发展型政府理论与香港实践

发展型政府都将经济发展作为国家政策制定的重中之重,并且采取有力措施来实现经济发展目标。香港是典型的小经济体,对外在环境有非常大的依存度,一直关注如何维持与中国内地、周边、亚太地区乃至世界经济的良好互动。在把握有关发展型政府理论的脉络及主要观点的基础上,深入探讨发展型政府理论在香港的实践与CEPA框架下香港政府扮演的四重经济角色以及可能存在的风险。认为,应该从增强香港经济自主性、制度建设和增加内地与香港抵御金融风险的能力等方面入手,进一步完善CEPA。结论部分探讨了在CEPA框架下,内地和香港的各级政府成为更加有效的发展型政府的途径以及对两岸经济关系的启示。     

State government purchases in a federalist economy

This paper empirically examines the impact of state government purchasing preference laws on expenditures and revenue of individual states. Purchasing preferences allow firms located within a state to win state contracts without being the low bidder. We find that states with purchasing preference laws spend 3% more in real terms per capita than other states. Evidence is found indicating that the preferences require revenue increases to fund them (the tax base does not rise sufficiently), and that there is some apparent taxpayer resistance to these preferences. This evidence is consistent with a coalition model of state government behavior because it indicates there is significant redistribution of income between groups within the state.We thank the Center for Public Policy at the University of Houston for financial support. This paper benefitted by comments received from Gordon Tullock and an anonymous referee.     

The measurement of electoral competition,with application to Indian states

We investigate the measurement of three distinct, but related dimensions of electoral competition in a majoritarian electoral system: contestability in the struggle for governing power; competition among candidates at the constituency level; and competition among existing parties at the level of the legislature. At each step, the analysis is made concrete by calculating our preferred indexes of these dimensions of competitiveness for 14 major Indian states from 1972 to 2009 (and from 1952 in some cases), while comparing them to others that have been widely used, though not always calculated for Indian states. We also use our preferred indexes to study the importance of the level of development for an understanding of how competition has evolved across the states. The paper concludes by posing questions about the measurement of competitiveness, in general and in the Indian case, that arise in the course of our investigation.     

NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR): Subsidizing academic research or state budgets?

This cross‐state empirical study focuses on the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and examines its impact on the academic research and development (R&D) expenditures financed by state governments. Based on a panel of 50 states during 1979–2006, the empirical results indicate that EPSCoR, while increasing federal R&D support to EPSCoR states, crowded out financial support for academic research from the governments of EPSCoR states. About one‐third of EPSCoR funds went to subsidize state budgets. The crowd‐out effect calls for some reconsideration of EPSCoR program design in order to maintain or even increase the state government financial support for academic research activities deemed critical to academic competitiveness and economic prospects. © 2009 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management.     

Die Qualität von demokratischen Regimen. Zur Erklärung der politischen Performanz in Italien und Indien durch Robert Putnam und Patrick Heller

Long-term processes of democratization have brought about a great number of states with democratic regimes. Therefore, political sociology has to focus in its research on the determinants of the quality of democracies. This article compares two theoretical perspectives: first, Robert Putnam’s attempt to explain the political performance in the Italian regions by the strength of their civil society and their social capital and secondly, Patrick Heller’s study about the Indian state of Kerala, which underlines much more the importance of the mobilization and organization of the lower classes and the functioning of the state apparatus. An empirical analysis of the determinants of the social development of the 15 largest Indian states and further studies in political sociology indicate a greater plausibility of Heller’s approach. Therefore, Putnam’s core concepts of social capital and civil society are reconstructed in a concluding theoretical discussion so that a connection to Heller’s theses and to other fields of research in the social sciences becomes possible.     

Corporate social responsibility and sustainable development goals: A study of Indian companies

India completing five years since mandatory CSR was implemented under Sec 135 of Companies Act, 2013 compelling Indian companies to contribute 2 % of their last three‐year average net profit in few specified areas of CSR activities as mentioned in the seventh schedule of the Act. In the same period, United Nations outlined the 17 goals based on sustainable development that contains 169 objectives signed by various 193 countries around the globe contributing social, environmental causes to establish a glorious life and opportunities for everyone in the year 2015. The realization of sustainable development goals agenda 2030 lies with the Business sector, corporate as well as Government sector and also the civil society plays a significant role in this regard. The present study aims to map the CSR activities with sustainable development goals and review the mandatory CSR practices of 40 Indian companies and how companies are leveraging CSR thereby attaining sustainable and progressive target.     

