ECONOMISTS HAVE INCREASING INFLUENCE UPON GOVERNMENT DECISIONS, AND ADMINISTRATORS INCREASINGLY LEARN SOME ECONOMICS. THE ARTICLE TRACES THE DIRECTIONS OF ECONOMIC INFLUENCE UPON GOVERNMENT DECISIONS, SUGGESTING THAT THE TENDENCY IS OFTEN TO SEE GOVERNMENT AS LIKE ONE LARGE FIRM, WHOSE OUTPUT SHOULD BE MAXIMIZED. THE BASIS OF THIS BELIEF IS CRITICALLY SCRUTINISHED.
Considers how far these theories have been utilised and applied by the Thatcher government, offers a critique of the public choice concept of politics and suggests an alternative analysis with quite different normative conclusions. (JMM)
In 1984 the Hawke Government appointed a National Inquiry to review the federal revenue-sharing grants for local government introduced eight years previously, and to propose desirable aims and a basis for future federal support. Australian local government is on a small scale and closely under the control of state governments; federal support raises complex issues of intergovernmental relations. In this paper, the wide-ranging Report of Inquiry, and its political outcome, are related to basic issues about federal-state relations and the rationale and extent of federal interventions. In particular, the Australian experience is interesting for its attempts at combining vertical redistribution of revenue with ambitious and detailed equalisation policies, financed at federal level but administered by independent state agencies.
The Report of the Royal Commission on Local Gov in Greater London has made a considerable impression on pol'al & PO. The gov has accepted the main principles of the report, & proposes to introduce legislation in time to establish a new system of local gov in London by 1965. The Report is a synthesis of 2 guiding ideas: (1) The need for a local authority which could attend to the common problems & needs of the entire metropolis. This would be the Greater London Council, governing a pop of over 8 million. (2) The desirability of revitalizing local gov at a lower level, through increasing the responsibilities of a lower tier of local councils. Above all, the Herbert Report is a product of faith in the applicability of established forms of local gov to the extraordinary circumstances of modern London. It is true that present gov controls & att's leave very little room for policy-making by a local authority, on even a moderately grand scale; but perhaps it is as well that the Commission has not been deterred by this fact. The new body might itself create the opportunity, just as it might remedy any deficiency in its functions, vis-a-vis the boroughs, through a gradual demonstration of imperative needs. If local representative instit's on the traditional model are to be granted a fresh & firmer lease of life, the capital itself is undoubtedly the right place for the experiment to be tried. IPSA.
