State-owned enterprises (SOEs) continue to constrain Pacific economies. They absorb scarce capital, suffer low productivity, and often provide high cost and low quality services. SOE reform is vital to create private investment opportunities, reduce the costs of doing business, and improve service delivery. This fourth study of Pacific SOE performance also assesses SOEs' impact on island countries outside the Pacific. It evaluates SOEs in Cabo Verde, Fiji, Jamaica, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, and Tonga—identifying key performance drivers and reform strategies to guide future policy action.Finding Balance was produced by the Pacific Private Sector Development Initiative, a regional technical assistance facility cofinanced by ADB, the Government of Australia, and the New Zealand Government.
Republicanism is an ancient self-government model. It arose in the Greek polis, surviving through the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. From then on it was supportive of the birth of liberalism, as seen in Locke's Second Treatise of Government. However, with the appearance of colonial assemblies in North America, democracy became a new model for self-government which was better adapted to liberal ideas. Neo-republicanism, the political trend arising in the 80's of the 20th century, tries to develop an alternative to classical republicanism. It allows for design of public policies, but it cannot function as its predecessor in relation to being a model for self-government, since in present times it is not possible to maintain values or status systems from ancient societies. Adapted from the source document.
The launch of the EU's Lisbon Strategy in 2000 aimed to make the EU 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge based economy' by 2010. The Strategy introduced a strong competitiveness narrative in EU politics and set benchmarks for a variety of policy areas in which the EU had little or no formal legal competence. Member States were encouraged to share 'best practice', report progress and participate in peer review. The governance structure of Lisbon also marked a major break from the traditional 'community method'. The EU's Lisbon Strategy provides the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical evaluation of the Strategy by some of the most notable scholars of EU studies from across the Social Sciences. Drawing evidence from a broad range of policy areas affected by the Strategy, the volume explores two questions: how far did the Lisbon Strategy achieve its own objectives and why?
For decades, decentralisation reforms have been seen as a powerful instrument by health policy advocates to improve health sector performance in developing countries. In India, the 73rd Constitutional Amendment introduced in 1992 called for strengthening the fiscal autonomy and service delivery capacity of rural local governments. This paper explores how decentralised governance influences public health sector resource allocation, equity and efficiency in rural Karnataka. For this, the authors analysed administrative data published by the Karnataka state government to create tailored standardised performance measures that capture the degree of local governments' fiscal discretion in implementing public health programmes from 2011–18 at the district level. The findings highlight sector-specific differences in fiscal autonomy, ranging from high local discretion over funds in the nutrition sector to very limited discretion in the medical and public health sector. They also show that decentralised public health funding is not well-targeted to areas of greatest need in Karnataka
The study When the Law Doesn't Rule, by the Open Society European Policy Institute, Transparency Serbia, and the Centre of Investigative Journalism of Serbia, identifies seven ways in which political control is being exerted over the judiciary, prosecution, and police in Serbia, and how systemic weaknesses in the exercise of the rule of law are being exploited. These include limited accountability of judges and prosecutors for ineffectiveness; the appointment of public prosecutors and court presidents on political grounds; an inordinate amount of discretion allowed to law enforcement when making investigation and prosecution decisions; inappropriate and partial briefing of the media; the misuse and manipulation of statistics; direct political influence on law enforcement; and deliberately dysfunctional criminal investigations in politically sensitive cases.The report illustrates these seven administrative and systemic weaknesses through 12 case studies.
