This volume contains the papers, along with the discussant's re marks, presented at a conference on 'Federal Fiscal Responsibility', held at The Homestead, Hot Springs, Virginia, on 26-27 March 1976. Additionally, we, the editors, have included an introductory essay which sets forth some of our background thoughts that in formed our organization of the conference and which also de scribes some of our reactions to the conference. This conference was sponsored by the Liberty Fund, Inc. of Indianapolis, Indiana, which incorporated this conference into its overall program directed toward the study of the ideals of a free society of responsible individuals. Related to this effort, the Liberty Fund also assisted in supporting research on Democracy in Deficit: The Political Legacy of Lord Keynes, by James M. Buchanan and Richard E. Wagner (New York: Academic Press, 1977). Both Democracy in Deficit and the conference were de signed to examine one important aspect of the Liberty Fund's general set of concerns, namely the' way in which political con siderations influence the macroeconomic aspects of budgetary policy, thereby, in turn, influencing the future of American liberty and prosperity. We are most grateful to the Liberty Fund for their efforts, and we are pleased that Enid Goodrich, William Fletcher, Neil McLeod, and Helen Schultz of the Liberty Fund were able to attend the conference."

This book examines the role of uncertainty on financial decisions - and, consequently, on financial markets - in the buildup to and aftermath of the Great Recession. It tracks the significant growth and important structural changes in the financial sector during the past few decades, both of which made the economy more vulnerable to perceptions of risk in the markets. Halperin argues that conventional economic models have lost relevance by failing to take these developments into account appropriately, and also explains that because of financial globalization we can no longer understand what happens in the economies of major countries by relying on "closed-economy" thinking. The book concludes with a list of policy recommendations designed to increase the resilience of the financial markets to negative economic developments and to reduce incentives for risk taking, including a proposal to eliminate the double taxation of dividends.

The ageing, financial and labour market challenges facing the old age pension systems of the member states of the European Union are well known. Those who cast doubt on the ability of the present system of pension provision - at least to the extent that it is pay-as-you-go financed - to cope with the problems posed by these challenges are getting more vociferous. Increasingly there are calls for pay-as-you-go systems to be cut back and for funded systems to be expanded. This book contests the view that funding is the answer. It shows how adaptable the largely pay-as-you-go old age pension systems in the European Union are. Actuaries, economists, lawyers, political scientists, pension advisers, and sociologists, from nine European countries and the United States, consider four main themes: population ageing, competitiveness and retirement; pension financing and economic growth; adapting pension systems to meet change; and decision-making processes. They argue that pay-as-you-go-financed old age pension systems in the European Union have the ability to successfully adapt to economic and social change provided they do not take on too many non-insurance-related risks. Solving the problems of the labour market and controlling the direction and extent of economic development are beyond the powers of old age pension systems, regardless of how they are structured or financed. Separate budgets for separate risks is an indispensable principle if the complex processes of social protection are to be successfully managed, monitored, and made transparent. There can be no single plan for the future development of old age pension systems which would be universally valid for all the countries of the European Union. A single solution cannot take into account the special circumstances obtaining in every nation, and since respect for the special features of national systems is the basis of popular acceptance, the way forward is to reform existing systems in existing contexts.

As a contribution to the search for suitable and sustainable solutions to finance rising medical care expenditures, the book proposes a typology of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, based on the dimensions of basic vs. supplementary services and mandatory vs. voluntary coverage, to analyse the design and the complex interactions between various financing and insurance arrangements in several OECD countries. This study provides a better understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the financial and organisational structures of different countries' healthcare financing and insurance schemes. Its main contributions are the development of a novel and rigorous theoretical framework analysing the economic rationales for the optimal design of healthcare financing and insurance schemes, and an empirical and institutional analysis investigating the consequences for efficiency and affordability of the complex interactions between basic and supplementary sources of financing.

