IMF Conditionality,Government Partisanship,and the Progress of Economic Reforms

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) often seeks to influence countries' domestic public policy via varying levels of conditionality—linking financial support to borrowing governments' commitment to policy reforms. When does extensive conditionality encourage domestic economic reforms and when does it impede them? We argue that, rather than universally benefiting or harming reforms, the effects of stricter IMF conditionality depend on domestic partisan politics. More IMF conditions can pressure left‐wing governments into undertaking more ambitious reforms with little resistance from partisan rivals on the right; under right governments, however, more conditions hinder reform implementation by heightening resistance from the left while simultaneously reducing leaders' ability to win their support through concessions or compromise. Using data on post‐communist IMF programs for the period 1994–2010, we find robust evidence supporting these claims, even after addressing the endogeneity of IMF programs via instrumental variables analysis.     

我国政府在转型过程中的公共服务供给研究

当前随着人民生活水平提高,公众对公共服务的需求不断增长。我国在建成服务型政府的目标下,不断深化行政改革,增强公众服务的供给能力。着重分析政府在转型过程中公共服务供给所出现的问题,并从内部体制改革、民营化改革和监管体系的完善三个大方面探索政府有效提供公共服务的路径。     

Government Responses to Terrorism: Critical Views of Their Impacts on People and Public Administration

Following the tragic, massive terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001, many antiterrorist laws, policies, and institutions have emerged to wage war on terrorism. These antiterrorist initiatives have major consequences for individuals, societies, and nations all over the world. Although controversies have proliferated with regard to the implications of counterterrorism for people's basic rights, the debate remains fragmented and often unfocused. This article examines the critical impact of new antiterrorist initiatives on the fundamental rights and responsibilities of citizens and others, with special reference to public administration.     

Understanding Informal Payments in the Public Sector: Theory and Evidence from Nineteenth‐century Sweden

Informal payments for public services such as health care are a major problem in many countries around the world. Explanations for their prevalence include cultural factors, lack of enforcement as well as insufficient funds and low wages for public employees. This paper analyzes the phenomenon from an economic perspective, arguing that they are a logical consequence of low wages in the public sector. However, informal payments from citizens to public employees for services may be preferable to a situation in which no services are delivered. Given that the informal payments thus can be seen to have a functional element, and that reforms aimed at eliminating them largely have been unsuccessful, formalization and legalization rather than increased enforcement may be a way forward. Many government employees in nineteenth‐century Sweden received their salary through semi‐informal payments (‘sportler’) from citizens. A case study reveals that politicians at the time reasoned along the lines of what could be expected from economic theory: although undesirable and problematic, sportler were necessary to finance the wages of the government employees, given the lack of tax revenue and monitoring capabilities. In contrast to previous research, this article argues that reform efforts were aimed at pragmatically improving the existing system through formalization and regulation rather than simply prohibiting the informal payments.     

Administrative Reforms and Their Impact on Training the Public Bureaucracy in Bangladesh

Bangladesh has recently experienced a number of administrative, institutional, structural and policy reforms which have attempted to recast the modalities of the public delivery system and address the perennial issues of "efficiency, effectiveness and productivity" in the public administration system. A number of these reform packages have called for drastic changes in the mode of governmental operations/processes as well as in institutional arrangements.
In this article, the author has reviewed such reform efforts and their impact on the overall public administration training curriculum and academic programs of the training institutions as well as with the universities in Bangladesh. The entry–level training packages have not adequately covered the critical areas that have been highlighted by the different reforms. The article concludes with a suggestion to review all entry–level training programs and identify some thematic areas to make the training programs "practical, pro–active and action–oriented." A close collaboration between the universities and the public administration training institutions is also strongly recommended.     

The Informal Sector in Developed and Less Developed Countries: A Literature Survey

The main goal of this study is two-fold: (1) to provide ageneral overview of the contributions to the literature on theinformal sector, with a special focus on the public choiceapproach; and (2) to compare these contributions across twoinstitutionally different types of countries: developed andless developed (developing and transition) countries. Thepaper focuses on the criteria used to define the informalsector, the relationship between the formal and informaleconomy, tax evasion, and public choice analysis. It isstressed throughout this paper that the distinction betweenthe two types of countries is of key importance.     

