Business Project (2015). The findings indicate that countries have actively reformed their legal systems during this period, particularly French civil law countries. A process of convergence in the evolution of legal rules and regulations is observed: countries starting in 2006 in a lower position have improved more than countries with better initial scores. Also, French civil law countries have reformed their legal systems to a larger extent than common law countries and, consequently, have improved more in the majority of the Doing Business indicators used. Second, the authors estimate fixed-effects panel regressions to analyze the relationship between changes in legal rules and regulations and changes in the real economy. The findings point to a lack of systematic effects of legal rules and regulations on economic and financial outcomes. This result stands in contrast to the widespread belief that reforms aiming to strengthen investor and creditor rights (and other market-friendly policies) systematically lead to better economic and financial outcomes.

An in-depth analysis of the fundamental role that decentralization plays in developing countries, using detailed statistical data to examine the actual fiscal structure between tiers of government, and the effects of decentralization at the local, national and international levels.