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.

Over the last thirty years there has been extensive use of continuous time econometric methods in macroeconomic modelling. This monograph presents the first continuous time macroeconometric model of the United Kingdom incorporating stochastic trends. Its development represents a major step forward in continuous time macroeconomic modelling. The book describes the new model in detail and, like earlier models, it is designed in such a way as to permit a rigorous mathematical analysis of its steady-state and stability properties, thus providing a valuable check on the capacity of the model to generate plausible long-run behaviour. The model is estimated using newly developed exact Gaussian estimation methods for continuous time econometric models incorporating unobservable stochastic trends. The book also includes discussion of the application of the model to dynamic analysis and forecasting.

These two volumes bring together key articles in the field of modern public finance, a field which has seen a major revival of interest in the past 20 years. The articles reprinted are among those which have shaped its recent development, and include contributions by no fewer than seven Nobel Prize-winners.A.B. Atkinson - widely recognized as a leading authority in the field - has carefully selected a representative coverage of the most important articles and papers and has also included readings which help relate the subject to other areas of economics. The result is a reference collection which will be an essential companion for the specialist and non-specialist alike.

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

This book explains the nuts and bolts of affordable housing development. Divided into two complementary sections, the book first provides an overview of the effectiveness of existing federal and state housing programs in the United States, such as the LIHTC and TIF programs. In turn, the book's second section presents an extensive discussion of and insights into the financial feasibility of an affordable real estate development project. Researchers, policymakers and organizations in the public, private and nonprofit sectors will find this book a valuable resource in addressing the concrete needs of affordable housing development. "Luque, Ikromov, and Noseworthy's new book on Affordable Housing Development is a "must read" for all those seeking to address the growing and vexing problem of affordable housing supply. The authors provide important insights and practical demonstration of important financial tools often necessary to the financial feasibility of such projects, including tax-increment financing and the Low-Income Housing Tax Credit. Further, the authors provide important backdrop to the affordability crisis and homelessness. I highly recommend this book to all who seek both to articulate and enhance housing access." By Stuart Gabriel, Arden Realty Chair, Professor of Finance and Director, Richard S. Ziman Center for Real Estate at UCLA "Over several years Jaime Luque, Nuriddin Ikromov and William Noseworthy applied their analytical bent, and no small measure of empathy, to homelessness as actually experienced in Madison, Wisconsin - and they inspired multiple classes of urban economics students to join them. "Homelessness" is a complex web of issues affecting a spectrum of populations, from individuals struggling with addiction or emotional disorders, to families who've been dealt a bad hand in an often-unforgiving economy. Read this book to follow Jaime, Nuriddin, and William as they evaluate a panoply of housing and social programs, complementing the usual top-down design perspective with practical analysis of the feasibility of actual developments and their effectiveness. Analytical but written for a broad audience, this book will be of interest to anyone running a low-income housing program, private and public developers, students, and any instructor designing a learning-by-doing course that blends rigor with real-world application to a local problem." By Stephen Malpezzi, Professor Emeritus, James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate, Wisconsin School of Business, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and Dean, Weimer School of the Homer Hoyt Institute.

This study recommends employing "human capital contracts" wherein students agree to pay a percentage of their income over time in exchange for funds to finance their education. The main difference between "human capital contracts" and loans is the variable value of the payments students make during the repayment period. Their financial consequences, of risk transfer from students to investors and increased information regarding future graduates' earnings, make the contracts an attractive alternative in funding higher education.

