This book contains eight papers focusing on factors associated with the growth of government. There is a large literature in public economics, especially public choice, on the determinants of the growth of government. The papers in this volume focus on a number of arguments related to why government has grown in many developed countries during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Chapters focus on taxation, trade openness, technology, income changes, and tax compliance. The volume features prominent scholars such as Nobel Laureate Gary Becker, Casey Mulligan, Gordon Tullock, Randall Holcombe, and Tyler Cowen.

This volume is intended to serve as a review of the "next generation" of political economy scholars in what can be called the "Wagnerian" tradition, which traces its roots to Buchanan and De Viti De Marco in the 1930s, who argued that any decision that results from a political entity must be the product of individual decision makers operating within some framework of formal and informal rules. To treat these decisions as if they were the product of one single mind, or even simply the additive result of several decisions, is to fundamentally misunderstand and mischaracterize the dynamics of collective action. Today, Richard Wagner is among the most prominent theorists in analyzing the institutional foundations of the economy and the organization of political decision-making. In this collection of original essays, former students schooled in this tradition offer emerging insights on public choice theory, public finance, and political economy, across a range of topics from voting behavior to entrepreneurship.

Reflecting the diverse and profound changes triggered by the latest wave of economic globalization, this book highlights various governance responses at national, regional and global levels. The topics covered are wide-ranging and include economic history and development, European integration, exchange rate arrangements, industrial and labor economics, international cooperation and multilateralism, and public choice. The book is divided into three parts: The first part, which contains contributions by Barry Eichengreen and Marc Flandreau, is devoted to economic history. The second part examines open economy macroeconomics with a focus on Europe, including contributions by Jurgen von Hagen and Paul Krugman. The third part presents contributions to international political economy, and related interdisciplinary topics. This Festschrift is written in honor of Jorge Braga de Macedo, Professor Emeritus of Economics at the Nova School of Business and Economics and a distinguished Portuguese academic whose work has an impressive global reach. The contributions, written by a selection of international authors, deal with his oeuvre covering the wide range of topics broached in this book, as his publication record amply attests.

This volume presents the history and current state of the public-private partnership (PPP) sector in Russia. It analyzes the legal and institutional framework of PPPs as well as approaches and best practices for public administrations at federal and regional level to promote PPPs. Special attention is given to the management of PPP projects in different phases of their life cycle and to the legal and financial structuring of PPP projects. In addition, the contributions highlight best PPP practices in various sectors - from transport infrastructure to information technology - and also discuss international aspects of PPP. The volume is aimed at scholars in economics and public administration as well as public decision-makers interested in modern trends in the Russian economy and the development of successful business development.

This book sheds new light on if and why, between 2009 and 2015, European governments succeeded or failed in initiating and actually realizing some of the farthest-reaching austerity plans in modern history. The author analyzes the economic and political context and the underlying causes of austerity and economic adjustment packages during the Euro crisis. In doing so, he shows that austerity has its roots in an institutional mismatch between capitalist diversity in the Eurozone on the one hand, and an ill-conceived common economic regime on the other. In this context, austerity trumped politics, and even democracy itself. The book will appeal to scholars of political science and comparative political economy, as well as governmental policymakers and practitioners in the finance sector.

This book covers several areas of economic theory and political philosophy from the perspective of Austrian Economics and libertarianism. As such, it deals with Epistemology and Methodology, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Labor Economics, International Economics, Political Philosophy, Law and Public Policy, all from the Austro-libertarian perspective. Hence, this book offers an integrated view of libertarianism and Austrian economics in the light of recent debates in the areas of economic science and political philosophy. Moreover, it builds from the foundations of the Austrian approach (epistemology and methodology), while the latter material deals with its application to the individual from the microeconomic perspective, which in turn allows an exploration of subjects in macroeconomics. Additionally, this work applies Austro-libertarianism to law, politics, and public policy. Thus, it offers a unified view of the entire approach, in a logical progression, allowing the readers to judge this perspective in full. Futerman and Block say that their book is not a manual, which I suppose it is not. But it is a collection of highly pertinent essays, from which you can understand what is mistaken in the orthodoxy of economics, law, and politics. The central term of art in Austrian economics is that phrase "human action." It is the exercise of human will, not the blind bumping of one molecule against another or one organism against another, as in the physical sciences... Futerman and Block distinguish Austrian economics as a scientific enterprise based on liberty of the will from "libertarianism" as an advocacy based on policies implied by such liberty. "Although Austrian economics is positive and libertarianism is normative," they write, "this book shows how both are related; how each can support the other." Indeed they do. Deirdre N. McCloskey, PhD UIC Distinguished Professor of Economics and of History Emerita, Professor of English Emerita, Professor of Communication Emerita, University of Illinois at Chicago

This book select successful cases of poverty reduction and alleviation in the Guizhou province of China, which reflects the highest number and widest distribution of people living in poverty. The local government seeks to achieve sustainable development goals and find multiple solutions to the problem.. The book introduces local experiences and presents the whole process from policy making to practice.

Politicians and citizens universally agree that Canada's urban infrastructure urgently needs work. Roads and bridges are overdue for repair, aging water systems should be replaced, sewage must be adequately treated, urban transit needs to be updated and extended, and it is necessary that public housing as well as schools, health centres, and government offices are brought up to current standards. But few cities have room to raise additional revenue, and the federal and provincial governments to which they turn for financial support are already in deficit, so who is going to pay for all of this? Bringing together perspectives and case studies from across Canada, the US, and Europe, Financing Infrastructure argues that the answer to the question "Who should pay?" should always be "users." Headed by two of Canada's foremost experts on municipal finance, this book provides a closer look at why charging user fees makes sense, how much users should pay, how to charge fees well and where present processes can be improved, and how to convince the politicians and the public of the importance of pricing infrastructure correctly. Across the disciplines of public policy, urban studies, and economics, almost no one is looking at the extent to which users should play a role in infrastructure planning. Financing Infrastructure contends that the users, not federal and provincial taxpayers, should start paying directly for their cities' repairs and expansions. Contributors include Richard M. Bird (University of Toronto), Bernard Dafflon (University of Fribourg, Switzerland), Robert D. Ebel (Local Governance Innovation and Development), Harry Kitchen (Trent University), Jean-Philippe Meloche (Universite de Montreal), Matti Siemiatycki (University of Toronto), Enid Slack (University of Toronto), Almos T. Tassonyi (University of Calgary), Lindsay M. Tedds (University of Victoria), Francois Vaillancourt (Universite de Montreal), and Yameng Wang (World Bank).

This book provides an in-depth analysis of the distribution of funds by the National Program for Local Development (PNDL), Romania's largest state funded budget program. It provides an objective assessment of the way state budget funds are allocated at the level of county councils and municipalities in urban and rural areas. It covers allocations of the second phase of program implementation, namely the reformed PNDL II 2017-2020, which has double the volume of funds than the previous phase. Using a conceptual framework at the crossroads of sociology, public management, and public finance, this book provides necessary context for the complex funding environment of first and second tier level institutions in Romania. A comprehensive study on public administration, politicization, and development imbalances, this book will be of interest to researchers in public administration, sociology, and public finance, as well as politicians, civil servants, consultants, decision-makers, and representatives of responsible institutions with EU funds at national and EU level.

Since the global financial crisis of 2008-2009, there has been a growing interest among policy makers towards the more active role of the state in the enterprise sector. This book provides valuable insight into the changing role of state-owned enterprises in economic policy, a topic at the cross section of several interrelated, but usually independent research streams first of all transition research, varieties of capitalism literature, public choice approach and institutionalism studies. With the existing literature on state ownership concentrating on the developed economies and on selected emerging economies, this book fills an important gap in focusing on the post-communist transition countries. The Polish experience is looked at in a comparative perspective of selected transition countries, which deserve special attention as they had to cope with a radical change of their economic policies towards the enterprise sector. This book will be valuable reading for academics in economic policy, transition economics, and institutional economics, and policy makers and practitioners in EU bodies and emerging economies.

This book firstly analyzes the status and characteristics of rural long tail public service and its unbalance in detail. In all, based on the long tail theory, mechanism design theory and resource dependence theory, this book makes an empirical study and basic judgment on the matching of supply and demand of rural long tail public services in China and explores the mechanism of the efficiency of supply and demand affecting the imbalance. This book presents a correction mechanism of rural long tail public demand based on the division of different response subjects and puts forward corresponding policy suggestions. By putting the rural public demand in the "embedded" economic and social system and the development process, this book analyzes its future trend and response path. Then, based on the difference of governance efficiency, this book analyzes the general causes of the unbalance of supply and demand of rural long tail public service. Especially for the representative field of rural public service (e.g., special education, old-age caring, medical care), this book carries out empirical studies (seemingly unrelated regression) to analyze the factors, internal mechanism and basic path of the imbalance of rural long tail public service. Thirdly, through the construction of the imbalance index of rural long tail public service, this book makes an empirical calculation of the severity of this imbalance. This book further puts forward the design of the correction mechanism for the imbalance of rural long tail public service and carries on the reasonable and orderly division for different supply subjects. In the end, this book puts forward the balanced "Internet + NGO" model for rural long tail public service and takes JD.com as an example to expound the operation of the network platform of the correction mechanism.

Public spending accounts for a significant share of national GDP and is perceived as a critically important way for overcoming periods of economic and social crisis, but is often criticised as inefficient and ineffective, giving raise to calls for new processes of reform. Because most public resources are raised through taxation from citizens and businesses, accountability and assurance are key in the democratic process, and auditing attempts to fulfil this public interest role. This in turn leaves public sector auditing under increasing public scrutiny and political pressure. Through a comparative analysis of the development of auditing practices in governments across the globe, Auditing Practices in Local Governments: An International Comparison provides a contemporary overview of public sector auditing practices at both local and state level. By focusing on countries which have experienced differing implementation processes, and which are characterised by different administrative and political cultures, the authors provide a comparative analysis of countries across the globe, including major European states, China, Australia, and New Zealand. Written by scholars and practitioners in the fields of public sector auditing, this first volume of Emerald Studies in Public Service Accounting and Accountability provides readers both researchers and practitioners with a thorough overview of international public sector auditing practice.

This book clarifies some misunderstandings about money by tying the concept of money to the goods and services sector of the economy. In addition, it demystifies the process of money creation on the part of central banks. The phenomenon of money is ubiquitous; it has been around for tens of thousands of years, if not longer. Indeed, no modern economy could function without money. For many, however, the concept of money remains elusive. Worse still, misinformation abounds, which leaves the uninitiated vulnerable to fraud. This lack of understanding has serious policy implications as well. When policymakers lack a firm grasp of the concept, policy is likely to be flawed and its effects are likely to be detrimental to the body politic. After providing a brief history of money, the author details the role of money in the division of labor and specialization, in economic growth, and in an interconnected world. Throughout the book, he points out the pitfalls of fallacious thinking. In recent policy debates, such thinking has led to proposals ranging from the re-institution of the gold standard to supplying limitless money as suggested by Modern Monetary Theory.

The proceedings shed light on selected topics including economic management, public administration, and green development. Featuring scholarly works from the 4th International Conference on Economic Management and Green Development (ICEMGD 2021), this volume of proceedings showcases the papers composed with regard to a diverse range of topics situated at the intersecting field of Economic Management, Public Administration and Green Development. Arising as the top concern of the global community, issues of green development impose challenges for the academia to bridge the interdisciplinary prowess in tackling the gap of knowledge within concerned fields. ICEMGD 2021 is an annual conference initiated by the year of 2017 under the goal of bringing together intellectuals from economics, business management, public administration, and otherwise related spheres for the share of research methods and theoretical breakthroughs. The aim of the proceeding volume is for the integration of social scientific research methods with research into alarming development issues. The ICEMGD 2021 seeks to promote joint initiatives among well-established fields like macro- and microeconomics, international economics, finance, agricultural economics, health economics, business management and marketing strategies, regional development studies, social governance, and sustainable development. Featuring interdisciplinary contributions, this book will be of interest to researchers, academics, professionals and policy makers in the field of economic management, public administration, and development studies.

