对托达罗模型前提、变量及政策含义的新思考

本文在中国二元制度的背景下,建立了一个在前提、变量及政策主张诸方面不同于托达罗人口流动模型的中国农村劳动力流动模型,指出在中国特殊的制度背景下影响农民作出外出务工决策的主要因素是其流入城市的净收益现值,并对决定这一现值的各变量进行了考察.作者认为二元的经济和社会体制限制了农民的外出,降低了农民的流动和迁移意愿.最后作者就此提出了短期内促进农民工流动和长期内保证农民迁移的政策建议.     

The moment you decide,you divide: How politicians assess procedural fairness

Are politicians more rational decision makers than citizens? This article contributes to the ongoing debate by examining how politicians and citizens assess the fairness of the process leading to a controversial policy decision. It contains theories as to why it is tempting to match the favourability of policy decision with a fairness assessment of the preceding process, and how politicians and citizens differ in their approach to the task. Having derived three hypotheses, parallel scenario experiments are run in large samples of Swedish politicians and citizens, in which the outcome and fairness of a policy decision process are manipulated. As predicted, it is found that both politicians and citizens match the favourability of the decision with the assessment of the process, that these self-serving biases are stronger among politicians, and that policy engagement accounts for the group-level difference.     

Ordoliberal Lessons for Economic Stability: Different Kinds of Regulation,Not More Regulation

Since the Global Financial Crisis of 2008 the term “ordoliberalism” has experienced a marked revival. This discussion tends to focus on the need for more state intervention. Yet this misrepresents the core ideas of ordoliberalism because its main concern is not with “how much” but with “what kind of” intervention is needed. Thus, this article seeks to clarify the ordoliberal position, in particular its key distinction between market conforming and nonconforming state intervention. Discussing the current financial crisis, it also evaluates the potential benefits and drawbacks of ordoliberalism. The article rebukes rhetorical shortcuts that equate every economic policy coming out of Germany with ordoliberalism. It also suggests that while the ordoliberal conception does not necessarily provide a solution to the current problems in the short run, in the long run it may form the basis for a sounder conception of economic regulation than more libertarian views can offer.     

The impact of a gasoline tax on auto exhaust emissions

The EPA implements its policy of exhaust emission control by setting standards specified in terms of grams of pollutants per mile traveled. As a result, the tax must first restrain the vehicle miles traveled (VMT) if it is to have an impact on emission at all. EPA's choice of miles traveled as the medium through which its policy of pollution control must run is unfortunate, because travel is an activity that people resist giving up. This is reflected in a low long-run price elasticity of travel demand. Consequently, it takes substantial increases in the gasoline tax to make an impact on long-run travel demand. Simulation results show that under an alternative policy option, where EPA's standards are specified in terms of grams of pollutant per gallon of fuel burned, the same long-run reduction in exhaust emissions achievable today can be achieved (at an even higher level of confidence) with less than one-tenth of the increase in gasoline price required under the existing policy regime.     

Rebuilding Policy Capacity in the Era of the Fiscal Dividend: A Report from Canada

After two decades of focusing on deficit reduction and restructuring of operations, governments in many areas of the world are once again contemplating new policies and expenditures. In Canada, where budgetary surpluses have recently replaced deficits, the federal government has been asking whether it still has the capacity to make informed choices about new programs. This article examines Canada's recent efforts in rebuilding its policy capacity. It asks, first, to what extent and in what way was policy capacity originally lost. Second, it appraises the adequacy of new policy "networks," consisting of think tanks, consultants and government officials, as "virtual replacements" for former government-controlled advisory bodies, royal commissions, and in-house policy units. Finally, it notes the relative absence of parliamentarians, and even the political executive, from capacity-rebuilding activities, a deficiency that in the long run may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of such efforts.     

