Hybrid Organizations and the Alignment of Interests: The Case of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

This article explores the political influence of government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs). Using Congress's overhaul of the regulatory infrastructure for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac as a case study, the article presents two principal findings: (1) The characteristics that distinguish government-sponsored enterprises from traditional government agencies and private companies endow Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac with unique political resources; and (2) the alignment of interest groups around Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac is subject to strategic manipulation by the GSEs. A triangular model of this alignment is proposed and employed to analyze the legislative outcome. The case has implications for students of organizational theory as well as policy makers considering the use of GSEs or other hybrid organizations.     

The Life Cycle of the Government-Sponsored Enterprise: Lessons for Design and Accountability

The federal government uses government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) to allocate credit to sectors such as housing and agriculture that are considered to deserve special support. The GSEs illustrate the importance of life cycle in the design and accountability of federal agencies and instrumentalities. Four case studies are presented here. In general, market and political dominance and rapid growth are inherent in GSE design. Dominance means inadequate feedback, which can foster poor management and financial risk. Government lacks an exit strategy for GSEs that have outlived their usefulness. Government should systematically review the organizational structure, accountability, and design of all agencies and instrumentalities, both at inception and over their life cycles.     

Fukuyama Is Right about Measuring State Quality: Now What?

Much has recently been written about how to best measure governance or “state quality.” Should we evaluate government performance by looking at what government achieves (outputs) as Robert Rotberg and Craig Boardman recently suggested? Or should we focus on measuring state capacity and bureaucratic autonomy, as Francis Fukuyama concludes? This commentary argues in support of Fukuyama's approach by using a public administration lens to disaggregate the public sector into two domains: upstream bodies at the center of government and downstream delivery bodies that deliver, commission, or fund services under the policy direction of government. It goes further by recommending a measurement framework that focuses on identifying indicators that are behavioral and action worthy in relation to five public management systems ultimately owned and operated by the central, upstream agencies.     

对新公共管理的几点反思

新公共管理是公共行政在新形势下的发展，它的一些理论和方法是值得我们借鉴的。但是，新公共管理是否能够成为一门独立的新学科，政府和政府官员是否是利己的，政府是否一定低效以及顾客导向等理论，是值得深入研究的。     

Retrofitting the Administrative State to the Constitution: Congress and the Judiciary's Twentieth-Century Progress

One of the twentieth century's "big questions" for United States government has been how best to retrofit, or integrate, the full-fledged federal administrative state into the constitutional scheme. The public administration orthodoxy initially advocated placing the executive branch almost entirely under presidential control; Congress and the federal judiciary responded otherwise. Congress decided to treat the agencies as its extensions for legislative functions and to supervise them more closely. The courts developed an elaborate framework for imposing constitutional rights, values, and reasoning on public administration practice. As the challenge of retrofitting continues into the twenty-first century, public administrators might profitably play a larger role in the constitutional discourse regarding the administrative state's place in constitutional government.     

Post-Foreclosure Conveyance of Occupied Homes and Preferential Sales to Nonprofits: Rationales,Policies, and Underlying Conflicts

This article explores the reasons why the conveyance of foreclosed homes with occupants makes sense, and why nonprofits should be given preferential treatment as purchasers, as well as the relevant policies and practices of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Federal Housing Administration (HUD/FHA) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency and the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (FHFA/GSEs). It also presents recommendations for revising current policies, and suggestions for further research. These issues also raise underlying questions about how the federal agencies view their public purpose roles and the implications for possible increased long-term public costs to shelter low-income households displaced because of foreclosure of their homes. Although HUD/FHA’s guidelines allow for conveyance of foreclosed homes with occupants, the evidence—interviews with key stakeholders in Boston and data obtained from HUD through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request—reveal that the guidelines are largely irrelevant in practice. Although there has been a change in an FHFA policy that could soften the GSEs’ practice of no occupants at conveyance, it is not yet clear whether this will result in former owners and tenants being allowed to remain in their homes following foreclosure. Concerning preferential sales to nonprofits, whereas positive new policies have been issued by both the FHFA and HUD, the extent of implementation is not known. Finally, it appears that HUD/FHA and the FHFA/GSEs view foreclosed homes more as financial assets, whose value they seek to maximize, rather than as dwellings for financially strained households that, if evicted, may need additional housing subsidies and as part of a strategy to preemptively stabilize neighborhoods.     

