Showing papers on "Public policy published in 2005"

Handbook of Economic Growth

Abstract: Volumes 2A and 2B of The Handbook of Economic Growth summarize recent advances in theoretical and empirical work while offering new perspectives on a range of growth mechanisms, from the roles played by institutions and organizations to the ways factors beyond capital accumulation and technological change can affect growth. Written by research leaders, the chapters summarize and evaluate recent advances while explaining where further research might be profitable. With analyses that are provocative and controversial because they are so directly relevant to public policy and private decision-making, these two volumes uphold the standard for excellence in applied economics set by Volumes 1A and 1B (2005). It offers definitive theoretical and empirical scholarship about growth economics. It empowers readers to evaluate the work of other economists and to plan their own research projects. It demonstrates the value of empirical testing, with its implicit conclusion that our understanding of economic growth will help everyone make better decisions.

Corporate Governance, Economic Entrenchment, and Growth

Abstract: Outside the United States and the United Kingdom, large corporations usually have controlling owners, who are usually very wealthy families. Pyramidal control structures, cross shareholding, and super-voting rights let such families control corporations without making a commensurate capital investment. In many countries, a few such families end up controlling considerable proportions of their countries’ economies. Three points emerge. First, at the firm level, these ownership structures, because they vest dominant control rights with families who often have little real capital invested, permit a range of agency problems and hence resource misallocation. If a few families control large swaths of an economy, such corporate governance problems can attain macroeconomic importance—affecting rates of innovation, economywide resource allocation, and economic growth. If political influence depends on what one controls, rather than what one owns, the controlling owners of pyramids have greatly amplified political influence relative to their actual wealth. This influence can distort public policy regarding property rights protection, capital markets, and other institutions. We denote this phenomenon economic entrenchment, and posit a relationship between the distribution of corporate control and institutional development that generates and preserves economic entrenchment as one possible equilibrium. The literature suggests key determinants of economic entrenchment, but has many gaps where further work exploring the political economy importance of the distribution of corporate control is needed.

Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and A New Social Movement

Abstract: Acknowledgments Series Editor's Introduction Introduction Part I Federal Policy and Urban Education 1. The Economic is Political 2. Macroeconomic Policy and Urban Poverty 3. Taxing Rich and Poor 4. Urban Children, Social Class, and Education Part II Metropolitan Inequities 5. Jobs, Public Transit, and Urban Education 6. Housing and Tax Policy as Education Reform 7. The Local (Challenging the Rules of the Game) Part III Social Movements, New Public Policy, and Urban Educational Reform 8. How Do People Become Involved in Political Contention? 9. Building a New Social Movement 10. Putting Urban Education at the Center

Nascent Entrepreneurship and the Level of Economic Development

Abstract: Based upon two strands of literature, this paper hypothesizes a U-shaped relationship between a country’s rate of entrepreneurial dynamics and its level of economic development. This would imply a different scope for entrepreneurship policy across subsequent stages of development. Regressing GEM’s 2002 data for nascent entrepreneurship in 36 countries on the level of economic development as measured either by per capita income or by an index for innovative capacity, we find support for a U-shaped relationship. Testing our results against several control variables, evidence is again found for this relationship with economic development, in addition to significant effects of the business ownership rate (+), social security expenditure (-), aggregate taxes (+) and population growth (+). The results suggest that a ‘natural rate’ of nascent entrepreneurship is to some extent governed by ‘laws’ related to the level of economic development. For the most advanced nations, improving incentive structures for business start-ups and promoting the commercial exploitation of scientific findings offer the most promising approach for public policy. Developing nations, however, may be better off pursuing the exploitation of scale economies, fostering foreign direct investment and promoting management education.

Inequality and Democratic Responsiveness

Abstract: By allowing voters to choose among candidates with com- peting policy orientations and by providing incentives for incumbents to shape policy in the direction the public desires, elections are thought to provide the foundation that links government policy to the preferences of the governed. In this article I examine the extent to which the preference/ policy link is biased toward the preferences of high-income Americans. Using an original data set of almost two thousand survey questions on proposed policy changes between 1981 and 2002, I find a moderately strong relationship between what the public wants and what the govern- ment does, albeit with a strong bias toward the status quo. But I also find that when Americans with different income levels differ in their policy preferences, actual policy outcomes strongly reflect the preferences of the most affluent but bear virtually no relationship to the preferences of poor or middle-income Americans. The vast discrepancy I find in government responsiveness to citizens with different incomes stands in stark contrast to the ideal of political equality that Americans hold dear. Although per- fect political equality is an unrealistic goal, representational biases of this magnitude call into question the very democratic character of our society. A key characteristic of democracy is the continuing responsiveness of the gov- ernment to the preferences of its citizens, considered as political equals.

