Showing papers in "Journal of Public Policy in 1984"

From Social Theory to Policy Design

Abstract: Little attention has been given in policy analysis to the creative process of designing solutions to public policy problems. There are a number of difficulties in applying macro-level theories – whether from economics, sociology, philosophy or macro-systems theory – in the policy process. Any macro-level theory will tend to provide inadequate guidance in one or more of three aspects of policy-making: a model of causation, a model for evaluating alternatives and outcomes, and a model of how interventions operate. Our current knowledge about which policy strategies work best under which conditions is at best rudimentary. Academic disciplinary perspectives focus on a narrow repertoire of policy instruments. What is required is a design focus which draws on instruments associated with a range of disciplines and professions. A design perspective involves both a systematic process for generating basic strategies and a framework for comparing them. Such an approach will require at least the following elements: (1) the characteristics of problems (scale, collectiveness, certainty, predictability, independence); (2) characteristics of goals (value-laden, operational, process of goal-setting); (3) characteristics of instruments (suitability of different instruments).

Technology-Based Small Firms and Regional Innovation Potential: The Role of Public Procurement*

Abstract: Traditional regional policies largely failed to attract a balanced range of skills to the regions, leaving them deficient in all but ‘blue collar’ craft skills. Thus, regional policies have hardly equipped the regions to survive during a period when technology is becoming an increasingly important element in competitiveness. In most countries, industry in the regions is composed mainly of mature companies producing traditional products and which often experience great difficulty in adapting to the rapidly changing requirements of the latter part of the twentieth century. Small firms, and especially new small firms appear, in contrast, better able to adapt. Regional policies should, therefore, be directed more towards the creation and growth of technology-based new small firms in the regions. Technology-based large firms are, of course, less dependent on the local environment than on their smaller counterparts and are better able to overcome local technical and market deficiencies. In order to stimulate the growth of innovative small firms, it is necessary to create an innovation infrastructure in the development regions, which, generally, have only limited innovation potential. This infrastructure will comprise a set of policy instruments on both the supply side and the demand side, while at the same time attempting to create a fiscal and regulatory climate conducive to innovatory endeavours by local firms. Perhaps the potentially most powerful element in this environment would be the establishment of local innovation oriented procurement procedures. A number of guidelines for the development of a viable system of innovation-oriented procurement are provided in the final section of this paper.

Bureaucrats and Budgeting Benefits: How do British Central Government Departments Measure Up?*

Abstract: Many economics-based theories of bureaucracy build on the assumption that public bureaucrats reap utility from a large budget. This article examines what evidence may be marshalled for bureaucratic appropriation of budgetary funds, by reference to measurable changes in British central government departments from the early 1970s to the early 1980s, both at the civil-service-wide level and at the level of departments taken separately and severally. This evidence indicates that, while the budget/utility approach cannot be dismissed entirely, the link between budgetary increases and bureaucratic utility is neither clearly demonstrable nor universally applicable. At the least, a more refined type of budget/utility theory seems to be called for.

Incremental Budgeting: Antecedents of Change*

Abstract: The article examines the variables which preclude or facilitate shifts or change in patterns of budgeting within governments. Emphasis is placed upon the connection between systems of budgeting and underlying structures of ideas and values which constitute organisational ‘myths’. Drawing upon the literatures of political science and organisational analysis the paper identifies a combination of factors which facilitate the erosion of the legitimacy of prevailing myths and lead to their displacement. This thesis is empirically examined using data from twenty English local authorities.

Large Firms and Public Policy in Britain

Abstract: Despite the high level of concentration in the UK economy, the politics of firms has been largely neglected. The emergence of government relations divisions in very large companies is discussed and their functions are reviewed. However, very large firms are also actively involved in business interest associations. Very large firms may develop distinctive corporate political philosophies and a typology of such philosophies is presented. Government seeks to modify the behaviour of firms by providing a range of industrial policy incentives, but the available evidence suggests that the impact of such incentives is limited. Lack of mutual trust and understanding between firms and government, and the persistence of a concept of the autonomous firm, leads to pessimistic conclusions about the likely success of attempts to manage industrial decline.

