The determinants of structural changes in public budgets: a theoretical and empirical analysis for the Federal Republic of Germany

Abstract. Since there is no generally accepted and satisfactory theory that can explain structural changes in public budgets over time, this article focuses on the determinants of the budget structure and its changes over time. Thus, it would already be an improvement in the development of a complex and coherent theory of budgetary structures and its changes if initially appropriate variables could be identified which could explain in the short, intermediate and long runs the structural changes in public budgets with respect to the various governmental levels. Potential candidates for explaining structural changes could be socio-economic, political and institutional variables. These sets of variables will be analyzed here in detail for the Federal Republic of Germany for the time period 1964–1978. The results are very similar to those found in various U.S. studies. In comparably developed nations with similar political (federal) structures, institutional factors seem to play the dominant role in determining and explaining changes in the budgetary structure.     

Worldwide experience in sales taxation: Lessons for North America

Worldwide fiscal experience over the past twenty-five years indicates steady expansion in the political and academic constituency for expenditure taxation, including indirect taxes on consumption. Retail levies have emerged as the preferred method of indirect taxation of consumption, as older, pre-retail sales taxes have proven unsuited to modern economic structures. Increasingly, reform of sales taxation has involved a shift to one particular form of tax, the European Community type of value-added tax (VAT). This consumption tax option is again a topic of policy debate in North America, particularly in Canada where a VAT was under active consideration in 1985.This paper sifts through worldwide experience with broad-based sales taxes to identify lessons for tax policy in North America both in the short and longer-run. It indicates that the reputation of such taxes as regressive instruments may have been much exaggerated, and that in any case methods are available, particularly in Canada, for resolving equity issues in sales taxation. The VAT is shown to have marginal economic and administrative advantages over single-stage federal retail taxes in both Canada and the US. However, these advantages are not nearly so significant as in European countries where the VAT was adopted there. Further, sensible debate over the merits and limitations of the VAT in North America will call for much closer scrutiny of the problems unique to this form of tax. Finally, three political issues that were not significant in Europe will likely have an important bearing on any future choices of sales tax instruments, both in the U.S. and in Canada.     

Organizational design and its consequences for administrative reform: Historical lessons from the U.S. Budget and Accounting Act of 1921

The landmark U.S. Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 (BAA) instituted a series of administrative reforms that proponents claimed would improve budgetary control, stability, and coherence. We maintain that the compatibility of governance structures between agency and system levels is critical for understanding why these administrative centralization efforts were successful in achieving these aims for some federal agencies but not others. The BAA reforms impact on budgetary outcomes is evaluated using panel data on major U.S. federal agencies between 1894 and 1940. Applying semiparametric heterogeneous treatment estimation techniques, we find compelling support that administrative centralization of the federal budgetary process enhanced budget stability and coherence for executive departments while resulting in a lower caliber of budgetary performance for independent agencies. These findings imply that system‐level administrative centralization efforts may be effective only when public agencies are structurally amenable to such reforms.     

Balancing Regionalism and Localism: How Institutions and Incentives Shape American Transportation Policy

Public policy decisions are increasingly made by regional governance efforts that involve diverse decision makers from multiple government units within a geographic region. These decision-making bodies face competing pressures to represent regional and local interests. We study how decision makers balance preferences for regionalism and localism within metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs), the policymaking entities that are responsible for implementing U.S. federal surface transportation policy at the regional level. Our model of regional governance relates variation in regional policy outcomes to the incentives of MPO decision makers and the institutional environments in which they interact. Analyzing data from a sample of the nation's largest metropolitan areas, we find that MPOs dominated by elected officials produce more locally focused policies, holding other factors constant, while MPOs dominated by nonelected public managers produce more regionally oriented policies. Contextual factors, as well as the regional governance institutions themselves, further shape the balance between regionalism and localism.     

U.S. Prosecution of State and Local Officials for Political Corruption: Is the Bureaucracy Out of Control in a High-Stakes Operation Involving the Constitutional System?