China's emerging financial markets reflect the usual contrast between the country's measured approach toward policy, regulatory, and market reform, and the dynamic pace of rapid economic growth and development. But they also offer unusual challenges and opportunities. In the past five years, the pace of opening and reform has accelerated sharply. Recapitalization and partial privatization of the largest banks, and the allowance of some joint venture and branch operations for foreign financial institutions, are making rapid headway in developing and expanding financial services and improving access to domestic business and households. This book provides the most extensive look available at the evolving Chinese financial system. It begins with alternative perspectives on the evolution of the financial system and the broad outlines of its prospects and potential contribution to economic growth. Three articles review broad aspects of the financial system. Franklin Allen, Jun ''QJ'' Qian, Meijun Qian, and Mengxin Zhao lead off with overviews of the banking system and performance of the equity market and other institutions.

The main objective of this book is to restate the important theories and evidence from economic analysis concerning intergovernmental fiscal issues. More importantly, the second objective of the book is to identify gaps in knowledge, empirical uncertainties, and missing theoretical structures and then to establish a preliminary agenda for new research on this topic. The book is organized in two sections. The first covers the core body of intergovernmental fiscal relations, including optimal size for jurisdictions and assignment of public sector functions, the formulation and execution of tax policy in an intergovernmental setting, and the appropriate structure and use of intergovernmental transfers. In the second section, the core knowledge is applied to four major policy areas: education, welfare, fiscal interaction in urban areas, and economic development. In thinking about a new research agenda, the authors call for more current and authoritative estimates of fiscal incidence, including interjurisdictional spillovers, for more fundamental research about the federation process and effects of consolidation, for new evidence about the long run, general equilibrium effects of interjurisdictional competition, and for basic research about the choice process and establishment of intergovernmental fiscal institutions and policies by federal and subnational governments.

Consumption takes place in settings or environments which have both direct and indirect effects on its dynamic path. Direct effects of environments on activities in consuming can occur through constraints that environments impose. Environment can also have indirect effects on consumption through enduring modification of internalized constructs which enter heuristics for decisions on activities. The importance of environments to consumption is increased by the definitional dependence of status on the judgements of others. This study examines microprocessing in consumer activities for status as it interacts with structure in the environments of these activities. The importance of environments in status activities provides the basis for a seperate, but related inquiry into observed differences in the form they take across societies. Conjecture on the consequences of differences in the structure of environments for consumption that typify a society is studied in the narrative statements by members of comparison societies and in the content of print advertising in these societies.Evolutionary processes which could establish observed differences in structure across societies are also considered in both their systematic and random components. I review models of random drift and stochastic resonance as candidate forms for generating observed structure in environments. Directions for the subsequent study of status through consumption are discussed.P * Introduction: Status Through Consumption; * Knowledge Use in Nonwork Activities for Status; * Interactions of Consumer Microprocessing and Structured Environments: Activity Feedback and the Stability of Structure; * Awards and Honors Systems in Structured Environments: Cross Societal Comparisons of Narrative Statements on Consuming for Status; * Comparative Analyses of Consumption Appeals in the Print Advertising of the USA and France, 1955-1991 * Random Process in the Generation of Structured Environments; * Overview and directions for Study of Status Through Consumption.

The Economics of Brexit - Revisited builds upon and extends the analysis contained within the authors' previous book, The Economics of Brexit: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the UK's Economic Relationship with the EU, which arguably represented the most comprehensive and systematic evaluation of the UK's economic relationship with the EU. The Economics of Brexit - Revisited continues where the previous volume left off, given that the UK has now formally withdrawn from the EU, and therefore the focus of the evidence presented concerns the potential economic implications arising from Brexit and considering the options available to those negotiating the UK's future economic relationship both regionally and globally. The Economics of Brexit - Revisited seeks to provide greater clarity to a range of issues that have been hotly debated over the past few years, ranging from the trade and fiscal implications of Brexit, to the economic impact of regulation and migration. The significance of different Brexit options are discussed in detail, including the significance of demands for regulatory harmonisation (the 'level playing field'), along with their implications for UK trade with the EU and the rest of the world. A wide range of economic analyses are evaluated to determine their relative methodological strengths and weaknesses, and ultimately whether their conclusions are sufficiently robust to engender confidence. Finally, noting that a key determinant of the effectiveness of any post-Brexit economic strategy depends upon the degree of flexibility created for economic policy, the book provides an extended examination of the potential relating to different economic policy options available to the UK government, depending upon the form of final trade settlement that is agreed with the EU. These policy options include more active forms of macroeconomic management, combined with industrial and procurement policy. The Economics of Brexit - Revisited therefore seeks to combine evaluation of the available evidence indicating the economic impact of Brexit, together with consideration of policy trade-offs that lie at the heart of the choices surrounding Brexit, and how these might be resolved. The Economics of Brexit - Revisited therefore maintains its position as the most comprehensive analysis of the economics of Brexit in the market today.

