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AbstractMining royalties provide a volatile source of revenue for state governments in Australia. We explore the effects of changes in royalty revenue received by a state government on current‐year budget decisions about expenditure, tax revenue and the budget surplus. The literature postulates different models for how lower‐level government budget decisions respond to a revenue windfall from a higher level of government. Empirical evidence on these models over 1998–2019 provides strong evidence that over a half of a royalty windfall becomes a change in budget expenditure. Estimates of changes to tax revenues and the surplus are not definitive nor robust.

AbstractThis paper investigates how government size affects tax evasion in China. Using matched county‐firm data for 1998–2005, we estimate the impact of county government size on the relationship between a firm's reported profit and imputed profit based on the national income accounts. A larger government is found to be correlated with more severe tax evasion, especially for state‐owned and collectively‐owned firms. Such an effect is stronger when local governance become worse. This paper shows that a large government does not bring about a strong state capacity to enforce tax rules at the local level in China.

Empirical research documents that an exogenous rise in government purchases in a given country triggers a depreciation of its real exchange rate. This raises an important puzzle, as standard macro‐theories predict an appreciation of the real exchange rate. We argue that this prediction might reflect the conventional assumption that government purchases are unproductive. Using a simple frictionless model with efficient international risk sharing, we show that the real exchange can depreciate in response to a rise in government purchases, if these purchases increase domestic private sector productivity, and labor supply is highly elastic. Empirically plausible marginal products of government purchases are sufficient to generate this result.

AbstractThis article concentrates on tactics that can be used by business, education and government leaders to develoep a shared vision of the educational goals of their communities.

THIS ARTICLE INVESTIGATES EMPIRICALLY WHETHER GATT RULES MAY HAVE HELPED THE US GOVERNMENT MAKE TRADE POLICY COMMITMENTS TO ITS PRIVATE SECTOR. IT STUDIED CHOICES UNDER TWO DISTINCT ENVIRONMENTS. IN EACH ENVIRONMENT THE US GOVERNMENT WAS FACED WITH A SIMILAR DECISION, BUT ONLY IN THE FORMER ENVIRONMENT DID GATT RULES SERVE AS A POTENTIAL COMMITMENT DEVICE. GATT RULES HELPED THE US GOVERNMENT MAKE DOMESTIC TRADE POLICY COMMITMENTS.

The Centre for Local Government Training, Western Cape, has been running a training/orientation programme for local government councillors since the beginning of 1996. ' As part of this programme, I have had the opportunity to conduct the training of a basic module on local government and administrative law for several transitional local councils. From the numerous questions asked in this regard, it soon became clear that many councillors were uncertain as to when they had to recuse themselves from council meetings on the grounds of bias, or a possibility of bias. Not surprisingly, as the test for bias in non-judicial administrative decision making is far from clear, even to lawyers, many councillors appeared to have difficulty in applying the test to their personal circumstances. It is hoped that this dissertation, in shortened and simplified form, can serve as a practical guide to councillors in this regard. After all, prevention is better than cure, and any unnecessary court proceedings that can be avoided, will be saving the ratepayers thousands of rands. At the outset, the rules of natural justice will be briefly discussed, as well as section 33 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, no 108 of 1996. This will be followed by a detailed discussion of the rule against bias: including the test to be applied; the grounds for the appearance of disqualifying bias illustrated by a discussion of case law; the issue of departmental bias; the consequences of impermissible bias; and the doctrine of necessity. The focus will then move to local government, and the relevant legislation as expounded by the courts. Finally, the consequences of a biased decision in local government will be looked at, and the constitutionality of certain sections of the local government ordinances questioned.

Much recent policy analysis is based on the assumption that the amount of money spent in a jurisdiction indicates the nature of services provided. This study seeks to test this assumption as it applies to the American states.Among the studies that have attempted to explain the "outputs" of state and local governments by reference to political and economic characteristics, several have identified expenditures with services implicitly by mixing indicators of spending with indicators of services as the "outputs" to be explained. Other studies have claimed explicitly that government expenditures reflect the "scope and character" or "calibre" or the "alpha and the omega" of public services. A contrary argument is that "money is not everything." Such nonmonetary factors as the quality of personnel or the nature of the political environment may exert the greatest influences upon the quality or quantity of public services within a jurisdiction.In assessing the relationship between spending and services, this study first defines static relationships between measures of spending and measures of public services. Secondly, it examines relationships over time in an attempt to discern if increases in government expenditures are likely to bring about increases in the quality or quantity of public services.

This article examines the RLG/NARA draft Audit Checklist for the Certification of Trusted Digital Repositories from the perspective of publicly funded repositories, especially government archives. It reviews the historical origins of the checklist, the comments received from government archives on the metrics in the draft document and the task force's adjudication of those comments. Finally it addresses some unresolved issues.

In this paper we investigate whether there are any tactical motives behind the distribution of grants from central to lower-level governments. We use a temporary grant program that is uniquely suitable for testing theories of vote-purchasing behavior of incumbent governments. The temporary grant program differs from traditional intergovernmental grants in several aspects, most importantly in the sovereign decision-making power given to the incumbent central government. We find support for the hypothesis that the incumbent government used the grant program under study to win votes. In particular, we find strong support for the Lindbeck–Weibull/Dixit–Londregan model, in which parties distribute transfers to regions where there are many swing voters. This result is statistically as well as economically significant. We do not, however, find any support for the model that predicts that the incumbent government transfers money to its own supporters.

In this paper we investigate whether there are any tactical motives behind the distribution of grants from central to lower level governments. We use a temporary grant program that is uniquely suitable for testing theories of vote-purchasing behavior of incumbent governments. The temporary grant program differs from traditional intergovernmental grants in several aspects, most importantly in the sovereign decision making power given to the incumbent central government. We find support for the hypothesis that the incumbent government used the grant program under study in order to win votes. In particular, we find strong support for the Lindbeck-Weibull/Dixit-Londregan model in which parties distribute transfers to regions where there are many swing voters. This result is statistically as well as economically significant. We do however not find any support for the model that predicts that the incumbent government transfers money to its own supporters.

Defining a government by its finances is a tricky business. Adding to the complexity, governments can change the way they report those finances. This is the case in Alberta where, beginning under former premier Jim Prentice, the government switched from presenting its budgets from a fiscal plan (FP) basis to a consolidated financial (CF) basis. The FP approach did not include most of the financial implications of accounting for the Crown-controlled SUCH sector (school boards, universities and colleges, and health entities). CF-based budgeting now integrates these. The result is that the government now reports revenues and expenditures as being considerably larger than they were previously. This communiqué comes to grips with the changes to accounting methods, by adjusting Alberta's recent budgets, now reported on a CF basis, and makes those methods consistent with the FP accounting approach, used by governments in Alberta prior to 2015. This involves disentangling entity budgets, reallocating property tax shares, evaluating federal government transfers, and more. The resulting calculations make it possible to more accurately compare and contrast recent budgetary choices with those made over the past four decades. The accounting changes also have implications for the apparent size of the annual deficit. For example, the provincial government deficit in 2016-2017 is reported as being nearly $1 billion less than is calculated to have been the case had the previous accounting approach been retained.

PurposeThe aim of this work is to identify, promote and describe notable government information sources of research importance to students, faculty, scholars, and librarians in the field of Security Studies.