Business Associations and Public Policy: a Comparison of Organisational Development in Britain and Canada

Abstract: The levels of organisational development of business interest associations in two industrial sectors – chemicals and food processing – in Canada and the United Kingdom are compared, with special reference to the capacity of the associations to undertake public policy functions and to engage in long-term strategic thinking about the problems facing their industries. There is a higher level of organisational development in British business interest associations than in their Canadian counterparts, especially in the chemicals sector. The British associations are better able to assume responsibility for public policy implementation as private governments. A number of explanations are reviewed, particular emphasis being placed on different company structures, the disintegrating effect of high levels of foreign ownership in Canada, bureaucratic competition in Canada, association involvement in collective bargaining, and the impact of European Community membership on the British associations.

Personal Information Policies in the United States and Britain: The Dilemma of Implementation Considerations

Abstract: This article examines how issues of policy implementation affected the formulation and adoption of personal information policies in the United States and Britain. The analysis suggests that when implementation questions are raised during policy formulation, programmatic goals will be compromised to the interests bureaucracies have in implementation. In this case, the goal of protecting the privacy of personal information was sacrified to an implementation framework that protected bureaucratic needs. This poses a dilemma for policy analysts: when implementation questions are left unresolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the implementation stage; yet, when implementation questions are resolved in policy design, bureaucratic concerns dominate the formulation stage.

The Costs and Benefits of Foreign Students in United States Higher Education

Abstract: This paper makes a two-fold contribution to the practical application of cost-benefit analysis and to our understanding of the costs and benefits to the host country of foreign students in higher education. First, within the technical constraints it develops a model for assessing costs and benefits; this model is potentially applicable to all countries with foreign students. The model includes educational and political as well as economic inputs, and the paper discusses qualitative as well as quantitative costs and benefits. Secondly, the model is applied to the particular case of the United States. The significance of different perspectives for assessing net benefit is recognized, and costs and benefits are assessed from the perspectives of higher education institutions, state residents and all US citizens. The paper finds positive net benefits, subject to a number of assumptions. However, the policies of both state governments and the US government do not appear to be consistent with the goal of maximizing this net benefit.

Market Strategies as Policy Tools: The Search for Alternative Approaches to Urban Revitalization

Abstract: This paper explores a broad range of programs which claim to use market forces to generate urban development. It begins with a typology of program types based on a set of programmatic assumptions as to how markets can be manipulated. A series of alternative theoretical positions are then introduced which represent different visions of the market, urban development, and appropriate intervention techniques. It is asserted that each of the program types falls crudely into one of the theoretical perspectives. The paper concludes with the suggestion that program evaluation is relevant to issues other than whether the program ‘worked’. Evaluation can also serve as a test of internal assumptions on which the program is based. Finally, evaluation of concrete programs can be used to assess the relative power of alternative conceptualizations of development and of the market itself.

Management of Industrial Change in a Small Country: The Netherlands

Abstract: The awareness of the structural rather than cyclical nature of economic problems caused a fundamental rethinking of the institutions and instruments of industrial policy in most OECD countries. However, studies have concentrated on a limited number of large countries, with only marginal use being made of the experience of the smaller OECD countries. The need for comparative material becomes relevant since the large economies are increasingly facing the same structural problems as the smaller ones. This article analyses the experience of the Netherlands in comparison with other small European economies. The Netherlands economy is highly intertwined with the other economies of the European Community, particularly Germany. Multinationals (many home-based in the case of the Netherlands) dominate certain sectors of the economy and exports, but smaller companies provide the bulk of employment. The loss of employment since 1970 has mostly resulted from the restructuring of large firms. Government subsidies grew considerably, and proliferated in form, in the 1970s and most went to industries experiencing structural problems. Large firms have tended to benefit most. Criticisms have been made of rescue operations, the risky nature of development credits, the obstacles to the use of schemes by small firms and the cost and ineffectiveness of the investment subsidy account. Because of declining domestic investment, public subsidies accounted for 82 per cent of all private investment by 1982. In the 1980s there has been a move away from tripartite arrangements for discussing and administering industrial subsidies to commissions of ‘independent’ experts, and the degree of organisation in labour unions in the Netherlands, already low, has declined considerably in recent years. The prevalence of centre-right governments in recent years has made it easier to reduce support for individual firms, though large grants for modernisation are made to large firms. The Netherlands appears to be one of the small open countries in which the basic linkages in the model proposed by Cameron have been broken.