Education,human error,and road crash risk: An empirical investigation in the Indian states

This study examines the road accident rates from 29 Indian states and 6 Union Territories during 2006–2015. In this paper, we have employed several empirical techniques such as regression, generalized method of moments (GMM), and threshold regression models to examine how education and attitude of the drivers impact the road accident rates. In our empirical analysis, we demonstrate that lawless driving is found to be positive and statistically significant while incorporating both state and year effects. We also find some interesting result in the context of education and road accidents. We notice positive relationship between higher education and road accident rates across Indian states, which tells us highly educated people are more prone to road accidents as compared with less educated people. In the threshold analysis, the study discovers the positive relationship between road injury and accidents caused by people with higher education, in cases of considering road injury rate from drunken driving as the threshold variable. There appears to be a large number of behavioral issues emanating from higher education, which contributes significantly to the road accident rates in the Indian states. Hence, there is a need for policy intervention.     

ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AND ADMINISTRATIVE POWER THEORY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF STATE DEVELOPMENT AGENCIES*

The ability of state leaders to influence economic growth and diversity within their states is a disputed issue within the literature on state economic development policy-making. This research contributes to this debate by developing comparative measures of state development agency power drawn from the emerging theory on organizational power. If state policy leaders have independent control over the economic performance of their states and if that influence is exercised through the administrative unit responsible for that activity, states which have supplied their agencies more resources and freedom in using those resources should outperform those states which have not.     

It’s the economy, and then some: modeling the presidential vote with state panel data

Using data for the 50 US states for presidential elections from 1972 to 2004 two theories for determining state voting outcomes are considered jointly: the ‘economy matters’ and ‘home grown-ness’ theories. Fixed-effects regressions show that measures of the ‘economy matters’ (real income, unemployment and a proxy for inflation) have the predicted effects on state voting patterns for presidential elections. The home grown theory receives mixed support. There is weak evidence that incumbent-party candidates garner greater support in their home states. There is strong support, however, for the proposition that incumbent-party candidates fare worse in the home state of rival-party candidates.     

The limits of India’s ethno-linguistic federation: Understanding the demise of Sikh nationalism

From 1984 until 1993, the Indian state of Punjab witnessed a sustained insurgency by Sikh militants campaigning for a separate sovereign state. This insurgency was ultimately defeated by the overwhelming use of security force that officially resulted in the deaths of 30,000 people. By the mid-1990s, a ‘normalcy’ had returned to Punjab politics, but the underlying issues which had fuelled the demand for separatism remain unaddressed. This paper examines critically the argument that India’s ethno-linguistic federation is exceptional in accommodating ethno-nationalist movements. By drawing on the Punjab case study, it argues that special considerations apply to the governance of peripheral regions (security, religion). Regional elites in these states struggle to build legitimacy because such legitimacy poses a threat to India’s nation and state-building. In short, India’s ethno-linguistic federation is only partially successful in managing ethno-linguistic demands in the peripheral Indian states.     

Egypt's economic crisis challenges El-Sisi

Egypt’s new president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi has taken charge of an economy severely weakened by three years of political chaos. Gulf states have promised considerable financial support, but given Egypt’s future needs it will be imperative to cast the financing net as wide as possible.     

An analysis of asymmetric effect of federal transfers across Indian states

This study empirically examines the asymmetric effect of federal transfers in India using a panel dataset of 18 states from 2000–2001 to 2019–2020. In mapping the asymmetric effect of federal transfers on subnational spending across the Indian states, we test it in the extended ‘flypaper effect’ framework, examining whether subnational expenditures respond in the same way to changes in federal transfers. To quantify the extent of the asymmetric effect on the subnational expenditure, we employed the panel non-linear ARDL model. The results suggest that subnational spending has a greater asymmetric response to the increase in federal transfers than to a decrease. At the disaggregate level, ten out of 18 states have a fiscal replacement kind of asymmetric effect in any spending specifications. But only three validate it in the capital and development spending, and seven states validating in the non-development expenditure on the revenue accounts. Replacing the cut in federal transfers with other revenue sources that prioritise non-development spending over development spending is problematic.     

Irregular migration and democracy: the case for inclusion

This article examines the democratic status of irregular immigrants from the vantage point of different models of democratic inclusion. The argument developed is that irregular immigrants are in fact members of the democratic state by virtue of being subjected to the legally binding norms in the territory of the state. The extension of the vote and other political rights to irregular immigrants nevertheless remains problematic due to their ‘illegal’ status. Because this status follows from the restrictive border policies implemented by most contemporary states, it shows that the ideal of democratic inclusion is scarcely reconcilable with a policy of restrictive cross-border movement. The conclusion defended in the article is that the interest in keeping borders restricted reduces the prospects for democratic inclusion in contemporary states.     

Improving the Budget Process in Fragile and Conflict‐Ridden States: Two Modest Lessons from Afghanistan

Both the donor community and scholars have created a cottage industry studying “fragile” states. International nongovernmental organizations that have developed indexes measuring corruption or governance have been unkind to Afghanistan. One index suggests a different and more optimistic story. The International Budget Partnership measures transparency every two years with its Open Budget Index. Afghanistan demonstrated dramatic improvement on this index between 2008 and 2012. The authors use the improvement in Afghanistan's transparency score as an entry point to explore how donors try to intervene and promote transparency as part of broader efforts in public financial management development and how legislative strengthening has also contributed to budget reform. The analysis offers a modest corrective to the overly pessimistic assessments of fragile states by showing that a fragile state can improve its budgetary transparency and enhance governance by strengthening the legislature's involvement in the budget process.     

