Download or read book Yardstick Competition Among Governments written by Pierre Salmon and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2019-06-03 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measuring government effectiveness is essential to ensuring accountability, as is an informed public that is willing and able to hold elected officials and policy-makers accountable. There are various forms of measurement, including against prior experience or compared to some ideal. In Yardstick Competition among Governments, Pierre Salmon argues that a more effective and insightful approach is to use common measures across a variety of countries, state, or other relevant political and economic districts. This facilitates and enables citizens comparing policy outputs in their own jurisdictions with those of others. An advantage of this approach is that it reduces information asymmetries between citizens and public officials, decreasing the costs of monitoring by the former of the latter -along the lines of principal-agent theory. These comparisons can have an effect on citizens' support to incumbents and, as a consequence, also on governments' decisions. By increasing transparency, comparisons by common yardsticks can decrease the influence of interest groups and increase the focus on broader concerns, whether economic growth or others. Salmon takes up complicating factors such as federalism and other forms of multi-level governance, where responsibility can become difficult to disentangle and accountability a challenge. Salmon also highlights the importance of publics with heterogeneous preferences, including variations in how voters interpret their roles, functions, or tasks. This results in the coexistence within the same electorate of different types of voting behavior, not all of them forward-looking. In turn, when incumbents face such heterogeneity, they can treat the response to their decisions as an aggregate non-strategic relation between comparative performance and expected electoral support. Combining theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, Salmon demonstrates how yardstick competition among governments, a consequence of the possibility that citizens look across borders, is a very significant, systemic dimension of governance both at the local and at the national levels.
Download or read book Yardstick Competition among Governments written by Pierre Salmon and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-05-10 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Measuring government effectiveness is essential to ensuring accountability, as is an informed public that is willing and able to hold elected officials and policy-makers accountable. There are various forms of measurement, including against prior experience or compared to some ideal. In Yardstick Competition among Governments, Pierre Salmon argues that a more effective and insightful approach is to use common measures across a variety of countries, state, or other relevant political and economic districts. This facilitates and enables citizens comparing policy outputs in their own jurisdictions with those of others. An advantage of this approach is that it reduces information asymmetries between citizens and public officials, decreasing the costs of monitoring by the former of the latter -along the lines of principal-agent theory. These comparisons can have an effect on citizens' support to incumbents and, as a consequence, also on governments' decisions. By increasing transparency, comparisons by common yardsticks can decrease the influence of interest groups and increase the focus on broader concerns, whether economic growth or others. Salmon takes up complicating factors such as federalism and other forms of multi-level governance, where responsibility can become difficult to disentangle and accountability a challenge. Salmon also highlights the importance of publics with heterogeneous preferences, including variations in how voters interpret their roles, functions, or tasks. This results in the coexistence within the same electorate of different types of voting behavior, not all of them forward-looking. In turn, when incumbents face such heterogeneity, they can treat the response to their decisions as an aggregate non-strategic relation between comparative performance and expected electoral support. Combining theoretical, methodological, and empirical research, Salmon demonstrates how yardstick competition among governments, a consequence of the possibility that citizens look across borders, is a very significant, systemic dimension of governance both at the local and at the national levels.
Download or read book Yardstick Competition and Policy Innovation written by Johannes Rincke and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A simple model of yardstick competition between jurisdictions is presented. Governments of jurisdictions face the alternative to choose between an old and a new policy with stochastic payoffs. The new policy is superior to the old policy in one state of the world, and inferior in the other. Governments are either benevolent, serving the interest of the voter, or rent-seeking. An equilibrium with yardstick competition is shown to exist where bad governments having a good government in their neighborhood choose the new policy more often compared to an equilibrium without relative performance evaluation. Overall, the probability of policy innovations is increased by yardstick competition. The model has a testable empirical implication saying that policy innovations should show spatial correlation.