THE JANUS-FACE OF RACE: REFLEC- TIONS ON ECONOMIC THEORY Patrick L. Mason and Rhonda Williams Many economists are willing to accept that race is a significant factor in US eco nomic and social affairs. Yet the professional literature displays a peculiar schizo phrenia when faced with the task of actually formulating what race means and how race works in our political economy. On the one hand, race matters when the dis cussion is focused on anti-social behavior, social choices, and undesired market outcomes. Inexplicably, African Americans are more likely to prefer welfare, lower labor force participation, and unemployment. On the other hand, race does not matter when the subject of discussion is economically productive or socially accept able activities and legal market choices (for example, wages and employment). This Janus-faced construction of race is maintained by economists' stubborn ad herence to the market power hypothesis. The market power hypothesis asserts that racial discrimination and market competition are inversely correlated. Discrimina tory behavior will persist only in those sectors of society where the competitive forces of the market are least operative. When applied to the labor market, the mar ket power hypothesis suggests that pre- and post-labor market decisions represent disjoint sets. On average, members of a disadvantaged social group may accumulate a lower amount of or a lower quality of productive attributes because of discrimina tion in marital, residential, or school choice, or because of substantial animosity in day-to-day interpersonal relations with members of a privileged group.

Over the last fifty years, increasingly sophisticated risk measurement and management techniques have revolutionized the field of finance. More recently, the globalization of financial markets and policy changes in the regulation of financial institutions have impacted upon how commercial banks manage risk. The widespread implications of these fundamental changes prompted an international conference held in May, 1997, devoted to the topic of risk management and regulation in banking. This book contains the formal papers and the panel discussions that comprise the conference proceedings, and thus collects some of the latest research on managing financial market risk by top scholars, policymakers, and high-ranking banking officials from around the world.

As the public in the U.S. has grown increasingly concerned over the gaps in the health care system's attention to quality, and as the health care industry itself struggles for stability in a volatile environment, a historic opportunity presents itself. This book reviews a variety of quality monitoring approaches, identifies critical issues pertaining to assessment, measurement, implementation, and evaluation of quality initiatives, and suggests scientific approaches to put in place a core set of performance measures that reliably identify the value-added clinical and managerial behaviors in health care - for both quality and cost efficiency. The key to quality improvement has to focus on physicians and other health professionals. This book is designed to identify issues pertaining to health care quality and to formulate appropriate approaches for improving quality. It can be used by risk managers and hospital executives to guide their development, implementation, and evaluation of quality improvement programs.

Policy Uncertainty and Risk presents a contribution to risk analysis and risk management in public policy and management at large. Special emphasis is put on the utilization of scientific knowledge by decision-makers in instances where knowledge in both spheres of science and administration is highly uncertain and contested. The book therefore contributes a model of science-practitioner interaction in a policy area of strong current relevance. The perspective is a realist constructivist one, which means that risk and policy are taken to be socially predicated insofar as we can choose and change the way we define and interact with its practices. It is realist insofar as we continually use such constructions to re-define and re-structure the world we live in. Although essentially theory-driven and conceptually oriented, the authors develop their argument for a new interpretation of policy-relevant science through a number of pressing case studies. These studies include the recent BSE/CJD crises in the UK, the introduction of Marine Protected Areas in Sweden, and the current practices surrounding risk management in corporate bodies. Drawing on empirical cases and theoretical explication, the book provides a number of suggestions as to how risk analysis and risk management may be more properly conceived of both from a practitioner as well as from an academic point of view.