Immigration and the Evolving American Welfare State: Examining Policies in the U.S. States

The inclusion of racial/ethnic minorities is often considered an important factor leading to a relatively limited American welfare system. However, given the federal nature of welfare eligibility rules and the states' role in determining benefit levels, few studies explicitly link questions of inclusion and benefit levels when explaining the evolution of American welfare policy. This study examines the relationship between inclusion and benefit levels by analyzing state policies related to the welfare reforms of 1996 which allowed states to decide if recent immigrants would be included in welfare benefits, and subsequently the extent to which this decision affected overall benefit levels offered by states under TANF. The results suggest that states' decisions regarding inclusion subsequently affect benefit levels, with the direction of these relationships most closely reflecting the erosion model's prediction of broader eligibility associated with lower benefit levels.     

Devine intervention? Lessons in systemic retrenchment from Canada’s most generous welfare state

This article tackles the importance of systemic retrenchment in welfare state research by focusing on two core elements neglected in the literature: the civil service and governmental revenues. Saskatchewan has possessed key ingredients associated with generous welfare states: a dominant left-wing party, a supportive bureaucracy and important non-visible fiscal revenues. According to the comparative welfare state literature, this is also an excellent recipe for maintaining a generous welfare state amid attempts, primarily by right-wing governments, to scale it back. Yet, most social indicators in the post-Devine years demonstrate that Saskatchewan can no longer be considered a leading welfare state in Canada. Reforms to the bureaucracy and a host of financial measures resulting in a near default explain why the Devine government was successful in its efforts to disrupt the CCF/NDP social legacy despite the fact that the NDP regained power for 16 years afterwards.     

Organizational Resistance to Participatory Approaches in Public Agencies: An Analysis of Forest Department's Resistance to Community-Based Forest Management

The organizational resistance of public agencies to participatory approaches is analyzed by means of a case study involving the implementation of community-based forest management (CBFM) in India. Both exogenous and endogenous causes of resistance are identified, and a theoretical model proposed. The model consists of two dimensions of resistance to change (structural resistance and cultural resistance) and three categories of causal factors (organizational, personal, and environmental factors). The model is empirically tested using the perceptions of senior and middle management level members of the state Forest Departments (FDs) of four states in India, collected through a questionnaire survey. The empirical findings are used to suggest strengthening of public management theories on four aspects: the distinction between structural and cultural resistance; inclusion of extra-organizational processes; the distinction between individual and organizational learning; and the need to differentiate between the impacts of the legislative and executive wings on public agencies' organizational resistance. The results are used to suggest some specific measures to deal with the organizational inertia in public agencies.     

Can disincentives bring accountability in governance? Experiences of Right to Public Services Guarantee Act in Madhya Pradesh State of India

Many Indian states have enacted Right to Public Services Guarantee Act that promises the delivery of public services to citizens in time‐bound fashion, failing to which, responsible government officials face financial penalty. Therefore, effective service delivery, an indicator of good and responsive governance, is being attempted to be achieved through a “system of disincentive.” The paper tries to analyze if the system of disincentive is effective in ensuring administrative accountability. The paper is based on primary and secondary data. The primary data were collected as part of an action research carried out in 2012, which was supplemented with secondary data collected for different studies during 2015 and 2016. The paper uses a governance accountability framework to analyze implementation of the Act. The study finds that although success rate of implementation of the Act is quite high, the Act presents a narrow idea of accountability. There are no accountability norms for higher officials and elected leaders who head the public service departments. The study also finds that necessary accountability structures have not been developed and there is a dearth of enabling environment that makes accountability structures effective. The study also finds that, despite the provisions for financial penalty, responsible officials find ways to escape. The study exposes weak points in the implementation of the Act, which can be strengthened to achieve desired outcomes. The study can be an important source for course corrections in the states/countries where right to public service delivery is in effect.     

Toward a Theory of Fiscal Slack

Though the fiscal slack literature has advanced over the past decade, more research is needed for a systematic understanding of the determinants and uses of fiscal reserves at the local level. This paper reviews theory and empirical evidence on the determinants of municipal fiscal reserves offers a conceptual framework for analyzing fiscal reserves accumulation and tests a series of hypotheses using a panel of 2007–2012 financial data for 145 U.S. cities from 21 states. Generalized least squares models show that unassigned general fund balances and unrestricted net assets are positively associated with general fund surpluses in the previous year and with local household incomes, while not being related to measures of fiscal risk, revenue effort, and voter characteristics. Overall, the findings suggest a relatively stronger influence of the capacity to save than the need to save on local fiscal reserves.