The reforms in education in New Zealand in the late 1980s were characterised by their concentration on the administrative system whereas other countries had curriculum and assessment changes as well. I want to explore an administrative measure in this paper – a measure called "contestability". Contestability refers to the principle of "alternative provision". Alternative provisions are being promoted by Market Liberals to give consumers a choice, which they see as highly desirable. The Treasury, in its 1987 Brief to the Incoming Government, stirred up a debate on "voluntary choice versus state direction" (1987, p. 17). The debate has been active ever since. The 1989 policy statements – by and large – restricted the introduction of contestability to non-educational operations, (such as the supply of stationery to schools), although they indicated that alternative educational provisions would be approved in future years. When the National Party was elected to government in late 1990, it soon became apparent that it would translate Market Liberal philosophy into policies. An "Economic and Social Initiative Statement" was released within weeks, and it clearly indicated a Market Liberal agenda. Choice versus state intervention was a dominating concept, and the debate fostered by The Treasury in 1987 was alive again. I believe this debate is on-going mostly because the Treasury and the State Services Commission are persistent. The Treasury argues for less state intervention in education because governments curtail people's "sphere of responsibility" and weaken their "self-steering ability . to reach optimal solutions through the mass of individual actions pursuing free choice" (Treasury, 1987). A second assumption of Market Liberals is that organisations, including non-commercial educational organisations, maintain efficiency when there is exposure to potential or actual competitors. By 1992, the Government had become pro-active in actioning the principle of contestability for educational services; that is, it was actively encouraging alternative providers to compete where the Welfare State used to be the sole provider of such services. In 1992 there were two significant structures in which the contestable provision of educational services was being introduced. These were the Crown agencies which provide support services to teachers, managers and parents: the Special Education Service, providing specialist support and interventions for children with special educational needs, and the Early Childhood Development Unit which is associated with early childhood care and education.
The research aimedat exploring the education budget policies that carried out in the context of regional autonomy concerning to: formulation, content, implementation, evaluation and policy impact.The research was qualitative and using deep interviews,observations and focus group discussions.The source of information were the related staffs of Educational Board, Regional Development Planning Bureau, Local government and legislatives in Lombok Tengah which then run on purposive and snowball sampling technique. It was concluded that formulation stages applied three main approaches namely participatory, technocratic and political. The contents of the budget policymet the demands of budgeting regulation (20%), but still focus on infrastructure development and bureaucratic spending. The implementation process using a top down approach that automatically implementer predominantly from government agencies. The resultswere still below of the standards (criteria) that have been defined previously on planning stage. Finally, the impact provided less social benefit to the community. Keywords: policy of analysis and educational budgeting
Cover -- Contents -- I. Introduction -- II. Fiscal Reform in Theoretical Macroeconomic Models: Neoclassical and Endogenous Growth Theory -- A. Overview -- B. Neoclassical Growth Theory -- C. Endogenous Growth Models -- III. The Model -- A. Consumers -- B. Firms -- C. The Government -- D. Competitive Equilibrium -- E. Steady State Growth: The Balanced Growth Path -- F. The Mechanism Driving Long Run Growth -- G. Stability of the Balanced Growth Path -- IV. Fiscal Reform Packages: The Transition Path to a New BGP -- A. A Numerical Simulation -- V. Conclusion -- Figures
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"A collection of essays reflecting Singapore's first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew's immense contribution to nation-building and the idea of development, including its various models -- from government and statecraft; leadership and governance; to economic development and the management of plural societies. The essays are written by an array of authors who had worked closely with, for, or grew up under Lee Kuan Yew. As thinkers, scholars and researchers across generations, they provide different perspectives on the multifaceted and impressive legacy of Singapore's first Prime Minister. The insights offered will be of great value in future when scholars studying Singapore in particular, and nation-building in general, look back to assess what made modern Singapore so successful despite being a tiny polyglot nation-state"--
pt. 1. U.S.-Venezuela relations and IR theory -- part 2. Neorealism, soft balancing, and midlevel security threats -- part 3. Beyond neorealism : trade, ideas, and institutions -- part 4. Regime type and other domestic sources of foreign policy -- part 5. Overreaching and outreaching.
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Drawing on records of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, this work focuses on Britain's role in the Mutual and Balanced Force Reductions in Vienna, and British policy towards the Soviet Union and its satellites. British reactions to detente between the superpowers are charted.
Abstract The traditional regime of spectrum allocation, in which governments assign frequencies for particular uses, leads to inefficiencies as large portions of available spectrum remain unused. In this article, Dr. Caicedo finds evidence that the scarcity of frequencies is artificial, and argues that technological innovation and new telecommunications business models are being held back as a result. Dr. Caicedo proposes the development of spectrum trading markets, and discusses their economic and technological viability for making spectrum usage more efficient for consumers and wireless service providers.
Abstract The traditional regime of spectrum allocation, in which governments assign frequencies for particular uses, leads to inefficiencies as large portions of available spectrum remain unused. In this article, Dr. Caicedo finds evidence that the scarcity of frequencies is artificial, and argues that technological innovation and new telecommunications business models are being held back as a result. Dr. Caicedo proposes the development of spectrum trading markets, and discusses their economic and technological viability for making spectrum usage more efficient for consumers and wireless service providers.