Covering core topics that explore the government's role in the economy, this textbook is intended for third or fourth year undergraduate students and first year graduate students. It includes markets, externalities, public goods, imperfect competition, asymmetric information and efficiency, and asymmetric information and income redistribution. A knowledge of intermediate microeconomics and basic calculus is assumed. Each chapter contains exercises at the end, whose solutions are available to instructors. Instructors' resource page: http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/leach/

Globalization is triggering a 'revenue shock' in developing economies. International trade taxes - once the primary source of government revenue - have been cut drastically in response to trade liberalization. Bastiaens and Rudra make the novel argument that regime type is a major determinant of revenue-raising capacity once free trade policies have been adopted. Specifically, policymakers in democracies confront greater challenges than their authoritarian counterparts when implementing tax reforms to offset liberalization's revenue shocks. The repercussions are significant: while the poor bear the brunt of this revenue shortfall in democracies, authoritarian regimes are better-off overall. Paradoxically, then, citizens of democracies suffer precisely because their freer political culture constrains governmental ability to tax and redistribute under globalization. This important contribution on the battle between open societies and the ability of governments to help their people prosper under globalization is essential reading for students and scholars of political economy, development studies and comparative politics.

This major new reference collection reprints the most important published papers on the problems of war finance under varying constraints imposed by institutions, technology, geography, and strategy from the time of Alexander the Great to the Gulf War in 1991. Larry Neal has written a new comprehensive introduction to accompany the volumes.

The essays in this volume discuss such timely topics as demographic change and the outlook for Social Security and Medicare in the United States; long term decision making under uncertainty; the effect of changing family structure on government spending; how the structure of public retirement policies has encouraged early retirement in some countries and not others; the response of local community spending to demographic change; and related topics. Contributors include many of the world's leading public finance economists and economic demographers.

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century. It documents the enormous increase in government spending throughout the 1900s across all industrialized countries. However, the authors find that the growth of the welfare state over the past thirty-five years has not brought about much additional social and economic welfare. This suggests that public spending in industrialized countries could be much smaller than today without sacrificing important policy objectives. For this to happen, governments need to refocus their role on setting the rules of the game, and the study provides a blueprint of institutional and expenditure policy reform.

This book discusses the changing role of government finance in the twentieth century. It documents the enormous increase in government spending throughout the 1900s across all industrialized countries. However, the authors find that the growth of the welfare state over the past thirty-five years has not brought about much additional social and economic welfare. This suggests that public spending in industrialized countries could be much smaller than today without sacrificing important policy objectives. For this to happen, governments need to refocus their role on setting the 'rules of the game', and the study provides a blueprint for institutional and expenditure policy reform. After a detailed account of reform experiences in several countries and the public debate regarding government reform, the study closes with an outlook on the future role of the state, which is crucial in that globalization may require and people want much 'leaner' but not 'meaner' states.

Although globalization is seen by many as the key economic trend of recent times, restrictions on international capital movements remain the norm in international finance. In this, the first comprehensive study of capital controls, Gunther Schulze uses a public choice model to explain their role. Presenting original research, as well as comprehensive surveys of the existing literature (including monetary economics, international economics, public economics and public choice) this book will be vital reading for policy professionals as well as researchers and upper level students in a wide range of disciplines.

The events of the last decade have challenged the contemporary neo-classical synthesis in all branches of economics, but particularly public finance. The most notable feature of the 2nd edition of Public Finance in Theory and Practice is the infusion of behavioral economics throughout the text, with an end of chapter question inviting the student to apply a behavioral lens to some question or issue. There continues to be an emphasis on the importance of the institutional context, drawing on examples from many countries and emphasizing the role of lower level governments in a federal system. The first five chapters establish this context by reviewing the role of government in a market system, the description of government structure from an economic perspective, the basic data about revenue and expenditures, the elements of public choice, and the distributional role of government. The book has been substantially reorganized to put more emphasis on public expenditure. Expanded treatment of public goods includes common property resources and congestible or club goods. Expanded discussion of budgeting and cost-benefit analysis provides some practical application of the theory. Updated discussions of social security, public education and health care address these three major contemporary public finance issues. The traditional emphasis on revenue (taxes, fees and grants) has been retained but follows rather than precedes the discussion of expenditures.