Swimming upstream : collaborative approaches to watershed management

Abstract: In recent years, water resource management in the United States has begun a shift away from top-down, government agency-directed decision processes toward a collaborative approach of negotiation and problem solving. Rather than focusing on specific pollution sources or specific areas within a watershed, this new process considers the watershed as a whole, seeking solutions to an interrelated set of social, economic, and environmental problems. Decision making involves face-to-face negotiations among a variety of stakeholders, including federal, state, and local agencies, landowners, environmentalists, industries, and researchers. Swimming Upstream analyzes the collaborative approach by providing a historical overview of watershed management in the United States and a normative and empirical conceptual framework for understanding and evaluating the process. The bulk of the book looks at a variety of collaborative watershed planning projects across the country. It first examines the applications of relatively short-term collaborative strategies in Oklahoma and Texas, exploring issues of trust and legitimacy. It then analyzes factors affecting the success of relatively long-term collaborative partnerships in the National Estuary Program and in 76 watersheds in Washington and California. Bringing analytical rigor to a field that has been dominated by practitioners' descriptive accounts, Swimming Upstream makes a vital contribution to public policy, public administration, and environmental management.

Academic quality, league tables, and public policy: A cross-national analysis of university ranking systems

Abstract: The global expansion of access to higher education has increased demand for information on academic quality and has led to the development of university ranking systems or league tables in many countries of the world. A recent UNESCO/CEPES conference on higher education indicators concluded that cross-national research on these ranking systems could make an important contribution to improving the international market for higher education. The comparison and analysis of national university ranking systems can help address a number of important policy questions. First, is there an emerging international consensus on the measurement of academic quality as reflected in these ranking systems? Second, what impact are the different ranking systems having on university and academic behavior in their respective countries? Finally, are there important public interests that are thus far not reflected in these rankings? If so, is there a needed and appropriate role for public policy in the development and distribution of university ranking systems and what might that role be? This paper explores these questions through a comparative analysis of university rankings in Australia, Canada, the UK, and the US.

Causes and conditions of cross-national policy convergence

Abstract: It is the objective of this article to review the existing literature and to address theoretical deficits in the study of policy convergence. First, we briefly present the central indicators we apply for the assessment of policy convergence. In a second step, we identify and compare different causal mechanisms of cross- national policy convergence. Having elaborated on the major causes of policy con- vergence, however, we still know little about the conditions under which these factors actually lead to convergence. This is the central objective of the third part of our analysis, in which we develop theoretical expectations on different indicators of cross-national policy convergence.

Ideas and Social Policy: An Institutionalist Perspective

Abstract: Since the beginning of the 1980s, historical institutionalism has emerged as one of the most influential theoretical perspectives in social policy studies. Although their work is insightful, most institutionalist scholars tend to relegate policy ideas to the back of their theoretical constructions dealing with welfare state development. The objective of this paper is to show how institutionalist scholarship can pay greater attention to ideational processes without abandoning its core assumptions about the structuring impact of political institutions and policy legacies on welfare state development. If institutions truly influence policy-making, policy ideas matter in and beyond the agenda-setting process. Related to existing policy legacies, perceived problems mesh with policy alternatives grounded in a specific paradigm. When stressing the need to reform, and promoting new alternatives, policy entrepreneurs draw on existing ideological repertoires to frame these alternatives. The ability to successfully frame policy alternatives can become a decisive aspect of the policy process. A discussion of recent European and North American policy debates illustrates these claims.

