Do State Bond Banks Have Cost Advantages for Municipal Bond Issuance?

State bond banks are created to extend management expertise, subsidies, and economies of scale to local government issuers, but bond banks incur issuance and program costs. This research examines whether state bond banks appear to achieve lower than average borrowing costs, once the costs of issuance are controlled for. We find that bond banks are associated with significantly lower borrowing costs for two of the three programs we examine, and determine that these savings are due largely to reductions in costs of issuance.     

国有产权代表制度新探

现代企业制度是建立在出资者所有权与法人财产权相分离的产权关系基础上的 ,由此形成了企业出资者与经营者之间的委托 -代理关系。降低委托代理成本 ,确保其效率最大化 ,是现代企业制度研究中的重要课题。近年来 ,我国在以建立现代企业制度为目标的国有企业制度创新过程中 ,也遇到了上述问题。2 0世纪 90年代以来 ,作为改革试验场的深圳市在这方面进行了积极的探索 ,逐步形成了规范国有出资人与企业经营者之间委托 -代理关系的国有产权代表制度。这种探索 ,具有非常重要的理论价值和实践意义。其实施时间虽然不长 ,但它代表了国有企业深化产…     

State,social policy and subaltern citizens in adivasi India

This paper argues that social policies work towards the subject-making of subaltern citizens by defining the grammar of state–subaltern relationship. The Forest Rights Act of India (2006) defines the state–adivasi relationship through a two-way process: claim-making by the indigenes for forest rights, and reduction of the discourse by the state into a politics of recognition without redistribution. While adivasis have employed their agency in wresting social policies from the state through protracted struggles, they are also made subjects of the state as they go about the Forest Rights Act procedure. The paper further points out that adivasi struggles and the organisations representing them constitute a distinct adivasi society contra the middle-class civil society. Though the spirit of the Act envisages substantive redistribution, the state institutions and the monitoring Non-Governmental Organisations have yet to adopt redistribution as a core narrative.     

The States Come Marching In: Examining State Agency Influence on Federal Rules

Amidst congressional gridlock, administrative rulemaking is the main pathway for environmental policy making. Scholars have assessed the role of the institutions of government (the president, Congress, and the courts) and key interest groups (i.e., business and environmental interests) in shaping rulemaking outcomes. What is missing from this literature is an assessment of the role of key implementers, state environmental agencies. This research fills this gap by assessing the role and impact of state government agencies in three case studies of rulemaking at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Based on original interviews and a public comment analysis, this research suggests that state agencies play an active and influential role in EPA rulemaking. And, in some cases, state agencies wield more influence than other interest groups. Interviewees argued that this influence stems from these agencies’ unique voice as an implementation collaborator. As a result, researchers should incorporate an assessment of the role of these interests to more effectively explain regulatory outcomes at the EPA and potentially across the bureaucracy.     

State Mandated Accounting, Auditing and Finance Practices and Municipal Bond Ratings

The accounting, auditing, and finance practices of municipal governments often are legally constrained by regulations imposed by state governments under whose jurisdiction cities are created. These practices may impact on municipal security risks and returns, either directly in the bond market or indirectly through such market intermediaries as bond rating agencies. The purpose of this article is to assess the impact of state mandates on municipal bond ratings.     

建立健全国有企业的监督约束机制

国有企业的健康发展 ,不仅关系到国民经济健康运行 ,而且关系到社会主义前途命运。目前 ,如何实现对国有企业的有效监督 ,已经成为一项十分紧迫的任务。国有企业比之非国有企业 ,更需要建立强有力的监督约束机制。一、国有企业监督约束机制的内容建立现代企业制度是我国国有企业改革的主要内容。因此 ,国有企业建立监督约束机制 ,必须满足现代企业制度的要求 ;同时 ,我国社会主义制度的性质 ,又决定我们在建立现代企业制度过程中 ,绝不能放弃党对国有企业的领导权。因此 ,根据我国国情 ,国有企业监督约束机制的内容 ,既有一般性 ,又有特殊性…     

Policy is what it does: State trading in rural south India

This paper explores why the Indian central government's legal obligation to distribute grain is not matched in practice by a right to claim it on the part of those who need grain most. The public distribution of rice is examined at state and village levels using a framework for policy analysis developed by Schaffer. Laws enacted are compared with the political objectives lying behind such legislation. The process of administration of public resources for state trading betrays the unprogressive management of capital and labour and the subordination of state trading to private mercantile interests. The expansion and diffusion of grain allocation is examined via the experience of access of targeted groups in a time of severe drought. The perverse mobilization of grain in scarcity, and its allocation in times of plenty, are mirrored by the reduction of grain quotas in the months of greatest need, and by their restoration afterwards. The ration system is subordinated to a politically more conspicuous child nutrition scheme. But both are affected by the interests of private grain merchants, by the tactics of bureaucratic coercion, by short-term financial policy and by the use of food as a currency in political transactions between state and central governments. Grain, a symbolically powerful medium of political appeasement, fails to have a socially progressive distributional impact.     