This open access book offers unique and novel views on the social innovation landscape, tools, practices, pedagogies, and research in the context of higher education. International, multi-disciplinary academics and industry leaders present new developments, research evidence, and practice expertise on social innovation in higher education institutions (HEIs), across academic and professional disciplines. The book includes a selected set of peer-reviewed chapters presenting different perspectives against which relevant actors can identify and analyse social innovation in HEIs. The volume demonstrates how HEIs can respond to societal challenges, support positive social change, and contribute to the development of international public policy discourse. It answers the question 'how does the present higher education system, in different countries, promote social innovation and create social change and impact'. In answering this question, the book identifies factors driving success as well as obstacles. Furthermore, it examines how higher education innovation assists societal challenges and investigates the benefits of effective social innovation engagement by HEIs. The interdisciplinary approach of the volume makes it a must-read for scholars, students, policy-makers, and practitioners of economics, education, business and management, political science, and sociology interested in a better understanding of social innovation.

A serious consideration of the debate on social security reform that is taking place in many countries around the world. Professor Seidman advocates the concept of 'funded social security' as a middle position between pay-as-you-go (PAYGO) social security and privatized social security, and constitutes a politically strategic alternative. His analysis covers two distinct components, fund accumulation and portfolio diversification. The concept of funded social security uses a mix of payroll taxes and portfolio investment income to finance benefits. With funded social security, the government contracts with private investment firms to manage the portfolio of the social security trust fund. It is entirely a defined-benefit plan without any individual defined-contribution accounts; each retiree's benefit is linked by a legislated formula to the retiree's own wage history. The benefit is an annuity - an annual benefit that continues as long as the retiree (or spouse) lives - and is automatically adjusted annually for inflation.

There appears to be an increasing trend in worldwide fiscal decentralization. In particular, many developing countries are turning to various forms of fiscal decentralization as an escape from inefficient and ineffective governance, macroeconomic stability, and inadequate growth. Fiscal Decentralization in Developing Countries: An Overview edited by Professors Bird and Vaillancourt and featuring important research from leading scholars assesses the progress, problems and potentials of fiscal decentralization in a variety of developing countries around the world. With rich and varied case-study material from countries as diverse as India, China, Colombia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and South Africa this volume complements neatly the collection Fiscal Aspects of Evolving Federations edited by David Wildasin and also published by Cambridge, which presented theoretical advances in the area of research.

FISCAL ADMINISTRATION, Tenth Edition, gives you the power to understand public finances as a participant who can put the process together, not just as a bystander. With U.S. federal, state, and local budgets, financial reports, and other documents, you can see how policymakers and administrators operate and learn skills needed to function in those systems. Chapters illustrate concepts and issues with case studies from the private and nonprofit sector as well as from government finance.

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.

This up-to-date new textbook provides a thorough treatment of all the central topics in public economics. Aimed at senior undergraduate and graduate students, it will also be invaluable to professional economists and to those teaching in the field. The book is entirely self-contained, giving all the equilibrium theory and welfare economics needed to understand the analyses. The author covers the Arrow-Debreu economy, welfare economics and the measurement of inequality and povery which lay the foundations and emphasize the important role played by information. Within the competitive economy, he examines commodity taxation, income taxation and tax reform in a certain environment. He goes on to study the public economics of uncertainty, and then treats public goods, externalities, imperfect competition and tax evasion as departures from the standard competitive assumptions and looks at their implication for public economics derived. Finally, after treatment of the overlapping generations economy, he addresses intertemporal issues concerning social security and debts.

Prior to the outbreak of the financial crisis in 2008 Belgium's fiscal balances and debt ratios seemed to be on a firm consolidation path. Today, however, Belgium is facing a major budgetary challenge, albeit to a lesser degree than other European countries. A proper understanding of the current situation and the design of the most appropriate policy response always benefit from an in-depth analysis of the recent past. This book offers that closer look at the evolution of public finance in Belgium over the decade 2000 2010.

