The Role of Market-Value Accounting in Reducing Potential Taxpayer Subsidies: The Case of Deposit Insurance

The federal deposit insurance program required billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies in recent years. Unless reforms are initiated soon, the program will continue to incur losses and will likely sizeable require subsidies in the future. Some of the blame for the past losses of the deposit insurance program has been attributed to the regulatory discretion and lack of information on the potential losses arising from the exercise of regulatory discretion. It is often argued that market-value accounting can be an effective check on regulatory discretion and can minimize the future costs of the program to the taxpayers. This study examines the role market-value accounting can play in reducing the potential taxpayer subsidies to the program. It examines the relationship between accounting system and losses to the deposit insurance program, discusses the problems in implementing the market-value accounting, and shows how market-value accounting can improve the effectiveness of the system of public regulation and reduce the adverse financial consequences of regulatory discretion. While the direct focus of the article is on the deposit insurance reform, the discussion and the arguments have applicability to improving the regulatory effectiveness of other public agencies and programs.     

An Essay on Comparative Administration

Books reviewed:
John A. Rohr, Founding Republics in France and America: A Study in Constitutional Governance.     

Double Hanging with Single Ligature: An Unusual Method in Suicide Pact

A married casual labor couple was found hanging in their makeshift bedroom with each end of a single chunni (a cloth worn around the neck by Indian women) spread across an iron bar below the roof. They left their two children, daughter, and son of 4 and 3 yrs age, respectively, with their grandmother living separately nearby, and went to attend cremation of one of their relatives. They returned late in the evening and found hanging in their bedroom next morning by neighbors.     

Refugee youth as peer leaders in a teen dating violence study

This article examines the experiences of six Karen peer leaders involved in research evaluating the effectiveness of a teen dating violence (TDV) program. Seven categories were identified: 1) the benefits of peer leadership, 2) motivation to become a peer leader, 3) concerns, 4) favorite part of the experience, 5) lessons learned about research, 6) TDV content learned, and 7) recommendations for researchers. Associated themes emerged within each category. Implications for prevention programs include providing an abbreviated version of the program to the peer leaders and engaging parents in recruitment. Future research should focus on conducting similar studies with Karen or other refugee youth in other areas of the United States.     

Empowering Leadership and Municipal Service Delivery: A Case Study of a Metropolitan Municipality in South Africa

Since municipal service delivery is a challenge facing many municipalities in South Africa, this paper reports on a study conducted among a convenience sample of managers and employees from the Revenue and Customer Relations Management department of a major metropolitan municipality in South Africa, to address the aforementioned problem. The findings reveal that empowering leadership is strongly correlated with employee work effort, performance and improved service delivery. On the practitioners’ side, the important mediating role of employee work effort and employee performance in the “empowering leadership–improved service delivery” relationship in South Africa’s public sector is also highlighted.     

An exploratory case study focusing on the creation,and development of a new political brand: The case of Aam Aadmi Party

In the backdrop of India's rising prominence in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), understanding of its political environment, electoral competition, and constituent parties with their political ideologies contesting to form government attracts immense interest from the researchers in political science, political marketing, and public policy. Although literatures in political marketing are more than two decades mostly carried out in developed democratic systems like the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand, India as a posttransition democracy received relatively less attention. The article has been conceptualized in the context of 2014 Indian general elections Lok Sabha 2014 as an attempt to study application of political marketing principles in a cross‐cultural democracy. The author has probed the emergence of new political party Aam Aadmi Party riding on the success of Janlokpal (civil society movement), the marketing approach used by Aam Aadmi Party, essentially positioning and branding strategies, during the national elections and party institutionalization. Research strategy followed secondary research of published data for examining the new party creation from a marketing perspective.