Agency reform as decision process: The reengineering of the Agency for International Development

The Agency for International Development (AID), the U.S. Government's principal dispenser of foreign economic assistance, is struggling to define its mission in the post Cold War era. AID staff and overseas presence has contracted in recent years following reinvention reforms. But reinvention has not clarified the agency's mission nor protected it from powerful critics. AID's future depends on its ability to develop a mission that excites popular demand. Agency reformers promote foreign aid as a means to advance sustainable development in developing countries. But AID's sustainable development mission lacks credibility because it excludes references to reforms required in post-industrial societies. Participation of U.S. local interests in aid management and more effective promotion of familiar premises for aid (many of them consistent with the tenets of sustainable development) are essential elements of a revitalized foreign aid program.     

Municipal Support for Social Entrepreneurship

This study examines how cities help social entrepreneurship—the activity of private individuals and organizations taking initiative to address social challenges in their communities. Based on a national survey and in-depth interviews among jurisdictions with populations over 50,000, the authors find that municipalities help social entrepreneurs by increasing awareness of social problems, and by helping them to acquire resources, coordinate with other organizations, and implement programs. Nearly three-quarters of cities provide active or moderate support, which is positively associated with the perceived effectiveness of nonprofit organizations in their communities.     

国家监察机关的设置模式:基于"独立性"的比较研究

我国设立独立的国家监察机关在政治意义上已成定局,但对其设置基础尚缺乏理论探讨.当前全世界有一百多个国家和地区设立监察机关,因政治和社会背景的诸多差异,监察机关与其他国家机关之间的关系也有不同.从隶属关系上看,大致可以分为国会监察、行政监察和独立监察三种模式.从比较法的视角对上述模式进行考察后发现,不同模式下的监察机关在与其他国家机关进行互动的过程中,都在组织、人事和职权三个方面保持不同程度的独立性.相比于设置形式上独立的监察机关,建构一套行之有效的监察机制更为关键.     

Quasi-Contractual Ministerial Steering of State Agencies: Its Intensity,Modes, and How Agency Characteristics Matter

ABSTRACT:

This article demonstrates the value of conceptualizing four ideal types when studying ministries’ contract steering of state agencies—relational, double-whammy, performance, and behavioral steering—each defined by its combination of input- and output-oriented steering. In the system under study—Norway—about half of all agencies are subjected to steering with a clear profile; the other half are not. The two profiles often dismissed or overlooked in existing research—relational and double-whammy steering—are most common. Thus, introducing a contract regime has not meant a clear shift from input to output control, as posited by some. Most agency characteristics under study—size, age, political salience, and tasks—have significant effects on the likelihood that an agency is subjected to one type of steering or another. Still, the analysis suggests that agency-level characteristics constrain ministerial choice about which steering to practice only to a limited extent.     

Agency Costs in Environmental Not-For-Profits

We examine the behavior of not-for-profits using utility maximization. This leads to testable hypotheses regarding the costs of agency associated with the activities of not-for-profits. Our tests are similar to those previously employed regarding not-for-profit objectives, but our interpretation is different. Our empirical test uses data on environmental groups. Unlike previous studies biased toward a finding of service maximization, we account for endogenous explanatory variables. A weak statement of our results is that managers of environmental groups derive positive marginal utility from expenditures for purposes other than providing services. There may also be empirical support for a stronger conclusion.     

国家治理现代化视阈中的纪检监察工作

纪检监察工作承担着国家治理的繁重任务,具有全局性、综合性、渗透性的特点,是各领域治理的一个纽带,在国家治理体系中有着举足轻重的地位。纪检监察体制是国家治理体系的重要组成部分,推进国家治理体系现代化,必须改革纪检监察体制,实现纪检监察组织的独立性和专业化。纪检监察机关是国家治理的基本主体之一,推动国家治理能力现代化,必须提高纪检监察机关治理能力,主要包括更新理念的能力、信息运作的能力、执纪办案的能力、科学预防的能力和监督管理的能力。     

Effects of Administrators' Aspirations,Political Principals' Priorities,and Interest Groups' Influence on State Agency Budget Requests

This article addresses a long‐standing question in public budgeting: What factors influence bureau/agency budget request decisions? Empirical results confirm the complexity of variables that explain different levels of budget requests by over 1,000 state administrative agencies. The expected significant influence of administrator (agency head) aspirations was clearly present. But other important sources enter into the decision of agencies to satisfy rather than maximize. These include the strategic roles, activities, and priorities of governors, legislatures, and interest groups. These political principals' influence operates to constrain, discipline, or even augment agency budget requests.     

Telangana and the politics of State formation in India: Recognition and accommodation in a multinational federation

This article examines the politics of State formation in India by taking up the case of Telangana. Drawing from the emerging literature on the politics of recognition and territorial accommodation in multinational federations, I argue that territorial accommodation of Telangana was made possible by the convergence of strategic interests and role of multiple actors to recognize Telangana’s distinctive territorial identity and accommodate its Statehood demand when an opportune ‘political opportunity structure’ emerged in the late 1990s till 2014. It extends the insights of ‘actor-centred’ institutionalism and contributes to an emerging literature which emphasizes the ‘multi-centred origins’ of border change and State formation in India in particular, and in multinational federations in general. By underscoring State formation as a complex process, this article cautions against a simplistic reading of the politics of State formation in India as an act of one-upmanship whereby the Centre can unilaterally make or break State borders.