The role of government in economic development: the chinese experience

This study examines the role of government in China's economic reform and development years. The study first provides a literature review about major functions government played in the modern economic system and the importance of government policies to economic development. It then evaluates the experience of the Chinese government in the process of reform and development by focusing on five major roles: (a) promoter of growth, (b) manager of economy, (c) distributor of income, (d) regulator of industry, and (e) protector of citizen and business. The implications of the Chinese experience are discussed.     

The futures of government human resource development

During the next decade, the effectiveness of government agencies will depend on how well they address major demographic, social, political, economic, technological, and managerial trends which affect their workforce. Human resource development can play a major role in helping agencies respond, but to do so it will have to adopt a more proactive, strategic orientation, expand and dramatically alter products and services, and develop the capacity to use new skills, technologies, and work methods. Choosing among various possible futures will demand visionary leadership in government human resource development.     

The role of local government in rural communities: culture-based development strategies

ABSTRACT

This paper discusses local development and various governance strategies that local governments can use to engage actors in rural communities and resources from a broader environment to achieve desired socio-economic outcomes. We ask: How can local governance vary in rural communities? How can governance arrangements lead to contrasting socio-economic outcomes? Our conceptual framework combines a typology of local governance roles with socio-economic outcomes associated with neo-endogenous development theory. We explore culture-based development projects from three rural communities. We find that local governance strategies vary between relatively similar rural communities and that they represent compromises in terms of socio-economic outcomes. Local government in rural communities can act strategically through use of local networks. Local governance here is best understood as an emergent quality of the local context, history, institutions, culture, and, power relations. Therefore, governance strategies in rural contexts should be based on careful reflection on potential roles, trade-offs and desirable outcomes.     

The Atlantis of personnel: The lost world of public employee discipline in the state government

Though there are many procedural job protections afforded public employees, there is a surprising amount of disciplinary actions meted out. A survey of 50 State governments showed that the magnitude of employee discipline is relatively high; there is a positive relationship between states which have low disciplinary records, and their lack of control of the disciplinary process; and there is a “progressive disciplinary profilet” prototypes state that exhibits a high degree of discipline when corrective and minor disciplinary actions are multiples of major disciplinary actions.     

Evaluating performance indicators: Current trends in local government

This article summarises research into a small number of local authorities on the use of performance indicators, carried out for the Local Government Management Board (LGMB) and the Policy and Performance Review Network (PPRN) in 1997, and concludes that home‐grown indicators developed in response to Best Value will overcome some of the inadequacies of the Audit Commission approach.     

Improved budgeting and financial management as a tool for enhancing the performance of local government in developing countries

Rapid economic and social changes in developing countries are impacting on their governments' ability to manage those changes, and local governments in these countries are becoming the core of decentralization experiments. This article examines the problems local governments face in meeting the challenges of rapid transformation and change. This paper suggests that budgeting be used as a means for strengthening local governments' abilities to deal with such changes. Until now, budgeting has not been used as a key intervention tool for strengthening local governments. A working model to assess the state of financial and related management conditions of local governments is provided. This model can serve as a useful point of reference for change agents involved in the strengthening of local governments.     

Evaluating local government performance in times of crisis

In recent years, Spanish local governments have come under increasing pressure to accommodate severe economic restrictions while maintaining their provision of local public services. We analyse overall cost efficiency in Spanish local governments during the period of the economic crisis (2008–2013), under four different non-parametric methodologies. Moreover, given how problematic it is to precisely define what municipalities do, we compare three different output models with various measures of quantity as well as quality. Results suggest that Spanish local government efficiency improved over the period 2008–2013 since budget expenditures (inputs) fell while local public services and facilities (outputs) were maintained. We also find evidence of the possible implications of service quality when measuring municipalities’ efficiency, and of structural differences in the average efficiency between municipalities located in different Spanish regions. Finally, our results confirm that the level and variation of efficiency scores are affected by the approach taken.     

Marketing-oriented planning in public administration: The case of the state development agency

Noting that concepts from marketing are not often found in the public management: literature, the authors present a multi-stage marketing-oriented planning model which can be used in the public sector. the mods1 is applied to the case of industrial development agencies, wit11 emphasis on the use of the model in recruiting foreign direct investment. The model includes the determination of organization mission, goals and objectives, resources, and growth strategies as elements of the management planning process. The marketing planning stage of the model includes opportunity analysis, positioning for target markets, marketing mix selection, and control. The two main stages of the process are mediated by factors in the internal and external environments of the organization.     

