Common pool effects and local public debt in amalgamated municipalities

This paper investigates whether the large scale municipal amalgamations in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg in the early 1970s led to considerable common pool exploitation. Through amalgamation the resources of several municipalities are pooled together disclosing the former independent municipalities a larger source of funds. Additionally, the pooling also decreases the cost of local public goods, as those have to be borne by the whole of the amalgamated municipality. By exploiting the huge variance in the amalgamation process in terms of number of participating municipalities, but also in municipality size or amalgamation strategy, we identify considerable common pool effects. Amalgamated municipalities show considerably stronger acceleration in debt accumulation compared to non-amalgamating municipalities. This common pool exploitation is stronger if more municipalities participate and when municipalities amalgamate by annexation.

     

德国应对世界经济危机的措施

本文全面分析了德国政府迄今采取的应对当前经济危机的各项举措,包括金融市场稳定措施和两套经济振兴计划。与此同时,本文也简要介绍了欧盟层面的经济振兴计划。作者最后指出,德国所采取的应对危机的经济政策措施带有明显的凯恩斯主义的赤字开支政策的特征,并提出忠告,要避免重蹈六、七十年代凯恩斯主义经济政策的覆辙。     

Promoting State-of-the-Art Methods in Public Management Research

The field of public management is methodologically underdeveloped as compared to other disciplines. In order to derive the fullest benefits of methodological advancements, the field needs to invest in discussing and deliberating over the state of the art in methodological advances. Using state-of-the-art methods helps to produce knowledge that is useful for scholars and practitioners. This symposium aims to add to and improve the methodological toolkit available to public management scholars. We distinguish three categories that could strengthen the methodological toolkit: underutilized methods (such as ethnography), innovations in current methods (such as the synthetic control method for comparative case studies), and novel methods (such as natural language processing for content analysis). We hope that this symposium encourages scholars to seek for novel and improved methods to produce research that lives up to scientific scrutiny and is valuable for practitioners.     

Spreading Hindutva through education: Still a priority for the BJP?

This article explores how the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has pursued its ideology of Hindu nationalism through educational reforms. It pays most attention to the reforms undertaken by the first BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government, from 1998–2004. A key argument is that these reforms mirrored BJP’s ideology. The reforms were legitimized with reference to certain challenges facing contemporary Indian society, particularly the threats represented by value degradation and a weakening of indigenous traditions. I view such arguments in terms of sublimating all challenges to the cultural realm. Moreover, these reforms aimed to establish an education system based on a coherent, integrative framework, concurring with the ideological outlook of the BJP. In the final part of the article, I examine the current NDA regime and seek to explain why similar reforms do not appear to be high on Prime Minister Modi’s agenda. By doing so, the article sheds light on the question of Modi’s commitment to Hindu nationalist ideology. A major argument is that to Modi, Hindutva-inspired reforms of the education system collide with the promises made during his electoral campaign and with key elements of the political programs he has initiated so far.     

Formalization and consistency heighten organizational rule following: Experimental and survey evidence

This study examines the attributes of organizational rules that influence rule following. Rule following fosters organizational effectiveness by aligning individual behaviours with organizational preference. While a range of theoretical explanations have been offered for rule following, the characteristics of rule design and implementation have received less empirical attention. Borrowing from the green tape theory of effective rules, this study examines the influence of two particular characteristics—rule formalization and rule consistency—on rule following. Three studies, which include two vignette experiments and a survey of two local government organizations, provide the data for the research. The results suggest that rule formalization and rule consistency independently increase rule following, with mixed evidence of interaction effects. The broad implication is that public managers must attend to both rule design and implementation to foster organizational rule following.     

Political stability and fiscal policy: time series evidence for the Swiss federal level since 1849

This paper explores the role of political stability on fiscal policy in a time-series analysis over 158 years at the Swiss federal level. We argue that the fiscal commons problem of public finances is affected by the number of years a finance minister remains in office, because the incentives for an incumbent to maintain a good reputation with sound policy decisions are stronger. A finance minister who succeeds to stay a long time in office enjoys a politically powerful position towards the administration, parliament and interest groups. In contrast, frequent government turnover weakens the position of the finance minister.     

Crime and crime trends in different urban environments

This is a study of crime and crime trends in different urban environments in Stockholm. The study is in two major parts. First, on the basis of a study of the factorial social ecology of Stockholm in 1980, the city is grouped into major urban environments, and thereafter the criminality in these different urban environments is studied cross sectionally for 1982. Second, the trends in crime in the city of Stockholm and its different types of urban environments are studied over a 20-year period (1968–1987). The findings show significant differences between types of urban environments in rates of crimes, offenders and victims, crime structure, and crime and distance. Also, the trends in crime were significantly different between different types of urban environments.