Perhaps the most serious and disabling federal intrusion ofrecent years into the independent political status of stateand local governments has been actions by the U.S. governmentto prosecute elected state and local officials and their closeassociates for local political corruption. In 1986 U.S. Attorneysin New York, Boston, District of Columbia, Pennsylvania, andelsewhere pursued such investigations and prosecutions withunusual vigor. These activities have a recent genesis—since1974—and they are basically unauthorized, in importantrespects out of control, and overall questionable in terms ofthe federal nature of our constitutional system. These findingsare supported by data from the Public Integrity Section of theCriminal Division and the Office for U.S. Attorneys, both inthe Department of Justice, and by opinions of U.S. courts, legislativehistories of bills and statutes, and sources on criminal lawand political corruption.     

A 21st Century Low‐Carbon Transition in U.S. Electric Power: Extent,Contributing Factors,and Implications

The U.S. electric power sector has experienced a substantial shift of the generation mix since the turn of the century, moving from heavy reliance on coal‐powered generation to one drawing more from natural gas and, more recently, renewables. This transition has been forged by a mix of macroeconomic factors (recession and recovery); technological breakthroughs (horizontal drilling coupled with hydraulic fracturing; improvements in natural gas plant efficiency); clean energy policies at federal, state, and local levels of government; and private sector demands for carbon‐free energy sources. These factors have combined to reduce carbon emissions from electric power generation substantially this century. In this article we examine the extent of this transition, its causes, as well as the distinct American institutional factors steering it, including energy and environmental federalism, electoral politics, and the political economy of clean energy policy enactment and resistance.     

Comparing federal institutions: Power and representation in six federations

The study of comparative federalism is often hampered by the diverse range of federal institutional arrangements in practice, as well as the ambiguity surrounding the concept of federalism. This article identifies three main conceptual approaches to federalism – sociological, constitutional, and governmental – then proposes a revised governmental approach that takes account of the institutional effects of federalism, for application in comparative politics research. Minimally defined, all federations are products of institutional rules that create separate territorial spheres of authority. This article compares Canada, the United States, Australia, Austria, Germany and Switzerland along two key institutional dimensions that structure politics in the federal state: resource allocation, and the representation of constituent units in federal-level decision-making.     

Political Science and Prediction: What's Next for U.S. Climate Change Policy?

This article analyzes how U.S. climate change politics and policy making are changing in the public, private and civil society sectors, and how such changes are likely to influence U.S. federal policies. It outlines the current status of U.S. climate change action and explores four overlapping pathways of policy change: (1) the strategic demonstration of the feasibility of climate change action; (2) the creation and expansion of markets; (3) policy diffusion and learning; and (4) the creation and promulgation of norms about the need for more aggressive climate change action. These four pathways seek to fruitfully draw from rationalist and constructivist approaches to policy analysis, without collapsing or confusing the different logics. Building on this analysis, it predicts that future federal U.S. climate policy will include six major components: (1) A national cap on GHG emissions; (2) A national market based cap‐and‐trade GHG emissions trading scheme; (3) Mandatory renewable energy portfolio standards; (4) Increased national product standards for energy efficiency; (5) Increased vehicle fleet energy efficiency standards; and (6) Increased federal incentives for research and development on energy efficiency issues and renewable energy development. In addition, expanding federal climate policy may bring about significant changes in U.S. foreign policy as U.S. international re‐engagement on climate change is likely to occur only after the development of more significant federal policy.     

Regional Power in National Diplomacy: The Case of the U.S. Section of the International Boundary and Water Commission

An interesting anomaly in the usual pattern of federal foreignpolicy management is found in the case of the U.S. Section ofthe International Boundary and Water Commission, United Statesand Mexico. The U.S. Section functions as a quasi-independentagency formally subject to the U.S. Department of State forpolicy oversight. Since its formation in 1945, however, theU.S. Section has acquired substantial institutional autonomyfrom the State Department due to its specialized jurisdiction,clientele relations with U.S. border states, and bilateral diplomacy.The U.S. Section performs a mediator role between the StateDepartment and its state clientele in resolving transboundaryproblems with Mexico, and leans toward the states when federaland state interests conflict.     