Download or read book Political Yardstick Competition and Corporate Governance in the European Union written by Pierre Salmon and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 30 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The question whether regulatory competition in the area of company law could take place in the European Union (EU) in a way similar to the form it takes in the United States (the Delaware phenomenon) is topical because of some recent judgments of the European Court of Justice and various documents and projects produced by the European Commission. That question is typically discussed, however, as if voters did not count and as if competition among governments was exclusively based on the mobility of firms across jurisdictions. But intergovernmental competition can also take the form of yardstick, or relative performance, competition. Voters and democratic politics then become essential.Voters assess the performance of incumbents by comparing what obtains in their own and in other jurisdictions. The first part of the paper is devoted to spelling out some characteristics of the mechanism. It notes in particular that, depending on circumstances, yardstick competition may provide office-holders with the wrong incentives. This result is important in the EU context. The second part stresses some aspects of the path followed by European integration. One property is that Europe is under construction, entailing a tendency for integration to be monotonous. The process of integration can slow down or stall but seldom if ever regress. Another feature is the enduring reliance on the internal market commitments and their legal implications. Structural characteristics of the integration process such as these have consequences on yardstick competition as well as on the kind of policies to be expected from the EU. The third and fourth parts of the paper are devoted to corporate governance and law making in the EU context and in the light of the foregoing analysis of yardstick competition. Two points are stressed. The nature of yardstick competition among the governments of the member countries may explain that differences in company law and corporate governance can subsist without preventing a strong convergence of economic outcomes. Yardstick competition between the EU as a whole and other parts of the world, however, is likely to start a dynamic process that could lead to the centralization of a large part of company lawmaking at the EU level and the emergence of a distinctive legal environment for firms doing business in Europe.
Download or read book Assigning Powers in the European Union in the Light of Yardstick Competition Among Governments written by Laboratoire d'analyse et de techniques économiques (Dijon). and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 26 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Yardstick Competition and Public Sector Innovation written by Johannes Rincke and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The paper addresses the incentives of the public sector to implement new technologies in public service provision. I focus on the role of local governments under dentralization. Exploiting variation in the level of innovation in a large sample of US school districts, the impact of yardstick competition on the choice of public sector technologies is identified. It is shown that the impact of other districts' innovation activity on a district's innovation score is much stronger in communities where incumbents face a high risk of being elected out of office. This finding suggests that under decentralization, yardstick competition is an important force shaping the decisions of local governments to adopt new technologies.
Download or read book Perks and Public Provisions written by Joseph J. Capuno and published by . This book was released on 2012 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Using a panel dataset from cities and municipalities in the Philippines in 2001, 2004 and 2007, we investigate whether yardstick competition -- measured here as the average spending and revenues of surrounding jurisdictions in the same province -- influence local government fiscal decisions. For local governments with incumbents facing effective term limits, the effects of the yardstick variables are generally nil. For those with incumbents who are eligible for another term, the average total expenditures of surrounding jurisdictions seem to influence the LGU to re-allocate its budget for social and economic services that directly benefit the constituents towards overhead outlays that benefit more the office holders. Local revenue mobilization is stimulated by greater revenue mobilization and dampened by higher average spending in other localities. Central fiscal transfers increase outlays for overheads and for social and economic services These suggests that while the particular yardstick variables used here may have induced reactions from local governments, the resulting changes in fiscal decisions may not have necessarily improved the constituents' welfare. What seems necessary is comparison on those public provisions that promote welfare rather than just total expenditures or revenues per se. -- Local government spending ; yardstick competition ; Philippines
Download or read book The Architecture of Government written by Daniel Treisman and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-02 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since the days of Montesquieu and Jefferson, political decentralization has been seen as a force for better government and economic performance. It is thought to bring government 'closer to the people', nurture civic virtue, protect liberty, exploit local information, stimulate policy innovation, and alleviate ethnic tensions. Inspired by such arguments, and generously funded by the major development agencies, countries across the globe have been racing to devolve power to local governments. This book re-examines the arguments that underlie the modern faith in decentralization. Using logical analysis and formal modeling, and appealing to numerous examples, it shows that most are based on vague intuitions or partial views that do not withstand scrutiny. A review of empirical studies of decentralization finds these as inconclusive and mutually contradictory as the theories they set out to test.
Download or read book Tax Competition and Tax Coordination when Countries Differ in Size written by S. M. Ravi Kanbur and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1991 with total page 43 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book New Directions in Spatial Econometrics written by Luc Anselin and published by Springer Science & Business Media. This book was released on 2012-12-06 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The promising new directions for research and applications described here include alternative model specifications, estimators and tests for regression models and new perspectives on dealing with spatial effects in models with limited dependent variables and space-time data.