The issue of asymmetric information and public decision-making has been widely explored by economists. Most of the traditional analysis of public sector activities has been reviewed to take account of the different incentive problems arising from an asymmetric distribution of relevant information among the actors of the public decision-making process. A normative approach has been developed, mainly employing the principal agent paradigm to design incentive schemes which tackle adverse selection and moral hazard problems within public organizations. Still, this analysis is under way in many fields of public economics. However, a debate is ongoing on the theoretical limitations of this approach and on its relevance for the actual public sector activities. Public Decision-Making Processes and Asymmetry of Information encompasses different contributions to these issues, on both theoretical and practical areas.The innermost problem in the current discussion arises from the fact that this normative analysis is firmly rooted in the complete contracting framework, with the consequence that, despite the analytical complexities of most models, their results rely on very simplified assumptions. Most complexities of the organization of public sector, and more generally, of writing contracts, are therefore swept away. Once the need for an incomplete contracting approach is recognized, the question becomes how to relax some of the assumptions characterizing the complete contracting framework, without getting ad hoc results. The Introduction to this book, written by Jean Jacques Laffont, sets the general grid to interpret the position of its papers in this debate. The four papers in Part 1 of the book are devoted to developing the analysis of some of the theoretical issues mentioned in the Introduction. Part 2 is devoted to discussing the applications of the theory to different public sector activities.

Over the past thirty years, urban economic theory has been one of the most active areas of urban and regional economic research. Just as static general equilibrium theory is at the core of modern microeconomics, so is the topic of this book - the static allocation of resources within a city and between cities - at the core of urban economic theory. An Essay on Urban Economic Theory well reflects the state of the field. Part I provides an elegant, coherent, and rigorous presentation of several variants of the monocentric (city) model - as the centerpiece of urban economic theory - treating equilibrium, optimum, and comparative statistics. Part II explores less familiar and even some uncharted territory. The monocentric model looks at a single city in isolation, taking as given a central business district surrounded by residences. Part II, in contrast, makes the intra-urban location of residential and non-residential activity the outcome of the fundamental tradeoff between the propensity to interact and the aversion to crowding; the resulting pattern of agglomeration may be polycentric. Part II also develops models of an urbanized economy with trade between specialized cities and examines how the market-determined size distribution of cities differs from the optimum. This book launches a new series, Advances in Urban and Regional Economics. The series aims to provide an outlet for longer scholarly works dealing with topics in urban and regional economics.

Economic Restructuring and the Growing Uncertainty of the Middle Class focuses on a relatively new research area which is becoming increasingly more important: the growing uncertainty of the middle class. Until recently, members of the middle class were not only assured of a good social and economic position but also of the continuation of this position. Nowadays, economic and organisational changes are threatening this once secure position. The boundaries between the middle classes and the working class are becoming less and less visible. `Making a career', which was in the past central for middle class people, is becoming ever more difficult. Moreover, organisational restructuring is threatening their employment. It seems that insecurity is becoming a central element in the lives of members of the middle class. In this book experts from several European countries discuss the question of to what extent the position of the middle class is really changing. They also discuss the mechanisms that are propelling these changes, and the effects these changes have on the attitudes of middle-class people. As the experts are from several parts of Europe (Great Britain, Germany, The Netherlands, Greece, Spain and Russia), the reader can compare the situation of the middle classes in these various countries. This book contains valuable information for anyone interested in this important topic: not only for those involved in the studies of economic and organisational change and social stratification and those interested in the similarities and differences between European countries, but (amongst others) for policy-makers, managers, and trade union representatives who will be dealing with problems induced by the changes that are discussed in the book.

Rolf R. Strauch and Jiirgen von Hagen Center for European Integration Studies (ZEI), University of Bonn; ZEI, University of Bonn, Indiana University, and CEPR The large and persistent deficits, rising levels of debt and growing levels of public spending observed in many DECO economies during the past 25 years have stimulated much theoretical and empirical research on the political economy of public finance. Although a number of issues have been studied extensively, certain areas are still at an exploratory stage and need further theorizing and thorough empirical research. During the last two decades, the theoretical debate on budgeting has been dominated by the controversy between partisan and institutionalist approaches. Within the more political-science oriented, institutionalist literature, a controversy exists between the distributive and the informational perspectives, each setting forth a distinctive organizational rationale of parliaments with different fiscal implications. The papers in this volume cover these different perspectives, extend previous models, and test their empirical validity. The papers were originally written for a conference on "Institutions, Politics, and Fiscal Policy" organized by the Center for European Integration Studies at the University of Bonn, Germany, in July 1998. The book is organized in three parts each focusing on a distinctive aspect. The first part is dedicated to the partisan perspective. The second part focuses on budget institutions. The third part consists of three case studies of institutional reform of the budget process. This book is directed to academics and practitioners alike.