论西方国家公民对政府的监督与制约

主权在民是西方国家宪法的一项重要原则,其实质是公民对政治过程的参与和监督,由此构成了西方民主制度的实质与核心。从静态的结构来讲,公民监督权是体现主权在民的一系列制度;从动态的过程来看,公民监督是一系列的政治参与活动。公民监督构成了西方国家监督体系的基础,是监督体系有效运转的动力源泉,在国家政治生活中发挥着不可替代的重要作用。     

经济全球化与发展中国家的生态危机

经济全球化加剧了发展中国家的生态危机,最突出的表现就是污染转嫁。生态危机的实质源于人的心态危机,既有经济学动因,也有社会性动因。解决环境问题的出路,一是靠科学技术,二是靠完善的法律与道德自律。     

经济全球化与发展中国家的产业保护

无论是贸易自由主义还是贸易保护主义,均是一国政府制定外贸政策的依据,二者并不存在泾渭分明的界限,只是谁占主导地位的问题.尽管经济学家们普遍推崇自由贸易,但绝对的自由贸易是不存在的.对此,作为全球化进程中处于相对弱势地位的发展中国家应保持足够清醒的认识,在积极融入经济全球化的过程中,也应认识到"保护贸易的正当性和普遍性".必须采取适当的措施和手段保护国内产业.     

Fiscal Rules and the Composition of Government Expenditures in OECD Countries

Since the 1990s many OECD countries have adopted fiscal rules. After the adoption of these rules, the ratio of social transfers to government consumption substantially declined, and it recovered following the global economic crisis. Using a sample of 22 OECD countries, we found a negative effect of fiscal rules on the ratio of social transfers to government consumption. This finding implies that fiscal rules are effective, but not necessarily binding. Our examination reveals that the negative effect of fiscal rules on the social transfers to government consumption ratio is particularly evident in countries with relatively weak legal protection to social rights.     

中国农业补贴政策变动趋势及其影响分析

中国农业补贴政策需要根据未来国内需要和世界贸易组织要求适当调整,本文试图通过对中国农业补贴政策的分析,得到对政策变动趋势的判断并分析其经济影响.本研究使用全球贸易一般均衡模型(GTAP)及其全球贸易和投入产出数据库,通过设计黄箱政策补贴和绿箱政策支持总量增减的变化,设定不同政策方案,模拟中国农业补贴政策可能的变化,讨论在黄箱政策补贴受限情形下,绿箱政策支持对黄箱政策补贴的替代作用和可行性,分析补贴增减给中国和世界主要农业生产区域农业生产和农产品贸易造成的影响.研究结果表明,增加中国农业黄箱政策补贴和绿箱政策支持会减少中国整体福利,但会促进农业生产和进出口贸易;当前应当继续稳定实施黄箱政策补贴,并逐步把农业国内支持政策由黄箱过渡到绿箱.对农业补贴政策变动趋势及影响的研究,将为中国政府进行农业补贴相关政策的制定提供参考.     

西方发达国家高校毕业生就业中的政府作为相似性分析

西方发达国家高校毕业生就业机制形成较早,也较完善。在高校毕业生就业机制运行过程中,政府发挥了积极的推动作用。当前,我国高校毕业生就业形势日渐严峻,就业压力日益加大。必须大胆学习借鉴西方发达国家的先进经验,强化政府的服务意识和监管职能,建立健全高校毕业生就业的法律法规体系和服务保障体系,努力实现高校毕业生就业的市场化、社会化和法治化。     

Economic Distress,Labor Market Reforms,and Dualism in Japan and Korea

This article seeks to examine the rapid rise of labor market dualism and inequality in Japan and Korea. It argues that the path‐dependent trajectories of labor market and social protection reforms biased in favor of labor market insiders explain recent institutional developments in the two countries. In Japan, political coalitions between conservative policymakers, large firms, and core regular workers in reform politics consolidated labor market dualism and inequality during its protracted recession. Meanwhile, the organizational capacity of large chaebol unions deepened the inequality and the segmentation of the dualistic labor market in Korea. By examining three key institutional domains of the labor market—labor market reform, wage bargaining, and social protection—this article analyzes the ways in which Japan and Korea have reinforced dualism and inequality over the past two decades.     