Taking stock of policy performance in Central and Eastern Europe: Policy outcomes between policy reform,transitional pressure and international influence

Despite the ever growing body of scholarly work on policy developments in the post‐communist New Member States of the European Union (NMS), systematic comparisons of policy outcome performance and its determinants are still scarce. This article identifies patterns of post‐communist policy outcomes across the fields of economic, social and environmental policy. By employing pooled time‐series cross‐sectional analysis with a Fixed Effects Vector Decomposition (FEVD) estimator it investigates to what extent policy outcome performance is determined by differing policy efforts (outputs or reform tracks), transitional conditions and international influences. Although citizens are still negatively affected by the initial economic recession, especially in the social domain, policy reforms and efforts are decisive in determining the outcome performance of the NMS relative to one another in the longer run. Successful and comprehensive market reforms and steering capabilities prove to be particularly important in this regard. Furthermore, internationalisation has an important, albeit ambiguous, impact. While exposure to the world market is reflected in negative policy performance, interaction with and financial commitment from Western European Union countries promote positive policy outcomes.     

Symbolic reform in France: Egalite professionnelle during the Mitterrand years

This article examines the 1983 égalité professionnelle law adopted under the Socialist government. Using a policy process approach, the analysis shows how the 1983 law failed to go beyond symbolic reform in policy formulation and implementation. In symbolic policy the outcome fails both to effectively reallocate resources and to generate policy feedback. The article concludes that while symbolic policy in the case of égalité professionnelle brought public attention to problems of gender discrimination in employment it failed to generate a permanent policy community, inside and outside of government, interested in the enforcement of programmes from the 1983 law.     

Where does learning take place? The role of intergovernmental cooperation in policy diffusion

Although it is widely accepted that a decentralised system can enhance policy learning and the spread of best practices, an under‐researched question is where that learning process takes place. Using data on the diffusion of health care policies in Switzerland, this article analyses the role of institutionalised intergovernmental cooperation and its impact on the spread of successful policies. The results show that joint membership of policy makers in health policy specific intergovernmental bodies is related to the diffusion of best practices.     

Ripples Not Waves: A Policy Configuration Approach to Reform in the Wake of the 1998 Sydney Water Crisis

The aim of this article is to understand why, in the aftermath of the 1998 Sydney water contamination crisis, policy and institutional reform was comparatively minor—despite intense scrutiny and criticism of the framework of water policy in New South Wales (NSW). The article should be of serious interest to scholars interested in crisis and policy change, rather than simply those with a particular interest in water policy in Australia. It frames the Sydney case as a disconfirming one but finds that an understanding of the stability/change relationship in NSW water policy can only partially be understood through applying key contemporary institutional, actor, and interest‐centered explanations. Therefore, it probes the plausibility of an additional explanation and develops the rudiments of a new “policy configuration” approach to help explain policy stability and change. It concludes by suggesting that there is potential for a policy configuration perspective to be tested against other cases.     

Decentralisation and corruption: evidence from drinking water sector

This article presents empirical findings regarding the relationship between decentralisation of provision of water supply and corruption in provision of services. The current policy advice from the international agencies of aiming for decentralisation as an end in itself is questioned. The conventional wisdom that decentralisation brings management closer to the service recipients and is therefore likely to reduce corruption is also disputed. Drawing on a large database from two large Indian states of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, the interaction between various actors is analysed. We find that the level of corruption in water supply agencies run by local governments is higher than that in the agencies run by the regional government. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Anti-Anti Terror: Color Coding and the Joke of “Homeland Security”*

Humor is, among other things, a form of critique in American politics. This is particularly true with regard to public policy about which we are sensitive. One aspect of the Bush anti-terror policy that was the subject of a great deal of humor was the color-coded warning system administered by the Department of Homeland Security under its first Director, Tom Ridge. This policy was the subject of so many jokes that it became an embarrassment. This article examines that situation.     