The Public Policy Process

Abstract: The Public Policy Process is essential reading for anyone trying to understand the process by which public policy is made. Explaining clearly the importance of the relationship between theoretical and practical aspects of policy making, the book gives a thorough overview of the people and organisations involved in the process. Fully revised and updated for a seventh edition, The Public Policy Process provides: • Clear exploration, using many illustrations, of how policy is made and implemented. • A new chapter on comparative theory and methods. • New material on studying advocacy coalitions, policy changes, governance and evaluation. • More European and international examples

Introduction: Cross-national policy convergence: concepts, approaches and explanatory factors

Abstract: Although there is an increasing number of studies on policy convergence (in recent years especially in the context of Europeanization and globalization research), we still have a rather limited understanding of this phenomenon. This deficit can be not only traced back to a lack of empirical findings, but is also the result of the heterogeneous and partially inconsistent theoretical literature on policy convergence. Although policy convergence constitutes a central concept in comparative public policy, it is not always consistently used and mixed up with related but not equivalent concepts. It is thus a basic objective of this paper to clarify the analytical relationship between policy convergence and related concepts used in the literature. Moreover, different approaches for the assessment and measurement of policy convergence will be presented. The paper concludes with a brief discussion of causes of policy convergence.

Making Health Policy

Abstract: Overview of the book The health policy framework Power and the policy process The state and the private sector in health policy Agenda setting Government and the policy process Interest groups and the policy process Policy implementation Globalizing the policy process Research, evaluation and policy Doing policy analysis Glossary Acronyms

Access to Financial Services: A Review of the Issues and Public Policy Objectives

Abstract: This paper reviews the evidence on the importance of finance for economic well-being, provides data on the degree of usage of basic financial services by households and firms across a sample of countries, assesses the desirability of more universal access, and overviews the macro-economic, legal and regulatory obstacles to access using general evidence and case studies. Although access to finance can be very beneficial, the data show that universal usage is far from prevalent in many countries, especially developing countries. At the same time, universal access has generally not been a public policy objective and is surely not easily achievable in most countries. Countries can, however, undertake many actions to facilitate access to financial services, including through strengthening their institutional infrastructures, liberalizing and opening up their markets and facilitating greater competition, and encouraging innovative use of know -how and technology. Government attempts and interventions to directly broaden the provision of access to finance, however, are fraught with risks and costs, among others, the risk of missing the targeted groups. The paper concludes with possible global actions aimed at improving data on access and usage and areas of further analysis to help identify the constraints to broadening access.

Unsustainable Transport: City Transport in the New Century

Abstract: This book addresses the links between transport and sustainable urban development, from an analysis of the global picture to issues in transport and energy intensity, public policy and the institutional and organisational constraints on change. The central part of the book explores these links in more detail at city level, covering land use and development, economic measures, and the role that technology can play. The final part looks for inspiration from events in developing countries and the means by which we can move from the unsustainable present to a more sustainable future.

The New Teacher Education: For Better or for Worse?

Abstract: This article offers a reading of the current state of the field of teacher education, identifying current reforms, emerging trends, and new underlying premises The author argues that a “new teacher education” has been emerging with three closely coupled pieces: It is constructed as a public policy problem, based on research and evidence, and driven by outcomes Illustrating and critiquing each of these pieces, the article makes the case that the new teacher education is both for the better and for the worse The article concludes that education scholars who care about public education must challenge the narrowest aspects of the emerging new teacher education, building on its most promising aspects and working with others to change the terms of the debate

Cultural industries and cultural policy

Abstract: This article analyses and contextualises a variety of relationships between the cultural industries and cultural policy. A principal aim is to examine policies explicitly formulated as cultural (or creative) industries policies. What lies behind such policies? How do they relate to other kinds of cultural policy, including those more oriented towards media, communications, arts and heritage? The first section asks how the cultural industries became such an important idea in cultural policy, when those industries had been largely invisible in traditional (arts‐ and heritage‐based) policy for many decades. What changed and what drove the major changes? In the second section, we look at a number of problems and conceptual tensions arising from the new importance of the cultural industries in contemporary public policy, including problems concerning definition and scope, and the accurate mapping of the sector, but also tensions surrounding the insertion of commercial and industrial culture into cultural polic...

A Critique of the Use of Path Dependency in Policy Studies

Abstract: Path dependency is an important notion in diachronic approaches to understanding social and political processes. The first section of this paper examines the application of path dependency to policy studies; the advantages of the concept in understanding policy development are highlighted by examples from pension policy and social housing policy in the UK, and the EU budget. The next section considers several criticisms of path dependency: (1) it is a fashionable label for the intuition that ‘history matters’ without a clear and convincing account of decision-making over time; (2) it explains only stability and not change; (3) its normative implications are confused and mostly left unexplored. The final section concludes that path dependency, despite being theoretically inchoate and difficult to operationalize empirically, is a valid and useful concept for policy studies. However, its proper application demands sensitivity from scholars to other temporal dynamics that may operate in policy development.