Why Have Government Statistics? (And How to Cut their Cost)

Abstract: Intra-orgartisationally statistics are commonly perceived, both in government and in other organisations, as a tool of management. But the dominant function of statistics is to contribute to inter- and intra-organisational coordination. The value of statistics lies in their use as an instrument of self-management. The paper identifies an unacknowledged degree of participation by users in statistical systems and advocates an ought-to-know principle for the design of such systems. The ought-to-know principle should guide the distribution of statistics within governmental organisations and policy for statistical publication. Contributor and user organisations (e.g. local government and private firms) should play a greater part in deciding what statistics should be collected and how they should be distributed and could well share responsibility for meeting the costs.

The Nationalisation of the Banks in Mitterand's France: Rationalisations and Reasons

Abstract: This paper examines the arguments for the nationalisation in 1982 of much of the privately owned banking sector in France, on the grounds that this would restore the power of money creation to the “collectivity’ and produce a better economic policy. The paper concludes that the French government's case was grounded more in elections than economics.

Whither Environmental Regulation

Abstract: Despite all the rhetoric, efforts to reform environmental regulation in the United States offer little promise of relief. Incapacitating the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and shifting responsibilities to the states hardly insures a less burdensome situation for the business community. At best, basic reform strategies merely add on various efficiency devices (bubbles, cost-benefit analyses, etc.) without addressing issues of overall regulatory performance. Moreover, none of the reform strategies, thus far, get at the underlying statutes and processes of environmental regulation which tend to generate a highly combative milieu. This discussion explores these weaknesses, and forwards an alternative approach, which is similar to regulatory processes in Europe and Canada (involving reduced litigation and increased negotiation).

The UK Monetarist Experiment

Abstract: The paper argues that the monetarist ‘experiment’ of the first Thatcher government in Britain (1979–83) has been unsuccessful. Alternative monetarist philosophies and their specific application to Britain are outlined. These propositions are then re-examined in the light of the actual experience of economic policy in Britain, and are found to be inadequate. Inflation in Britain has come down, but ironically after a period when money supply grew quickly – well above the government's target ranges. Unemployment has also risen much more severely than monetarists predicted. ‘Monetarism’ in Britain can be interpreted less in terms of theoretical and empirical economic analysis as in terms of value judgements about the size of the public sector and about paying a high cost in unemployment to stabilise prices.

Select Your Social Scientist with Care

Abstract: A public policy-oriented research project in Australia is used to point out the connections between typical social science motivations, such as moral criticism, truth-seeking and policy-guidance, and the research styles which such motivations produce, such as advocacy, impracticality and expediency. Each style's reliability, fundamentalism and policy applicability are discussed and suggestions are made for testing research validity. Finally, it is shown how policy makers can interpret advice from the different sorts of social scientist more intelligently.

Tax Subsidy of Home Ownership

Abstract: This paper considers the tax treatment of homes as investments and as consumer goods in light of current and conventional arguments that home-ownership is subsidized through the tax structure. Unconventional comparisons of tax effects with particular reference to the USA are presented which call into question the conventional view. It has become conventional wisdom among economists that there are 'tax subsidies' of home ownership built into the tax system. These tax subsidies in the USA are said to derive from income tax deductions for mortgage interest and property taxes, the option of deferring capital gains taxes, and the lack of a tax on imputed rent (see CBO, I98I; White and White, 1977; Henderson and Ioannides, 1983; Simonson, I98I; Farmer and Barrell, I98I; Welhar, I982). Recently some public discussion has been taking place about possibilities for reducing or eliminating these tax subsidies. This paper raises certain challenges to the conventional arguments and raises the possibility that the alleged homeowner subsidies may be non-existent, at least for middle-class homeowners. Certain aspects of the subsidy argument are treated, followed by an estimate of the size of the net subsidy or burden on homeowners. Many politically conservative individuals are favorably disposed toward the tax subsidy view since it provides a rationale for efforts to divert funds away from housing and toward productivity-enhancing investments in industry. Many politically liberal individuals are also favorably disposed toward the tax subsidy view since it provides a rationale for direct subsidies of housing for the poor. Clearly, if middle-class housing is subsidized through the tax structure, then it is only fair that housing for the poor should also be subsidized. This paper will not deal with the merits of productivity enhancement measures or of * The author wishes to thank the anonymous reviewers for helpful comments on the original draft of this paper. This content downloaded from 40.77.167.54 on Wed, 06 Jul 2016 04:08:59 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms