Privatization in Central Europe: The Case of Housing Policy in Hungary

Policymakers in Central and Eastern Europe are encountering difficulties in resolving the clash between market efficiency and distributional equity. A similar tension characterized post-war Western Europe. However, in Central and Eastern Europe expectations emanating from the previous regime presume that distributional equity will compensate for the lack of market efficiency. The possible resolution of this tension is discussed in the context of the privatization in Hungary.     

Patterns of Policy Instrument Choice: Policy Styles, Policy Learning and the Privatization Experience

The spread of privatization in almost every country over the last decade reflects a rapid and fundamental change in patterns of policy instrument usage. Yet the literature on policy instruments has almost nothing to say on this perhaps most significant development in public policy in recent times. This paper's objective is to aid in the development of a theory of policy instrument choice which is capable of dealing with instances of long-term, cross-national changes in policy instrument usage. It will be argued that reconceptualization of instrument choices in terms of policy learning can aid in this theoretical project.     

Commercial Suborbital Sounding Rocket Market: A Role for Reusable Launch Vehicles

Space advocates adopted the tenet that the way to reduce the cost of space access is to fly reusable vehicles so development and production costs could be amortized over many flights. Some have also suggested that commercial suborbital flights, both for scientific payloads and for human space flight participants, may provide a path in which a revenue stream can be ultimately used to fund orbital and deep space operations. Some aspiring space launch providers (NewSpace) have incorporated in order to develop and fly such vehicles. This paper examines the economic and business conditions for reusable suborbital sounding rockets. Given current market size and pricing, the global nonmilitary suborbital sounding rocket market is less than 60 flights of perhaps 200-kilogram payloads annually at roughly $1 million each. High demand elasticity (increased demand with lowered prices) at a price of significantly less than $250 per kilogram of payload might increase the market to possibly 1500 flights annually. The business case for developing and flying reusable sounding rockets for this market cannot be closed with investor capital unless flight rates are markedly higher than at present. This paper discusses potential approaches to closing the business case.     

Foreign Policy Objectives: Left Socialist Opposition in Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Due to their foreign policy opposition, the left socialist parties in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden remain among the few parties in Western democracies that lack governmental experience. When political parties confront political issues, they can either choose a competitive or a cooperative strategy. The Norwegian and Swedish left socialists chose competition when the EU issue appeared on the scene in the early 1990s. The Danish Socialist People's Party, on the other hand, opted for a cooperative strategy and accepted EU membership and the 1993 Edinburgh Agreement. Drawing on coalition theory, this article asks why.     

Regulating Autonomy: An Assessment of Policy Language for Highly Automated Vehicles

Self‐driving cars (also known as driverless cars, autonomous vehicles, and highly automated vehicles [HAVs]) will change the regulatory, political, and ethical frameworks surrounding motor vehicles. At the highest levels of automation, HAVs are operated by independent machine agents, making decisions without the direct intervention of humans. The current transportation system assumes human intervention though, including legal and moral responsibilities of human operators. Has the development of these artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous system (AS) technologies outpaced the ethical and political conversations? This paper examines discussions of HAVs, driver responsibility, and technology failure to highlight the differences between how the policy‐making institutions in the United States (Congress and the Public Administration) and technology and transportation experts are or are not speaking about responsibility in the context of autonomous systems technologies. We report findings from a big data analysis of corpus‐level documents to find that enthusiasm for HAVs has outpaced other discussions of the technology.     

Privatization as a Political Priority: The British Experience

This article challenges conventional approaches to Thatcher's privatization campaign in which privatization has been judged on the basis of its economic or public policy merits. The privatization programme of the Thatcher Government was driven by political objectives and thus it was more coherent than has been usually asserted. Politicians are motivated by maximizing their political benefits (power) rather than by the pursuit of the common good, that is optimal economic and public policies. Unlike some other papers who have considered the political aspects of the Conservative privatization programme, this paper introduces a distinction between what were the Conservatives' perceptions of the political consequences of privatization and the actual effect of this programme.     

目前我国宏观调控的目标、重点及其相关政策的选择

近年来我国经济发展的总体态势出现了一些新情况、新问题、政府宏观调控的目标、重点和相关政策也发生了很大变化。针对这种情况,本通过大量的实证分析,阐明了当前我国通货紧缩现象不会持续,结构性失业问题明显突出,经济增长速度必须适度;揭示了我国宏观调控的重点及其主要方面应该放在优化结构上,而不能一味追求扩大需求;系统阐述了与宏观调控目标和重点相配合的有关政策措施的主要内容。     

对农村剩余劳动力转移问题的探讨

农村剩余劳动力转移是一个事关我国现代化建设的全局问题。农村剩余劳动力转移的政策目标应当与“二元结构”的体制改革、城市化和城乡一体化劳动力市场的建设结合起来     

Implementing PBB: Conflicting Views of Success

A modern budget reform, performance‐based budgeting (PBB) emphasizes the measurement of government performance by agencies and public servants. In this article we define PBB as requiring strategic planning regarding agency mission, goals and objectives, and a process that requests quantifiable data that provide meaningful information about program outcomes. Performance‐based budgeting requirements are now pervasive in the states. Of forty‐seven states with PBB requirements, thirty‐one have legislated the process to be conducted, while sixteen have initiated the reform through budget guidelines or instructions.¹What remains unknown, yet of vital interest to state administrators, their staff, legislators, and citizens, regards implementation status of PBB systems. How many states are utilizing a PBB process as prescribed by law or administrative directive? And if PBB has been implemented, has it been successful regarding improvement of agency effectiveness and decision making about spending? Perhaps most importantly, has PBB influenced appropriation decisions?. This research is based on responses to a mail survey of executive and legislative budgeters regarding the PBB system established in their state. Results discussed in this article consider budgeters’ response about PBB implementation status and effectiveness as conducted. We find that there are differing perceptions across the branches of government regarding both the extent of PBB implementation as well as its success. Results show that states with better‐known PBB systems have not necessarily realized greater success in terms of effectiveness from this budget reform than states with less popularly known systems, at least as perceived by the budgeters included in this article.     

Pension Privatization: Evolution of a Paradigm

From 1981 to 2004, a paradigm shift occurred in pension systems worldwide as more than 30 countries fully or partially replaced their state‐administered pay‐as‐you‐go pension systems with ones based on individual, private savings accounts. Yet in 2005, pension privatization abruptly stopped. After the 2008 crisis, several countries that had privatized their pension systems scaled back or even canceled individual accounts. Is the new pension paradigm dead? And if so, why? This article shows that fiscal and ideational factors caused a temporary halt to pension privatization worldwide and induced transnational pension policy networks to find new ways to respond to perceived failures. Adjustments to the new pension paradigm such as emphasizing minimum pensions and recommending that governments “nudge” rather than mandate pension savings will enable pension privatization to continue in years ahead, albeit in a revised form.