The Attractiveness of Political Markets: Implications for Firm Strategy

Abstract: We conceptualize democracies as marketlike processes where demanders and suppliers of various public policies interact. Firms may enter political markets to seek new or to maintain existing policies that affect their current business operations or future opportunities. We contend that a firm's decision to become politically active is influenced, in part, by the attractiveness of the political market, and we outline conditions that make political markets more or less attractive for firms to compete in to advance their interests.

Democracy, Public Expenditures, and the Poor: Understanding Political Incentives for Providing Public Services

Abstract: The incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods and reduce poverty vary across countries. Even in democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents and private transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. These distortions can be traced to imperfections in political markets that are greater in some countries than in others. This article reviews the theory and evidence on the impact on political incentives of incomplete information for voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization. The analysis has implications for policy and for reforms to improve public goods provision and reduce poverty.

Offshore Outsourcing: Implications for International Business and Strategic Management Theory and Practice

Abstract: In this essay, I discuss the implications of the debate over offshoring for our collective understanding of international business and management theories. I review several core theories in international business expansion and management strategy to assess which elements of these theories may need to be re-specified in light of the offshoring phenomenon and which aspects remain relevant. I then present normative implications and recommendations for public policy and corporate strategy, drawing from emerging insights regarding the global responsibilities of corporations. I suggest that international labour and environmental standards and corporate codes of conduct could mitigate some of the most intense concerns raised about offshoring but conclude that offshoring is likely to present challenges to societies, corporations, and stakeholders for many decades.

Toward an Anthropology of Public Policy

Abstract: As the rational choice model of “policy” proliferates in “policy studies, ” the social sciences, modern governments, organizations, and everyday life, a number of anthropologists are beginning to develop a body of work in the anthropology of public policy that critiques the assumptions of “policy” as a legal-rational way of getting things done. While de-masking the framing of public policy questions, an anthropological approach attempts to uncover the constellations of actors, activities, and influences that shape policy decisions, their implementation, and their results. In a rapidly changing world, anthropologists’ empirical and ethnographic methods can show how policies actively create new categories of individuals to be governed. They also suggest that the long-established frameworks of “state” and “private, ”“local” or “national” and “global, ”“macro” and “micro, ”“top down” and “bottom up, ” and “centralized” and “decentralized” not only fail to capture current dynamics in the world but actually obf...

Everyone's a Winner: Problematising the Discourse of Regional Competitiveness

Abstract: Since the early 1990s, the concept of regional competitiveness has become a hegemonic discourse within public policy circles in developed countries. However, it is a somewhat chaotic and ill-defined discourse based on a relatively narrow conception of how regions compete, prosper and grow. This paper seeks to problematise the discourse with reference to theory, and to explain how and why it has assumed such significance in policy circles. It is argued that the answer lies within the policy process and the imperative of legitimating certain courses of policy action. Copyright 2005, Oxford University Press.