Reinventing urban government in the Netherlands: an American perspective

National agricultural policies intended to stabilize farm price and income may have different impacts on different agricultural sector of a state or a region. A policy which influences a region's agriculture also may affect the general economy of that region, depending on the degree to which agriculture is linked to the general economy. This study evaluates the economywide impact of the Flexible Planting Program (FPP) -- a recent policy designed to encourage farmers to respond more to market than to the government incentives. The study employs an integrated modeling framework which links the national and state farm sectors to the region's non-farm sectors. Because of reductions in real U.S. market prices and, in turn, Tennessee market prices of some farm commodities under FPP, production of most agricultural outputs are expected to decline in Tennessee by 1995. Study results indicate that as a result of price reductions, the agricultural sector will lose about 15 percent of output, income, and employment. These losses cause significant negative impacts on the business-related service sector. The service sector suffers a loss of 31 million dollars in total output and 523 jobs. The total income lost by the service sector (18 million dollars) will be much higher than agriculture sector (11.99 million dollars). Thus, though the FPP may deliver its intended good at the national level, the policy has the potential to cause undesirable impacts on certain regions.     

Economists in government: The case of Malawi

The problem of the relationship between economic rationality and decision‐making in Africa is seen largely as a problem of communication between economists, administrators and politicians. The way in which economists are integrated into the machinery of government in Malawi is described and briefly compared with Zambia, where the Ministry of Development Planning was effectively excluded.     

The state and rural development in Tanzania: The village administration as a political field

The Village Administrations (VAs) created by the Tanzanian state in the 1970s have been regarded as new state apparatuses intended to facilitate control over a recalcitrant peasantry. Field research in Dodoma revealed two kinds of factions competing for their control: Christians, who co‐operated with higher level state apparatuses in establishing working institutional structures, and Traditionalists, who sought to reconstruct the VA as an entity performing predominantly ritual functions and, by tactful non‐compliance, to insulate households from the demands of the state. If the VA is to be regarded as a state apparatus then it must be recognised that it has substantial autonomy, conditioned by its internal constitution as a political field.     

Transition in government pay policies: The problem of legitimacy

In this article the problem of legitimacy is discussed in the context of pay-for-performance in government agencies. The doctrine of a new public management implies a direct single track between individual performance and organizational result. In practice, however, this seems to be much more complex. It will be argued on theoretical and empirical grounds that public agencies will be hard-pressed to resolve the tension between quality and efficiency imposed by the new pay system. An examination of four empirical cases in different national agencies reveals that the bonus system creates a delicate management problem and poses a risk for the perceived legitimacy of public sector pay.     

Economic rights and government in developing countries: Cross-national evidence on growth and development

Most analysts assume that economic rights (especially to property and to contracts) help foster economic development, but the relationship is rarely studied empirically. Using three recently developed indexes of economic freedom, this article explores this issue for the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. It finds that developing countries that score better in protecting economic rights also tend to grow, faster and to score higher in human development. In addition, economic rights are associated with democratic government and with higher levels of average national income. Arthur A. Goldsmith is professor of management at the University of Massachusetts, Boston. During the 1998 academic year he is a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard Institute for International Development. Professor Goldsmith has published widely on global economic and management issues, and has consulted for several international development agencies. His most recent articles have appeared inInternational Review of Administrative Sciences, World Development, Journal of Development Studies, andDevelopment and Change. Professor Goldsmith's latest bookBusiness, Government, Society: The Global Political Economy was published in 1996.     

Privatizing state owned enterprises in Latin America: A research agenda

This paper identifies major areas related to the privatization of state owned enterprises in Latin America that could very well be applied to other regions of the world, as more countries try to allow the private sector to play a larger role in their economies.     

Pitfalls of power to the people: Decentralization,local government performance,and system support in Bolivia

Across the developing world, many governments have implemented political reforms—heavily promoted by international donors—designed to transfer greater power to subnational levels of government and to provide a more substantial policymaking and oversight role to citizens. Although economic analyses have frequently argued that such decentralization programs improve the efficiency of public expenditures, far less is known about their political impact. Based on an analysis of two large national public-opinion surveys from Bolivia, a country that has recently implemented one of the most comprehensive decentralization reforms yet attempted in Latin America, we analyze the role decentralized local institutions are playing in shaping citizen attitudes toward their political system. Our findings support the contention that decentralization can bolster citizen levels of system support at the national level. Equally important, however, we also demonstrate that the renewed emphasis on local government can have the opposite effect of producingmore negative views of the political system when the performance of local institutions falters. Jonathan T. Hiskey is assistant professor of political science at the Univeristy of California, Riverside. His most recent research focuses on subnational processes of political and economic development taking place across Latin America. Mitchell A. Seligson is Daniel H. Wallace Professor of Political Science, research professor of international studies, and professor in the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Pittsburgh. His research centers on surveys of democratic values and behaviors in Latin America.