The fast-evolving relationship between the promotion of welfare-enhancing competition and the balanced protection of intellectual property (IP) rights has attracted the attention of policymakers, analysts and scholars. This interest is inevitable in an environment that lays ever greater emphasis on the management of knowledge and innovation and on mechanisms to ensure that the public derives the expected social and economic benefits from this innovation and the spread of knowledge. This book looks at the positive linkage between IP and competition in jurisdictions around the world, surveying developments and policy issues from an international and comparative perspective. It includes analysis of key doctrinal and policy issues by leading academics and practitioners from around the globe and a cutting-edge survey of related developments across both developed and developing economies. It also situates current policy developments at the national level in the context of multilateral developments, at WIPO, WTO and elsewhere.

In recent years, crowdfunding has become important and it has been enthusiastically used not only by commercial organizations but also by the public sector. This alternative source of financing in times of constrained government budgets enables citizens to vote with their dollars online to bring ideas into reality. This book sheds light on the developing concept of crowdfunding in the public sector, with an overview of current academic discussions and best practices on crowdfunding in the public sector. The volume approaches crowdfunding in the public sector from an integrated perspective, addressing the dearth of publications on the subject. The book gathers a wealth of theoretical information, ideas, best practices and lessons learned in the context of executing concrete crowdfunding projects, and assess methodological approaches to integrating the topic of crowdfunding in public organizations curricula. The book provides definitions, insights and examples of this managerial perspective resulting in a theoretical framework of crowdfunding in the public sector. The contributors also explore different crowdfunding applications in public sectors such as local government, higher education, schools, arts & culture organizations, healthcare, energy sector, and police services, which are presented in several case studies. This is a unique book in the field that points the way forward both for policymakers and for the research community in terms of thinking about crowdfunding in the public sector and the complex issues surrounding its development.

This book deeply analyzes the theoretical roots of the development of global artificial intelligence ethics and AI governance, the ethical issues in AI application scenarios, and the discussion of artificial intelligence governance issues from a global perspective. From the perspective of knowledge, the book includes not only the metaphysical research of traditional Western ethics, but also the interpretation of AI-related practical cases and international policies. The purpose of this book is not only to study AI ethics and governance issues academically, but to seek a path to solve problems in the real world. It is a very meaningful monograph in both academic theory and reality. This book responds to the implementation of China's digital economy governance and other topics. It is a cutting-edge academic monograph that combines industry, policy, and thought. In this book, the author not only discusses the humanities thoughts such as ethics, political economy, philosophy, and sociology, but also involves computer science, biology, and medicine and other science and engineering disciplines, effectively using interdisciplinary thinking as readers clarify how to explore ethical consensus and establish smart social governance rules in the era of artificial intelligence, so as to provide the most comprehensive and unique scientific and technological insights for smart economy participants, related practitioners in the artificial intelligence industry, and government policy makers. For academia, this is a representative book of Chinese scholars' systematic thinking on AI ethical propositions from a global perspective. For the industry, this is a book that understands the policies and ethical propositions faced by the development of AI industry. An important reference book, for policy makers, this is a monograph for understanding how policies in the AI industry make decisions that conform to AI industry practices and people's moral order.

This book is based upon a comparative public administration research project, initiated by the Hertie School of Governance (Germany) and the Bertelsmann Foundation (Germany) and supported by a network of researchers from many EU countries. It analyzes both the regimes and the practices of local fiscal regulation in 21 European countries. The book brings together key findings of this research project. The regulatory discussion is not limited to the prominent issue of fiscal rules but focuses on every component of regulation. Beyond this, the book covers affiliated topics such as the impact of regulation for local governments, evolution of regulation, administrative costs and crisis prevention. The various book chapters throughout provide a broad picture of local public finance regulation in theory and in practice, using different theoretical and national lenses for the analysis. Furthermore, the authors investigate the effects of budgetary constraints and higher-level regulatory efforts on local governments and on democracy and public services in every European country. This book fills a gap with respect to the lack of discussion on local government finance from an international, comparative perspective and, in particular, the regulation of local public finance. With its mix of authors, this book will be useful for practitioners as well as for scholars and for theory-driven research.