Performance indicators: good, bad, and ugly

Abstract: Summary. A striking feature of UK public services in the 1990s was the rise of performance monitoring (PM), which records, analyses and publishes data in order to give the public a better idea of how Government policies change the public services and to improve their effectiveness. PM done well is broadly productive for those concerned. Done badly, it can be very costly and not merely ineffective but harmful and indeed destructive. Performance indicators (PIs) for the public services have typically been designed to assess the impact of Government policies on those services, or to identify well performing or underperforming institutions and public servants. PIs’ third role, which is the public accountability of Ministers for their stewardship of the public services, deserves equal recognition. Hence, Government is both monitoring the public services and being monitored by PIs. Especially because of the Government's dual role, PM must be done with integrity and shielded from undue political influence, in the way that National Statistics are shielded. It is in everyone's interest that Ministers, Parliament, the professions, practitioners and the wider public can have confidence in the PM process, and find the conclusions from it convincing. Before introducing PM in any public service, a PM protocol should be written. This is an orderly record not only of decisions made but also of the reasoning or calculations that led to those decisions. A PM protocol should cover objectives, design considerations and the definition of PIs, sampling versus complete enumeration, the information to be collected about context, the likely perverse behaviours or side-effects that might be induced as a reaction to the monitoring process, and also the practicalities of implementation. Procedures for data collection, analysis, presentation of uncertainty and adjustment for context, together with dissemination rules, should be explicitly defined and reflect good statistical practice. Because of their usually tentative nature, PIs should be seen as ‘screening devices’ and not overinterpreted. If quantitative performance targets are to be set, they need to have a sound basis, take account of prior (and emerging) knowledge about key sources of variation, and be integral to the PM design. Aspirational targets have a distinctive role, but one which is largely irrelevant in the design of a PM procedure; motivational targets which are not rationally based may demoralize and distort. Anticipated and actual side-effects of PM, including on individuals’ behaviour and priorities, may need to be monitored as an intrinsic part of the PM process. Independent scrutiny of PM schemes for the public services should be set up and must report publicly. The extent and nature of this scrutiny should be related to the assessed drawbacks and benefits, reflect ethical concerns, and conform with good statistical practice. Research is needed into the merits of different strategies for identifying institutions or individuals in the public release of PM data, into how new PM schemes should be evaluated, and into efficient designs for evaluating a series of new policies which are monitored by PIs. The Royal Statistical Society considers that attempts to educate the wider public, as well as policy makers, about the issues surrounding the use of PIs are very important. High priority should be given to sponsoring well-informed public debate, and to disseminating good practices by implementing them across Government.

National policies that connect ICT-based education reform to economic and social development

Abstract: Information and communication technology (ICT) is a principal driver of economic development and social change, worldwide. In many countries, the need for economic and social development is used to justify investments in educational reform and in educational ICT. Yet the connections between national development goals and ICT-based education reform are often more rhetorical than programmatic. This paper identifies the factors that influence economic growth and shows how they supported economic and social development in three national case studies: Singapore, Finland, and Egypt. It describes a systemic framework of growth factors and types of development that can be used to analyze national policies and connect ICT-based education reform to national economic and social development goals. And it discusses how the coordination of policies within and across ministries can support a nation’s efforts to improve economic and social conditions. The paper highlights special concerns and challenges of developing countries.

Elections, Parties, Democracy: Conferring the Median Mandate

Abstract: PART 1: THE MANDATE PROCESS 1 Choosing Governments or Identifying Preferences? The Role of Elections in Democracy 2 Mandate Theories: Government and Median 3 Communicating Preferences: The Public Policy Space 4 Research Questions for Comparative Investigation PART 2: THE ELECTORAL PROCESS 5 Choices Parties Offer 6 Mandates Without Obvious Majorities 7 Representing the Meidan Voter PART 3: THE GOVERNING PROCESS 8 Who Controls Short-Term Policy Making? 9 From Declared to Actual Policy: Short-Term Influences on Government Policies PART 4: THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS 10 Long Term Policy Regimes: Incrementalism Put in Context 11 Fluctuating Political Forces 12 Politics and Policy Regimes: Setting a Long Term Equilibrium 13 Unifying Theories of Democracy Through the Median Mandate

Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa

Abstract: How does democracy fare when the people governed insist they live in a world with witches? If the government of a people afflicted by witchcraft refuses to punish witches, how does it avoid becoming alienated from the perceived needs of its people or, worse, seen as being in league with witches? In Soweto, South Africa, the constant threat of violent crime, the increase in black socio-economic inequality, the AIDS pandemic, and a widespread fear of witchcraft have converged to create a pervasive sense of insecurity among citizens and a unique public policy problem for government. In "Witchcraft, Violence, and Democracy in South Africa, " Adam Ashforth examines how people in Soweto and other parts of post-apartheid South Africa manage their fear of 'evil forces' such as witchcraft. Ashforth examines the dynamics of insecurity in the everyday life of Soweto at the turn of the twenty-first century. He develops a new framework for understanding occult violence as a form of spiritual insecurity and documents new patterns of interpretation attributing agency to evil forces. Finally, he analyzes the response of post-apartheid governments to issues of spiritual insecurity and suggests how these matters pose severe long-term challenges to the legitimacy of the democratic state.