Coercive versus cooperative policies: Comparing intergovernmental mandate performance

Cooperative policies hold out promise of an improvement over coercive mandates as ways to enhance implementation of intergovernmental programs. By treating subordinate governments as regulatory trustees and emphasizing substantive compliance, the cooperative mandates avoid the onerous aspects of heavy-handed regulatory federalism. Our comparison of state hazard-mitigation policy in Florida and in New South Wales, Australia addresses procedural and substantive compliance under the two forms of intergovernmental policies. When local governments are not committed to state policy objectives, the coercive policy produces better results as evidenced by higher rates of procedural compliance and greater effort by local governments to achieve policy objectives. When local government commitment exists, the cooperative policy produces substantive results that are at least the equivalent to the coercive policy. Moreover, over the long run cooperative policies may have greater promise in sustaining local government commitment. The dilemma is to figure out how to motivate lagging jurisdictions that seem to require a coercive policy, while not straightjacketing leading jurisdictions that are capable of thriving under a cooperative regime.     

Agricultural Policy Reform and Policy Convergence: An Actor-Centered Institutionalist Approach

This article examines the entry into the agricultural policy arena of a new market liberal vision. Battles over market liberalism are some of the defining struggles of the present age. The article develops a stylized framework designed to help understand some of these political struggles and some of the underlying dynamics of the complex policy debates that have occurred. It begins with a brief review of the changed economic context for farming that gradually took place in the 1990s and then provides an overview of how market liberal values and norms might be applied to agriculture. Constructing a stylized set of negotiations in a game-theoretic form that might take place in a debate over the merits of a market liberal approach, it shows two different paths for agricultural policy reform. The analysis suggests that policy change is likely to move more in a market-liberal direction under a center-left government than under a conservative one. This model isthen tested by looking at policy change in two sectors (cereal grains, dairy) in three countries (Australia, Canada, and the United States of America). The analysis suggests that the models are more helpful and policy convergence is more pronounced when sectors are open to international competition. In contrast, the models work less well and convergence is lower in highly protected sectors.     

The Policy Design Effect: Proximity as a Micro‐level Explanation of the Effect of Policy Designs on Social Benefit Attitudes

Public and individual support for a policy is affected by how it is designed – that is, how eligibility is determined. This results in universal policies being more popular than contributions‐based policies, which in turn enjoy more public support than the selective kind. The literature on welfare attitudes have argued that this ‘policy design effect’ can be explained by a combination of self‐interest patterns, public perceptions of the recipient group and whether eligibility under the policy is perceived as fair or arbitrary. The explanations, however, lack micro‐level theory and testing as to why the design of a policy affects individual and public support. This article seeks to explain this policy design effect by theoretically outlining and testing how being proximate to recipients of a social benefit affects attitudes towards the benefit. A survey of attitudes towards spending on five social benefits in Denmark shows a large impact on attitudes from being proximate to recipients under selective policies, little or no impact from universal policies and a pattern that falls in‐between for the contributions‐based policy. This article thus provides micro‐level evidence for the different impacts on attitudes depending on the design of a policy, and a possible explanation for why the design impacts attitudes differently.     

Challenging the Leadership: The Party Conference as a Platform for Dissenting Membership Voice in British and Danish Parties of the Left

According to A. O. Hirschman, party members who are dissatisfied with their party's policy have two options: they can either leave the party (exit) or try to change party policy (voice). Research has shown that leadership control over policy is extremely high, leaving membership influence virtually non-existent. On that basis, exit seems the only viable membership reaction to dissatisfaction with party policy. Nevertheless, research has also shown that voice is of great importance to members; hence it is voice that will be the main focus of this article, which examines the circumstances under which party members are likely to opt for voice over exit and what factors are likely to hamper voice. Using a study of the Danish Socialist Peoples Party, the Danish Social Democrats and the British Labour Party, the article shows that despite the odds stacked against them, some party members do make use of the opportunities for voice offered by the party conference, but also that they often face significant obstacles in exercising it.     