MANAGING WITH LESS

Managers everywhere are faced always with problems of scarcity, with setting priorities, making trade-offs and allocating short resources. One part of the administrative task is necessarily about getting the most done for the least cost. But is Australian government administration now entering a particularly severe period of restraint, which will place even sharper challenges upon managers in the public service? I think the answer to this question is yes, and that there is general agreement about this within the public service itself. Problems of managing with less are therefore contemporary and pressing; and this paper is a summary of ways in which those problems are being approached. One way issues in calls for improved efficiency in government. This is not, however, a straightforward matter at all. Improvements or so called improvements to efficiency will always meet some resistance for a mixture of reasons. Some managers think that the need for change is not as great as critics maintain, so giving them no cause to do more than continue their normal practices of good management. Others see a renewed emphasis on efficiency as cutting into the resources properly available to the public service, so harming the community which the administration is supposed to serve. Managing with less is not then merely a technical issue. It involves questions about the meaning of efficiency and the role of management, and also judgments about the nature of the period in which we live and about who gains and who loses when we do indeed have to manage with less: that is, political and even moral considerations are mixed up with considerations of good management and efficiency. These matters of value, choice and conflict cannot be avoided.     

Comments on “Are the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) justified?”

In “Are the Government-Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs) Justified?” the authors conclude that the benefits delivered by the GSEs (as structured prior to conservatorship) are minimal and do not exceed their costs. While many of the arguments made in the article have merit and raise serious questions about the structure of the GSEs prior to 2008, the article overlooks several important benefits and costs. More significantly, no one is arguing for a return of the GSEs as they were structured prior to conservatorship. Rather than debate the merits of a model that has already been rejected by policymakers, we argue that the far more important question is what the housing finance market should look like in the future.     

Remembering Vincent Ostrom: unhorsing a dominant paradigm

This essay is a memorial piece about Vincent Ostrom (September 25, 1919–June 29, 2012). I start by reviewing his academic history and then turn to Professor Ostrom’s major intellectual legacy—his effort to overturn the dominant paradigm in public administration and political science on metropolitan government reform. The three most important contributions of his work are discussed, including the introduction of public goods theory into the study of public administration and his work on quasimarkets and the Tiebout model. Three controversies or conundrums raised by his work are then discussed. Finally, the essay considers whether Professor Ostrom was ultimately successful in his effort to overthrow the traditional approach to the production and delivery of public goods at the city government level.     

Are the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) justified?

Recent studies provide evidence that the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs) might not be justified under a rigorous and innovative framework of cost-benefit analysis. The policy implication is that the GSEs might have finished their historical mission of building the secondary mortgage market, but now with a mature secondary mortgage market, they might not be beneficial any more – maybe it is the time for them to exit.     

John Stuart Mill's Theory of Bureaucracy within Representative Government: Balancing Competence and Participation

The relationship between bureaucracy and representative government has been a subject of concern to public administration since its inception. John Stuart Mill addressed this question in an 1861 essay, in which he explained his theory of government. Mill suggests a role for public administration that is not only legitimate, but also necessary for good government. His writings contain remarkable references to the concerns addressed in current theories of public administration. Mill worked to balance the spirit of popular government with governance by the most educated, skilled, and experienced of the nation, whether they were citizens, elected representatives, or administrative officials. This article examines Mill's theory and the contribution it makes to current public administration discussion.     

新公共服务对新公共管理的批判与超越：——中国服务型政府建设路向分析

服务型政府是对政府职能的重新审视和定位,其实质是贯彻＂以人为本＂理念的制度架构。不仅有新公共管理所关注的如何从组织技术和管理手段等操作层面上改进公共服务效率的问题,更涉及到政府与公民关系的宪政民主主义的重构,涉及到公共行政的理念转变与制度创新。以新公共服务为代表的民主治理理论突破了新公共管理＂管理主义＂思维的窠臼,指出了一条通过政府与社会、公民关系的民主化治理模式的重构,推进公共行政改革,为服务型政府建设指明了正确的改革方向。     

公共管理学科前沿与发展趋势

公共管理学科领域经历和正在发生着的变化及其趋势至少主要表现在五个互相承续的方面。一是新公共管理在理论上和政府再造实践上的并行所形成的强烈的管理主义取向;二是公共组织理论与公共治理理论共同凸显为公共管理两大支柱理论;三是政府治理模式与政治角色定位这两个层次问题的契合;四是管理学范式与政治学范式在分野基础之上的整合;五是紧贴政府问题的事实关注与价值判断的结合。这些方面的变化使得与之相关的理论与实践问题被推到公共管理学科发展的前沿。其发展趋势正逐步趋向于:公共价值判断下的管理科学取向;公共治理框架内的组织理论创新;公共行政的宪法捍卫者前提下的公共行政执行者的角色定位;作为政治科学的公共行政与作为管理科学的公共行政双重身份的整合;公共行政研究者强烈使命感与社会责任感驱动下的公共管理学的学术发展。     

Local E‐Government in the United States: Transformation or Incremental Change?