Economic Development is but one facet of Human Development. This forces us to ask - how do humans develop? Man is a social animal and the growth of our humanity requires various social institutions, such as bureaucracy. The paradox of capitalism is that it is a system ostensibly based on self-interest yet wholly dependent on non-market values for its success. These non-market values are shaped by two much-neglected factors, religion and ethnicity. Economic Development is an applied field; whatever it claims as a conclusion should be an applicable conclusion. This requires attention to all those non-economic factors which translate economic decisions into practice - such as the forces of nationalism versus the pressures of such global powers as US foreign policy and the advice of the IMF/IBRD. Since policy is our goal, theory whose intellectual basis is inaccessible to policy makers or which fails to have application should be minimized. Mathematical models are best avoided and, if they are to be used, the burden of proof must be placed upon their proponents. As insights about the market are limited neither by time nor space, poor countries can learn from rich ones, and vice versa. It is most fruitful to focus on examples of success, such as the East Asian economies. They are the clearest illustration of the fact that rapid economic development is possible even to those who have suffered through imperialism, and possess few natural resources, but have their work and their determination intact. `One good example is enough.'

Any normative theory of democracy involves notions of equity, which are supposed to guide collective decisions. On the other hand, a descriptive theory of any decision-making body must take into account the distribution of power in that body. The development of collective decision theory along two different paths reflects these two foci of interest in the theory of democracy. One direction can be subsumed under the theory of social choice, the other under the theory of games. In the theory of social choice, the participants are characterized only by their preferences among a set of alternatives (candidates, courses of action, etc. ). They do not choose among these alternatives. They only submit their preferences to some central authority ("the Society"), which then chooses among the alternatives in accordance with some fixed rule of aggregating the preferences. On the other hand, the point of departure in the theory of games is a set of actors, each of whom can choose between alternative courses of action (strategies). The totality of choices results in an outcome, which gener ally has different utilities for the different actors. In this book, both approaches are presented in selected papers, from which the reader can get an excellent overview of the state of the art. Both branches of formal decision theory, the theory of social choice and the theory of games, were developed in mathematical language, but very little technical mathematical knowledge is required to follow the arguments."

The Papers collected in this volume are those presented at the tenth Collo- quium arranged by the Societe Universitaire Europeenne de Recherches Fi- nancieres (SUERF), which took place in Vienna in April 1982. The Society is supported by a large number of central banks, commercial banks, and other financial and business institutions, as well as by academics and others interested in monetary and financial problems. Since its estab- lishment in 1963 it has developed as a forum for the exchange of informa- tion, research results and ideas, valued by academics and practitioners in these fields, induding central bank officials and civil servants responsible for formulating and applying monetary and financial policies. A major activity of SUERF is to organise and conduct Colloquia on sub- jects of topical interest to members. The titles, places and dates of previous Colloquia for which volumes of the collected Papers were published are noted on page 421. Volumes were not issued for Colloquia held at Tar- ragona, Spain in October 1970 under the title "Monetary Policy and New Developments in Banking" and at Strasbourg, France in January 1972 un- der the title "Aspects of European Monetary Union".

Some years ago, when Principal and Professor of Economics at the infant Univer sity of Buckingham, Britain's only independent university, I was intrigued to receive an application, supported by strong recommendations from a Signora Ilde Rizzo, who wished to take some courses in public finance. As she was already an of Catania, noted for its expertise in the economics of Assistant at the University public finance, my colleagues and I brushed aside her modest request to attend undergraduate courses and enrolled her in our new graduate course. We also hoped that she might, in time, be able to gain experience in teaching and writing in English. Dr. Rizzo exceeded our highest expectations. She presented the first D. Phil thesis ever at Buckingham and defended it with consummate success. This work is a revised and extended version of her thesis, and it is a pleasure to congratu late Dr. Rizzo on its appearance, and also her publisher for recognizing its qUality. It will come as no surprise to the reader that Dr. Rizzo has already published extensively in Italian and also in English, but this is her first book in the latter language. I am glad to think that Dr. Rizzo's thesis arose out of our mutual interest in the question as to whether debt financing offered governments a major opportunity for maintaining the growth of public spending."