Leading from Below: How Sub-National Governments Influence Policy Agendas

This article takes a state's eye view of trends towards a more centralised system of governance in Australia. It argues that while globalisation strengthens the roles of national governments it also provides less noticed public policy and management opportunities for sub-national governments. The article shows how state governments in Australia can use high-level policy proposals to reinforce their continuing relevance as key members of a federal system of government. It proposes that skilful deployment of policy ideas and analyses can enable the states to sustain alternative national agendas despite hostility or lack of interest by the federal government. In conclusion, the article examines the implications for federal-state relations under the Rudd government. It suggests that the elements for productive reform agendas are present but that bringing them together will require considerable effort.     

微博实名制之思

作为网络社会的新型信息舆论平台,可以说近年来微博在众多的社会公共事件中扮演了重要的媒介角色,因此即将实行的微博实名制一经公布便引起了多方关注,这一政策的推出给微博平台带来了许多积极的影响,如更加稳定的运行环境、用户的言语自律等,同时也带来了一些无法忽视的问题。重点即在于对此政策利弊之处给予综合考量,并对实名制之后的微博管理提出合理的思考和建议。     

Implementing Performance-Based Program Budgeting: A System-Dynamics Perspective

The article proposes a model for evaluating budget reforms that combines insights from budgeting, policy implementation, and system-dynamics literatures. System-dynamics modeling combines both quantitative and qualitative research techniques to provide a new framework for applied research; its use is illustrated using performance budgeting as an example. Applied to the implementation of Florida's performance-based program budget, the model identifies actions in the short run that will increase the reform's likelihood of success: providing clear communications; facilitative budget and accounting routines; reliable performance information. The model also identifies critical legislative behaviors that influence executive implementation: how the legislature in the long-run uses performance information to inform resource allocation and how it applies incentives or sanctions to programs that achieve or fail to achieve their performance standards. The legislature has the opportunity to use program reviews prepared by legislative staff to invigorate the executive branch's resolve to continue implementing the reform.     

Purchasing Policy Advice: The Limits to Contracting Out

Throughout the OECD, governments have been contracting out an increasing range of goods and services. Against this background, this article outlines the case for, and assesses the merits of, placing the purchase of governmental policy advice on a more competitive basis. Two options are given particular attention: first, the creation of an internal market for policy advice within the public sector under which departments and other government agencies would tender to supply specific policy outputs; and second, a more radical option under which public and private sector organizations would compete for the contracts to supply governmental policy advice. Drawing on the insights of the new institutional economics, it is argued that neither option is likely to enhance the efficiency or effectiveness with which policy advice is produced, whether under conditions of short-term or long-term contracting. This is due to the likelihood of: only partial contestability (due, among other things, to asset specificity in the form of transaction-specific expertise and trust); a greater risk of opportunistic behavior by the suppliers of advice (and also, under some conditions, by the purchasers); higher agency costs and transaction costs; and greater problems with respect to horizontal and vertical policy coordination. Such considerations suggest that the widespread reliance of governments on relatively permanent advisory institutions and in-house expertise can be explained and justified on the same theoretical grounds that have prompted the contracting out of other publicly-funded goods and services.     

The Big Society in Australia: A Case of ‘Non’‐Policy Transfer?

The Big Society was a flagship policy initiative launched by the UK Conservative party, under the leadership of David Cameron, to win office in 2010. Closely associated with the ideas of Phillip Blond, the Big Society agenda seeks to introduce new forms of civic activism and revive wider civil society. There has been speculation that the Big Society agenda might take hold in Australia, and Blond has been active in promoting it in Australia. Using Dolowitz and Marsh's policy transfer heuristic, this article examines the likelihood of the Big Society being adopted by the Abbott Liberal Coalition. The article outlines a number of potential variants of the Big Society, and concludes that for a variety of reasons it is unlikely to be adopted by the Liberal federal government in Australia. The case also highlights both strengths and limitations in the Dolowitz and Marsh framework, arguing that it can be used in an innovative way to speculate on potential transfers, but is limited in accounting for why transfer may or may not take place.