In this article, the authors address the recent trajectory of local e‐government in the United States and compare it with the predictions of early e‐government writings, using empirical data from two nationwide surveys of e‐government among American local governments. The authors find that local e‐government has not produced the results that those writings predicted. Instead, its development has largely been incremental, and local e‐government is mainly about delivering information and services online, followed by a few transactions and limited interactivity. Local e‐government is also mainly one way, from government to citizens, and there is little or no evidence that it is transformative in any way. This disparity between early predictions and actual results is partly attributable to the incremental nature of American public administration. Other reasons include a lack of attention by early writers to the history of information technology in government and the influence of technological determinism on those writings.     

Why Has Public Administration Ignored Public Education,and Does It Matter?

Although education accounts for one-quarter of the United States' state and local government spending, employs one-third of all governmental employees, and consistently ranks as a high priority of citizens, public administration has neglected public education. This article considers the neglect of public education by public administration scholars, researchers, and practitioners and documents the sparse coverage of public education in textbooks, journals, books, professional association activities, and curricula. This neglect can be attributed to public administration's federal focus, ideological views about the relationship between public education and politics and resulting structural and organizational barriers, and the costs of overcoming these barriers. The separation limits the generalizability of public administration research and theory, harms policy development, constrains the capabilities of public administration program graduates, and impedes the success of public education. This article outlines steps needed to bring public education under the umbrella of public administration.     

Recurrent cost and performance comparisons within public administration: A method of generating efficiency-promoting competition

Economists (e.g., Niskanen) usually advocate increased competition in order to increase efficiency within public administration. To bring about competition that promotes efficiency, it is not necessary to oblige the public body (e.g., central government authority, municipal administration) to compete with other producers concerning who is to provide the public service. Such competition can also be generated with the aid of continuous productivity and efficiency comparisons between public bodies which provide similar services.     

New Labour and Government in Britain: Change or Continuity?

The 1997 British election marks a major change in British government. Eighteen years of Conservative rule had brought about growing inequality and social division and have generated powerful demands for new directions in public policy, especially in the areas of welfare and public administration. On welfare state reform Labour is constrained by election promises to restrain taxation and public expenditure. New Labour ministers influenced by the New Right have in any case largely rejected traditional social democratic redistributive strategies and are seeking instead new ways of reducing welfare dependency.
The virulent spread of quangos at all levels of government and a marked increase in the centralisation of power in Whitehall have given a new impetus to demands for constitutional reform. Labour's response to these demands is a major program of regional devolution, House of Lords reform and open government measures.
This article explains what 'New Labour' means and discusses New Labour policies on welfare and constitutional reform and their implications for the future of public administration in Britain.     

新世纪政府管理改革的新课题

新世纪的到来给各国政府管理改革带来了新的课题。新世纪是信息通讯技术高度发达,公民参与政府管理及政策制定的机会和期望不断增强的朝代;新世纪将是政府机构改革和组织变革需要不断按照企业精神和再造模式广泛推进的时代;新世纪将是政府官员需要在思想观念和行为方式上革心洗面,脱胎换骨,从而要求行政教育培训目标和模式进行相庆变革的时代。这些新的课题正日益引起各国政府和专家学的关注和兴趣,如何积极主动地迎接新世纪     

Integrity Systems and Local Government

Australia's third sphere of government is local government, consisting of about 675 councils nationally, responsible for an average of 6 percent of total public sector expenditure (around $18 billion) annually. This article reviews key integrity issues confronting local government, based on experience in NSW and Queensland. Current issues confirm integrity to be a significant concern manifesting in a large variety of forms, both in council administration and in local government politics. A new generation of responses are increasingly tailored to recognising local government as a permanent, elected sphere of government, accounting directly to the public, while, supported by state regulators, individual councils also pursue better practice in the management of their own administrations.     

Comment on Dennis P. Culhane et al.’s “public shelter admission rates in Philadelphia and New York City: The implications of turnover for sheltered population counts”

The article here extended reflects on the excessively narrow debate over the government-sponsored enterprises (GSEs)' cost-benefit transfer balance which had been raging for a quarter-century before the 2007–2009 financial crisis. That crisis has cast a new light on the actual costs of GSE operations and exposed the unsustainability of some of their benefits for homeownership. After injecting afew new findings into the traditional debate, this comment adds some of what has transpired in recent years and what may be inferred from it so far. Doing so brings additional analysis to bear on the article's conclusion that “the GSEs might not be justified” and “Maybe it is time for them to exit” although most politicians in the past have been disinclined to show them the door.