The Return of the Deficit presents a collection of original essays written by the best public finance scholars in Belgium. It covers Belgium s macroeconomic environment, its budgetary policy, changes to the tax system and social security, the evolution of public expenditure, debt management, and fiscal federalism This is the seventh volume in the authoritative History of Public Finance in Belgium published under the auspices of the Belgian Institute of Public Finance. It is introduced with a foreword by Herman Van Rompuy, President of the European Council.

Contributors: K. Algoed, Office of the Minister of Budget, Flanders; B. Cantillon, University of Antwerp; J. Deboutte, Public Debt Agency; E. de Callatay, Bank Degroof; A. Decoster, University of Leuven; F. Denil, Federal Ministry of Finance; G. De Smet, Federal Ministry of Budget; M. Gerard, Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve; N. Gilson, Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve; J. Hindriks, Catholic University of Louvain-la-Neuve; G. Langenus, National Bank of Belgium; G. Quaden, University of Liege; R. Savage, Federal Ministry of Finance; J. Smets, National Bank of Belgium; F. Thys-Clement, University of Brussels; C. Valenduc, Federal Ministry of Finance; F. Vandenbroucke, University of Leuven; A. Van de Voorde, Federal Ministry of Finance; L. Van Meensel, National Bank of Belgium; H. Van Rompuy, European Council"

Much has been written and spoken about the lessons learned from the financial crisis of 2009. This book deals with the lessons not learned before the financial crisis. Dr Trimbath demonstrates that an existing framework for regulating financial systems, available since at least 2001, could have prevented the systemic failure in the US that led to the collapse of global credit markets in 2008. Step by step the book guides you through what could have been done to prevent the crisis and what investors can do to protect themselves from the next one, and concludes with a key idea for making financial services businesses stand out from the crowd ensuring future success. The list of 10 Steps is quite straight-forward and simple. Have private, independent rating agencies. Provide some government safety net but not so much that banks are not held accountable (""Too Big to Fail"") Allow very little government ownership and control of national financial assets. Allow banks to reduce the volatility of returns by offering a wide-range of services. Require financial market players to register and be authorized. Provide information, including setting standards, to enhance market transparency. Routinely examine financial institutions to ensure that the regulatory code is obeyed. Enforce the code and discipline transgressors. Develop policies that keep the regulatory code up to date. Encourage the creation of specialized financial institutions. For each step the reader will find: the legislative and regulatory background on the existing rules; a review of academic research on the theory behind each step; and the facts and data connecting each step to the financial crisis of 2008.

Applied Macroeconomics for Public Policy applies system and control theory approaches to macroeconomic problems. The book shows how to build simple and efficient macroeconomic models for policy analysis. By using these models, instead of complex multi-criteria models with uncertain parameters, readers will gain new certainty in macroeconomic decision-making. As high debt to GDP ratios cause problems in societies, this book provides insights on improving economies during and after economic downturns.

Conventional wisdom holds that legislators who bring "pork"-federal funds for local projects-back home to their districts are better able to fend off potential challengers. For more than four decades, however, the empirical support for this belief has been mixed. Some studies have found that securing federal spending has no electoral effects at best or can even cost incumbent legislators votes. In Pork Barrel Politics, Andrew H. Sidman offers a systematic explanation for how political polarization affects the electoral influence of district-level federal spending. He argues that the average voter sees the pork barrel as an aspect of the larger issue of government spending, determined by partisanship and ideology. It is only when the political world becomes more divided over everything else that the average voter pays attention to pork, linking it to their general preferences over government spending. Using data on pork barrel spending from 1986 through 2012 and public works spending since 1876 along with analyses of district-level outcomes and incumbent success, Sidman demonstrates the rising power of polarization in United States elections. During periods of low polarization, pork barrel spending has little impact, but when polarization is high, it affects primary competition, campaign spending, and vote share in general elections. Pork Barrel Politics is an empirically rich account of the surprising repercussions of bringing pork home, with important consequences in our polarized era.