Joining-Up Government in the UK: Towards Public Services for an Information Age

The reform of public services has preoccupied managers for several decades. Nevertheless, it is my contention that the present reform agenda has some plausible claims to be different from much that went before. The vision that has come to the fore in the Australian federal government's Clients First Program (Information Technology Review Group 1995), in the Clinton/Gore administration's Access America report (Government IT Services 1997) andthe recent British White Paper, Modernising Government (Cabinet Office 1999) not only promotes the 'client orientation' in public administration, but also reflects a belief in the crucial contribution to be made by information and communication technologies (ICTs). This is a vision for an information age (POST 1998). It is being driven by the conviction that public management has too often been modelled on business 'as it was in the age of US Steel, not the age of Microsoft, Apple, Wal-Mart and Federal Express' (Gore 1993:xiii).     

The Role of Government in Collective Bargaining: Scandinavia and the Low Countries

This article compares the role of government in collective bargaining in five small West European countries. For the period until the second half of the 1970s, a distinction is made between countries in which government often interfered in wage bargaining, e. g. Denmark and The Netherlands, and countries in which government refrained from intervention, like Sweden. Belgium and, to a lesser degree, Norway. In all countries the tradition of (non)-intervention had already started before the Second World War. The article reviews some explanatory variables: in Scandinavia centralization of labour relations is crucial, in the Low Countries the nature of political verzuiling . Recent developments show that government intervention has become a characteristic of labour relations in all but one country.     

北京市政府购买公共服务的实践探索与问题研究

随着我国社会公共需求全面增长以及需求日益多样化,如何创新公共服务供给模式、提高公共服务质量是当下我国地方政府需要应对的巨大挑战。相比发达国家我国公共服务购买开始的较晚且发展缓慢,取得了一些实践成果,同时也出现了一系列突出问题。以北京市政府购买公共服务的实践探索为例,通过探析其在发展中存在的问题并提出完善对策,能够为地方政府推进公共服务购买提供经验借鉴,有助于推动我国社会组织以及公共服务购买市场的健康成长。     

经济全球化与发达国家的政府治理范式创新运动

90年以来,西方发达国家掀起了旨在构建适应经济全球化的政府治理范式运动,以便完善国家创新体系,增强国家竞争力。本着重分析了这一运动的基本内涵、兴起的动因及其理念取向,目的是把握经济全球化时代政府治理范式创新的大趋势,以便为我国行政改革理论的完善和行政改革实践的推行提供有益的启示和借鉴。     

近代西方政府职能理论之嬗变与政治实践

自由资本主义时期,西方社会思潮的主流是古典自由主义。垄断资本主义时期,国家主义逐渐抬头。现代西方社会,政治上出现了两种改良的思潮:新自由主义与社群主义。在欧陆国家,政府具有较大的权力,负有较广泛的职责。在英美国家,政府权力相对较小,职责范围较为有限。我国政府改革的目标应是建立"小"而"强"的政府。     

The Evolution and Convergence of the Government Expenditure Composition in the OECD Countries

In the light of models of composition ofgovernment expenditure and economic growthand the growing globalization process, weinfer that countries should tend to asimilar structure of government spendingover time. In fact, using Tukey box-plotsand σ-convergence we show evidenceof an approaching process in thecomposition of government expenditures inOECD countries for the period 1970–1997. Wealso identify by means of cluster analysisthat most countries are converging towardstwo different models: one including twelveEuropean and non-European countries and theother composed solely of eight countries ofthe European Union.