Does Ownership Matter for Employee Motivation When Occupation Is Controlled for?

The public service motivation literature argues that public employees are more motivated than private employees to deliver public service for the benefit of society. But the reason for this may be that the classical welfare services are predominant in the public sector. This article therefore investigates if ownership matters to employee motivation when occupation is controlled for. The findings show that the employees in both sectors have pro-social motivation, but that public sector employees are more motivated to work for the public interest, whereas private sector employees are more motivated to help individual users of services. The survey data are based on 3,304 Danish employees working in private as well as public organizations.     

Is Previous Export Experience Important for New Exports?

This article examines the relationship between local level heterogeneity and the likelihood of successful collective action in community-based forest management in Nepal. Economic and social heterogeneity are discussed and their effects on local level collective action considered. The study develops simple measures of inequality for key variables, and shows that there is no clear-cut impact of group heterogeneity on collective action. Forest user groups can create institutions for resource management according to their local context in order to avoid management problems created by inequalities among resource users. Perhaps the most important result is that the effects of heterogeneity can be highly variable, and the recommendation is that systems of governance need to be flexible to allow adaptation of management regimes to local conditions.     

Helpful local surtaxes? Florida and disadvantaged families

Well-intended tax policy often produces unintended consequences. In this article, we look at one such tax policy, specialised surtaxes in the State of Florida. Surtaxes are frequently adopted to provide financial assistance to poverty-based local programmes and services. Despite the intended benefits, we show that the contributors of the tax have been able to capitalise the cost into the residential property market, ultimately placing the burden of the surtax upon the population its revenue intends to help.