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This collection of papers focuses on the recent pension reform experiences in Central-Eastern Europe, while starting from a broader theoretical and empirical context. It provides evidence for the political feasibility of radical pension reform, considered unlikely in the West. The approach is both multi-disciplinary and cross-regional: The book contains papers by economists, political scientists and sociologists. The authors come from Germany, Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the US. The volume consists of four parts: First, general questions of transformation and social security in post-1989 Central Eastern Europe are addressed, followed by an introduction into issues and role models in the international pension reform debate. Then, three Central European country cases are presented, analysing institutional legacies, recent reform measures and relevant political actors. A comparative section on Central-Eastern European pension reforms concludes this book

In this 1992 book Professor Peter Rutland analyses the role played by regional and local organs of the Soviet Communist Party in economic management from 1970 to 1990. Using a range of political and economic journals, newspapers and academic publications, he examines interventions in the construction industry, energy, transport, consumer goods and agriculture. Rutland argues that party interventions hindered rather than assisted the search for efficiency in the Soviet economy, and repeated attempts to introduce more economically rational management methods failed to alter these traditional patterns of party intervention. He further demonstrates how as the Soviet economy matured and grew more complex over the last three decades, party interventions became increasingly out of tune with the needs of the economy. Yet even the calls for radical reform of the economy since 1985 were not accompanied by any decisive changes in this pattern of party intervention; this, argues Peter Rutland, casts serious doubts on the political feasibility of economic reform in a Soviet-type system

Political feasibility of emission trading systems may crucially depend on the free initial allocation of emission allowances to energy-intensive industries in order to ameliorate adverse production and employment effects. We investigate the potential trade-off between such compensation and economic efficiency for alternative allocation rules where emission allowances are based on either emissions or output. Based on analytical partial equilibrium and numerical general equilibrium analysis, we show that in open trading systems the trade-off becomes the more severe, the higher the international permit price is. Whenever the permit price can be considered exogenous to firms or industries, the output-based allocation rule is distinctly less costly than the emission-based rule to preserve output and employment in energy-intensive sectors. The reason is that emission-based allocation of allowances not only provides an implicit output subsidy but also lowers the effective price of emission inputs to regulated firms. Emissionbased allocation is particularly expensive towards higher international permit prices where the implicit subsidies to emission use in energy-intensive sectors produce drastic efficiency losses, since they imply high expenditures for carbon permit imports rather than high net revenues from efficient carbon permit exports.

Pension reform is one of the most pressing issues on the current and future agenda of policy and economic research. Georg Hirte develops and uses a uniform framework for analyzing the effects of pension reforms on redistribution and efficiency among the different generations and the political feasibility of these reforms. He discusses current policies in Germany in detail and also deals with many other proposals which have been made to overcome the problems that have developed within the pension system due to an aging population. These proposals include smoothing the contribution or implicit tax rate, raising the retirement age, switching to tax financing, the accumulation of a capital stock in the pension system and the transition to a partially or fully funded system. The quantitative analysis is based on the Auerbach-Kotlikoff model. The main changes in this framework are a completely endogenous decision on retirement, longer life expectancy, unemployment rates which depend on age, implicit tax rates, and the relationship between the pension system and health, long-term care and unemployment insurance. Georg Hirte's results suggest that the efficiency effects are considerable and that switching to financing pensions through taxation is the most promising reform with respect to welfare, efficiency, redistribution, and that this is also preferred by a majority of voters. He also shows that a transition to fully funded system or basic pensions are opposed by a majority of voters.

A handbook of global economic policy. It develops practical, non-ideological solutions to the problems, and tests its solution's feasibility through economic, administrative, political, psychological, legal, international and technological obstacles.

New thinking about the management of public health services has stimulated a widespread movement for health sector reform across the world. This book examines the feasibility and desirability of common reforms in low income countries, based on in-depth case studies in Ghana, Zimbabwe, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand, and asks whether governments possess or can develop the capacities needed for these new and often complex roles. The book challenges conventional reform wisdom, and argues that reform approaches are needed that are more sensitive to the institutional characteristics of individual countries

Cover -- Half-Title -- Series -- Title -- Copyright -- Contents -- List of Figures -- List of Tables -- Introduction: System's Change in Comparative Perspective -- 1 Theoretical Approaches to System's Changes in Eastern Europe -- The search for theories which pretend to have anticipated the end of communism -- Approaches to a new theory of system's change -- 2 The Last Ideology of the Old Intelligentsia: Civil Society -- Renaissance of a notion -- Civil society as a counter-ideology against the eroding state power of communism -- Antipolitics and alienation from economic thinking among East European intellectuals -- 3 A New Movement in an Ideological Vacuum: Nationalism in Eastern Europe -- The continuity of nationalism in Eastern Europe -- Theoretical approaches to nationalism and their feasibility in Eastern Europe -- Indicators of nationalism -- Approaches to fair solutions in ethnic politics -- 4 System's Change without a Change of Elites? Cooperation of Old and New Elites in Post-Communist Systems -- Continuity and change of elites -- Negative cadre policy in the new regimes: elite purges -- 5 Transformation of the Planning System to a Market Economy -- Synchronizing economic and political transformations -- Economic theories of transition -- The new order of property relations -- Transfonnation strategies: big bang or gradualism? -- 6 Institution-Building and Democratization -- The institutional system and its networks -- The constitutional system -- Blocked institution-building: Soviet Union and Russia -- Presidential and parliamentary systems -- Principles of post-communist constitutionalism -- Constitutional courts and judicial review -- 7 Parties and Party Systems in Eastern Europe -- Options of party-building -- Social cleavages and party structures -- The 'familles spirituelles' of the parties.

In his October 28, 1992 speech announcing the dissolution of Parliament, Kenyan President Daniel arap Moi stated that "the Government is committed to providing a level playing ground field for all registered political parties and their candidates". For the first time in 26 years, eight million registered voters will have the opportunity to select from among candidates representing nine political parties. To gauge the extent to which the political environment in Kenya offered a "level playing ground field" to the various contesting parties, the International Republican Institute conducted a pre-election assessment from 28.10.-06.11.1992. The assessment focused on Kenya's electoral law and administration, the ability of political parties to organize and disseminate their messages, and the roles of the media and non-governmental organizations in informing and educating Kenyans on a grassroots level. The assessment team also analyzed the feasibility of a subsequent election observation mission. (DÜI-Hff)

Sustainable Democracy is a joint report of twenty one social scientists, from eleven countries and four academic disciplines, who collaborated over the period of two years under the name of the Group on East-South Systems Transformations (ESST). Their report identifies the principal political and economic choices confronting new democracies in Southern and Eastern Europe and South America, while evaluating their merits and feasibility in the light of current social science knowledge. The scientists explore the social, political and economic conditions under which democracy is likely to generate desirable and politically desired objectives, as well as, whether it is likely to last. It is argued that the state has an essential role in promoting universal citizenship and in creating conditions for a sustained economic growth. Special emphasis is placed on the interdependence between political and economic reforms