C. B. TILANUS, EDITOR This book tries to strengthen the ties between, on the one hand, the business administration and accounting world and, on the other, the operational research and management science world. The readership for which it is intended consists ofthe following categories: managers and professionals in organizational departments of business administration, management science, automatic data processing, etc.; management and operational research consultants; and students in academic departments of business administration, business economics, operational research, information systems, industrial engineering, etc. The book deals with the quantitative approach. to budgeting problems. Budgeting in this text is defined as the making of a financial, short-term plan for an organization. The budget is financial. Although volumes and prices play their part, the budget is finally expressed in terms of amounts of money thus allowing of the well-known two-way counting and balancing of double bookkeeping. (Whether items appear twice on the assets and liabili ties sides of balances, or are counted twice in the rows and columns of a matrix is immaterial. ) The budget is short-term. It is a detailed, quantitative plan of action in the near future. In this sense, budgeting is opposed to strategic planning which considers the course of action to be taken in the medium and long term. Strategic planning is of a more aggregative, qualita tive nature than is budgeting. The budget is a plan for an organization, and as such it is complete."

Originally published in 1974, this is a detailed study of the financial administration of the Chinese government during the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), with particular attention to the sixteenth century, a topic about which very little has been published either in Chinese or any Western language. Professor Huang has worked through an enormous quantity and variety of source material - in particular the 133 substantial volumes of the Ming Veritable Records - and has compared the documents on financial matters with the entries in local gazetteers. The complicated workings of government finance present great difficulties to all specialists in Chinese financial and administrative history and in different branches of local Chinese history from the fifteenth century onwards. Professor Huang's study will provide all such researchers with an authoritative work of reference.

The character of economic life] in a society is dependent upon, among 2 other things, its political-legal-economic institutional setting. Within that institutional structure, the individuals who comprise that society attempt to cooperate with one another to their mutual advantage so as to accommodate their joint utility-maximizing endeavors. In addition, these same individuals call upon certain societal institutions to adjust the con flicting claims of different individuals and groups. In this regard, a society is perceived as both a cooperative venture for mutual advantage where there are an identity of interests and, as well, an arena of conflict where there exists a mutual interdependence of conflicting claims or interests. The manner in which a society structures its political-legal-economic institutions 1) to enhance the scope of its cooperative endeavors and 2) to channel internal political-legal-economic conflicts toward resolution, shapes the character of economic life in that society. In contemplating the structure of its institutions intended to promote cooperation and channel conflict, a society confronts several issues. At the most general level an enduring issue is how a society both perceives and then ideologically transmits (perhaps teaches or rationalizes), inter nally and/or externally, its perceptions of so-called "cooperative en deavors" and "arenas of conflict." There can be no doubt that the resultant structure of a society's institutions will reflect that society's perception as to what cooperation entails and what conflict constitutes."

A wide-ranging review of the issues and opportunities in the transfer of technology between advanced industrial countries and the countries of the Former Soviet Union. A major theme is the complex socio-technological aspects of the process, together with the related human factors and leadership requirements. The book presents a very open exchange of views on the difficult obstacles that the countries of the Former Soviet Union need to overcome and the market economy countries of the west need to understand. Issues of patents, intellectual property, personnel training, reorganization of formerly centralized economies, incentives, information exchange, and possible models for effective transfer are highlighted, together with specific examples and discussions of the most up-to-date knowledge about technology transfer. Audience: All individuals and organizations concerned with the transfer of technology, particularly those interested in a candid appraisal of the issues and opportunities for the transfer of technology and industrial and scientific cooperation between industrialized market economies and the countries of Eastern Europe and Central Asia.