This book deals with the Neglected Links in economics and society. These neglected links are the inner bonds and lines which keep the society and economy together and are almost interconnected although they are very often treated and discussed separately in different discourses. Contemporary discussion has forgotten to think universally and to integrate items into one common field of observation. Instead, too often particular items are studied and discussed as being independent of each other without acknowledging a broader context. The book gives an exemplary instruction on how to treat reciprocal links and how to work in an interdisciplinary way, which tackles history, sociology and economics at least. By so doing, the book as also serves as an educational instruction for integrative and interdisciplinary science instead of recapitulating mono-disciplinary approaches. Discussion includes topics such as social and economic inequality research, limits of rationality, and orthodoxies and heterodoxies of economic research, as well as a discussion of the heroes of interdisciplinary thought.

This book presents China's wealth management market to the public, institutions and research groups. As the money base of Renminbi (RMB or Chinese Yuan) from the central bank increases exponentially in recent years, the overall leverage ratio rises in an alarming rate and the shadow banking issues stick out. Where this massive amount goes has raised huge interest all over the world. This book answers this question in three aspects: What is the money made up? Who is managing the money and how are they doing? The author studied six types of financial institutions that are responsible for channeling the money to industries and individuals. Banks although still the main vehicle for money flows, other financial organizations have taken more and more important roles in the money management market. Insurance, trust, security and mutual funds are the main non-banking business participants. New money management products are innovated, as are the regulations. The money management business in China has experience from starting chaos to a regulated market and the evolution is still going on. Professionals and researchers around the world are watching China's money market closely, studying the mechanisms, looking for business opportunities and trying to theorizing economic rules. This book is a well presented and professionally structured for the above purposes.

This book gathers invited top experts on Public-Private partnership (PPP) in China, from both theoretical and practical fields, to present the most comprehensive analyses of PPP's practice in China up to 2017. This timely book offers researchers and practitioners a thorough understanding of the PPP's development in China, including its definition, its modes, its features as well as its many kinds of applications into different industries including medical care, environmental protection, education, public works, park development, etc. It addresses diverse themes in PPP analyses such as quantitative analyses and qualitative analyses; data statistics and case study, theoretical framework modeling and field study verification. The book is an overview of the Chinese PPP development through 2017.

As digitalization and social media are increasingly blurring the boundaries between traditional societal, political, and economic institutions, this book provides a cross-disciplinary examination of value co-creation. From various standpoints, it examines how institutions contribute to service ecosystems and how digitalization is transforming value co-creation in these ecosystems. Further, the book shares new perspectives on relational dynamics among government, companies, and citizens. These insights fill the gaps between service science and political science by integrating institutional logics into the concept of value co-creation. The book subsequently examines society as an interaction space. Topics discussed include the new logic and transformation mechanisms of economic activities, citizen participation, governance, and policy-making in the face of technological innovations, market-based reforms, and the risk of disconnect between citizens and policy-making. Here the focus is on value co-creation in complex adaptive systems where institutions, individuals, and businesses negotiate value and interests in networked relations. In closing, the book presents a range of empirical case studies on value co-creation, which provide examples of active networked citizenship, innovative governance and policy-making, democratic leadership, and trust-building dialogue among institutions. The studies address the context of Nordic countries, recognized as world-leading democracies. Pursuing a systems approach, the book articulates a social reality composed of interacting and interconnected elements that cannot be captured with only micro or macro levels of analysis. Service ecosystems are considered as configurations of people and technologies embedded in institutionalized rules, cultural meanings, and practices, offering valuable insights into the service-centered view of markets and society. Given the breadth and depth of its coverage, the book offers a valuable resource for all students and scholars interested in understanding and envisioning the future democratic landscape.