Download or read book Reforming Infrastructure written by Ioannis Nicolaos Kessides and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 2004 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Electricity, natural gas, telecommunications, railways, and water supply, are often vertically and horizontally integrated state monopolies. This results in weak services, especially in developing and transition economies, and for poor people. Common problems include low productivity, high costs, bad quality, insufficient revenue, and investment shortfalls. Many countries over the past two decades have restructured, privatized and regulated their infrastructure. This report identifies the challenges involved in this massive policy redirection. It also assesses the outcomes of these changes, as well as their distributional consequences for poor households and other disadvantaged groups. It recommends directions for future reforms and research to improve infrastructure performance, identifying pricing policies that strike a balance between economic efficiency and social equity, suggesting rules governing access to bottleneck infrastructure facilities, and proposing ways to increase poor people's access to these crucial services.
Download or read book The Economics of Government written by Vito Tanzi and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2020-10 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Public finance is an important branch of economics. Over the years it has become more important, more controversial, and more complex. This book aims to highlight to both economists and policymakers the need for simplicity in policies and to inform students of public finance and public policy about this growing problem.
Download or read book Bureaucrats in Business written by and published by World Bank Publications. This book was released on 1995 with total page 370 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Refer review of this policy book in 'Journal of International Development, vol. 10, 7, 1998. pp.841-855.
Download or read book Fiscal Federalism in Theory and Practice written by Mrs.Teresa Ter-Minassian and published by International Monetary Fund. This book was released on 1997-09-10 with total page 1146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past few decades, a clear trend has emerged worldwide toward the devolution of spending and, to a lesser extent, revenue-raising responsibilities to state and local levels of government. One view is that the decentralization of spending responsibilities can entail substantial gains in terms of distributed equity and macroeconomic management. The papers in this volume, edited by Teresa Ter-Minassian, examine the validity of these views in light of theoretical considerations, as well as the experience of a number of countries.
Download or read book The Economics of Public Spending written by David Miles and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2003-03-20 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Economics of Public Spending investigates the extent of government involvement in the economy, details its rational, and traces its historical record. The book unites articles previously published in Fiscal Studies, each one addressing a different area of expenditure and written by an economist specializing in that field. They describe both the data on public expenditure and the theory relevant to understanding the policy issues. A new introduction investigates the overall role of the public sector and discusses the general theory of public expenditure. In providing a detailed analysis of public expenditure, the book makes an important contribution to the economics literature. There are no other texts with this breadth of coverage or depth of analysis. Insights are provided into both the policy issues, cross-country comparisons of expenditure, and alternative approaches to economic analysis. The chapters apply the tools of orthodox public finance, public choice, modern public economics, and game theory to reach a range of policy proposals and conclusions. These demonstrate the range and potential of economic analysis when applied to these important issues.
Download or read book International Taxation written by James R. Hines and published by Edward Elgar Publishing. This book was released on 2007 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection of articles on international aspects of taxation issues, originally published in economic research journals in the period between 1980 and 2004. The various parts focus on foreign direct investment, international borrowing, tax avoidance, tax competition, and international tax policy implications.
Download or read book American Government 3e written by Glen Krutz and published by . This book was released on 2023-05-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Black & white print. American Government 3e aligns with the topics and objectives of many government courses. Faculty involved in the project have endeavored to make government workings, issues, debates, and impacts meaningful and memorable to students while maintaining the conceptual coverage and rigor inherent in the subject. With this objective in mind, the content of this textbook has been developed and arranged to provide a logical progression from the fundamental principles of institutional design at the founding, to avenues of political participation, to thorough coverage of the political structures that constitute American government. The book builds upon what students have already learned and emphasizes connections between topics as well as between theory and applications. The goal of each section is to enable students not just to recognize concepts, but to work with them in ways that will be useful in later courses, future careers, and as engaged citizens. In order to help students understand the ways that government, society, and individuals interconnect, the revision includes more examples and details regarding the lived experiences of diverse groups and communities within the United States. The authors and reviewers sought to strike a balance between confronting the negative and harmful elements of American government, history, and current events, while demonstrating progress in overcoming them. In doing so, the approach seeks to provide instructors with ample opportunities to open discussions, extend and update concepts, and drive deeper engagement.