Public Opinion on Federalism in Canada, Mexico, and the United States in 2003

This research reports on public opinion surveys on intergovernmentaland federal issues conducted in Canada, Mexico, and the UnitedStates in March and April 2003. In all three countries, respondentsmost often see their federal government as being the least effective,least efficient, and least trustworthy. Respondents from Canadaappear least supportive of their federal government and mostsupportive of their local governments; those from Mexico appearmost supportive of their state governments; respondents fromthe United States appear more "balanced" in their support ofthe various orders of government. Also, far greater regionaldifferences in opinion exist in Canada than in Mexico or theUnited States. Support for more decentralized federalism isfound to be strong in all these federal countries. This researchalso updates long-term trend data for the United States. Comparedwith respondents from previous years, U.S. respondents in 2003showed a measurable uplick in support for the federal government,compared with state and local governments. This support seemsto be a carryover from the terrorist attacks of 11 September2001.     

Föderalismus und Wohlfahrtsstaat im historischen Kontext: Der Fall Kanada

Federalism and the welfare state in Canada have always been mutually reinforcing. The pattern of welfare state development, however, has never followed a single narrow historical path since the critical juncture of confederation in 1867. It has instead been shaped by two conflicting approaches: a pan-Canadian approach and a province-based approach to the welfare state. An institutional configuration in accordance with the interstate model of federalism has enabled Ottawa and the provinces to initiate, restructure and recalibrate social policies, predominantly by voluntary negotiations but also by unilateral federal and provincial action. Efforts to reform the welfare state have been at the public policy level and also aimed at the institutional framework in which public policies are embedded. The interplay of such institutional features as policy pre-emption by the provinces and evolution of the federal spending power alongside a dual tax structure on the revenue side has promoted a dynamic which can hardly be captured by a narrow conception of path dependency.     

Federalism, Political Structure, and Public Policy in the United States and Canada

Two of the three large countries on the North American continent—the United States and Canada—share a number of similarities that often make it difficult for the untrained observer to differentiate between the two nations. On the surface, the two are structured similarly as federal systems that, by definition, exhibit shared power between the national government and provincial or state political entities.Although there are other important social and economic characteristics of the two countries that help explain differences in policy processes and outcomes, it is the contention of this article that one gets the clearest sense of what Elazar has called thinking federal by utilizing an analytical approach that joins questions related to federalism with some conceptual frameworks of the public policy field. Two frameworks undergird the argument in this article—the Lowi typology of different types of policies and Deil Wright's typology of different models that describe the American inter-governmental system.In both countries, policies must be sensitive to the greater interdependencies between units of government as well as to linkages between policy areas. The mechanisms or instrumentalities for dealing with policy issues are intrinsically complex. It is also clear that the intergovernmental networks that exist in both the U.S. and Canada are composed of an array of actors. The differing political structures of the systems do impact the types of intergovernmental policies that have emerged in the two countries. The executive dominance so imbedded in Canadian governments has contributed to their ability to adopt and implement certain controversial redistributive policies, such as a national health insurance program. By contrast, the fragmentation of the U.S. system makes redistributive policies more difficult.     

Capital Blight? The Regulation of Financial Institutions in Italy and Canada

The pressures of globalization and capital flight create two sets of challenges for national state structures. They are seen fo limit the boundaries of state action, and within those boundaries, they lead to a transfer of regulatory capacity to supra and/or subnational structures. The article explores the second set of challenges and asks whether globalization has led to uniform changes in the regulatory capacity of national states in the area of financial institutions. It argues that the Italian and Canadian experiences suggest that political and institutional factors may shape how national states respond to the pressure to shift regulatory capacity to structures at some other level. In the Italian case, the emergence of a single market for banking in Europe led to a strengthening of the state's policymaking capacity. In Canada, on the other hand, the federal government's authority was limited by competition with provincial regulatory regimes. Globalization may limit the boundaries of state action, but this does not necessarily mean that those boundaries will not be occupied primarily by national state structures.     

美国联邦政府的宽带薪资试验及其启示

20世纪80年代以来,随着内外部环境的变化,建立在严格的职位分类基础之上的美国联邦政府传统薪资系统受到越来越多的挑战。为此,美国联邦政府开始探索适用于政府部门的新型薪资结构,宽带薪资试验就是这种尝试之一。三项宽带薪资试验对于美国政府机构乃至美国私营企业的薪资体系创新都产生了深远的影响。试验不仅揭示了宽带薪资是公共部门薪资体系的发展方向之一,而且对我国公共部门的薪资体系改革具有重要的借鉴意义。     

Public policy analysis in Washington and Ottawa

Policy analysis in the U.S. and Canada tends to follow the methods of systems analysis and takes into account variables relating to substantive matters as well as political and administrative constraints that governments face in pursuing different alternatives.Comparative analysis of the political effectiveness of the two governments in implementing the results of analysis indicates that Canada has built-in constitutional advantages. Comparative assessment of bureaucratic skills in policy analysis and policy implementation suggests that the American system is relatively weaker in terms of implementation, but relatively stronger in terms of policy analytical skills. This is followed by an assessment of the attempts made by the U.S. government to improve its policymaking structures through the setting up of the Domestic Council and the reorganized OMB, and the Canadian attempts to improve its policymaking capabilities through a reorganized Cabinet committee system and the strengthening of the Privy Council Office.The final section suggests that analysis of values and norms should be an integral part of policy analysis. The scope of policy analysis should be extended to include long-term economic and political analyses.     

Public Opinion on Federalism and Federal Political Culture in Canada, Mexico, and the United States, 2004

This study reports on public opinion surveys on fiscal value,taxation, trust and confidence in governments, and federal politicalculture conducted in Canada, Mexico, and the United States inJune 2004. Compared to past years, support for the federal governmentremains high in the United States, with support for local governmentsurging substantially in 2004. The local property lax is viewedas the worst U.S. lax, followed secondly but distantly by thefederal income tax. Canadians are less supportive of their federalgovernment, and more supportive of their local governments,than Mexicans and Americans. However, Mexicans show low trustand confidence in all their governments, while Americans reportfairly high trust and confidence in all their governments. Onmeasures of federal political culture, Canadians scored highest,Mexicans scored lowest, and Americans fell in between.     

Influence of Industry on Legislative Behavior toward NASA

This article explores economic factors that help to explain Congressional support for NASA Authorization Acts and issues of U.S. federal space funding. Three economic factors related to political opportunism are identified and discussed in detail. Across the board, NASA Centers are a significant factor in shaping voting preferences, suggesting that the NASA presence itself plays an important role in influencing legislators. Meanwhile, other forms of economic opportunism based on the relative importance of the space and aircraft manufacturing industries in a given state and the amounts of NASA procurements are factors, but only in a more limited sense. This supports the concept that economic opportunism does influence legislative voting behavior on NASA Authorization Acts, though the bulk of the impact appears to be indirectly via NASA centers.     

The (Il)logics of Federal Budgeting,and Why Crisis Must Come

The U.S. federal budgeting system faces severe challenges in coming years. Deficits are being recorded at levels and with regularity not seen in prior periods. This article suggests that such problems reflect the uncomfortable mix of logics informing budgetary and political institutions—that is, the rules of the game. Logics make it appropriate to expect that government be limited in its tax demands but simultaneously responsive in providing expensive services necessary for the achievement of the American dream, for example. Crisis is needed to allow the emergence of institutional forms that mediate between these conflicting logics.     

STAR METRICS and the Science of Science Policy

STAR METRICS is a data platform that is being voluntarily and collaboratively developed by U.S. federal science agencies and research institutions to describe investments in science and their results. It initially emerged as a result of reporting requirements associated with the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; it has developed in response to a recognized need to begin to systematically document federal investments in science and their immediate and long‐term results. The eventual goal is to draw information from existing data on scientific and economic activities as well as from research institutions' and federal science agencies' systems to provide data that can be used for a more scientific analysis of science investments and their outcomes.