The Impact of Tax Price on Spending Preferences

In this article, we explore the influence of tax price information on citizen preferences for taxes and spending using mail surveys. We explore the effects on service support when varying levels of cost information. We also observe how the magnitude of service costs influences service support. While the presence of cost information corresponded with lower levels of respondent support for the most costly services, it was associated with higher levels of support for less expensive services. These effects were the same whether the tax price represented the respondent's actual household cost or the jurisdiction average household cost for each service.     

Municipal Bond Issuance: Is There Evidence of a Principal-Agent Problem?

Is there evidence of a principal-agent problem in the municipal bond industry? Do public managers, either on their own or through private sector agents, act to increase their own utility at the expense of the public? This article examines municipal bond decisions in the context of principal-agent theory based on data collected through a random sample survey of municipal bond issuers. Principal-agent theory is not well developed in the public sector. In the municipal bond industry, however, we have evidence that it helps explain the actions of public managers and elected officials, in particular for pay to play and the importance of interest rates vis-à-vis relationships. These actions carry potential costs to citizens.     

The deceptive illusion of multi-paradigm development practice

This article responds to commentaries by Blunt, Bell and Joy on Cooke's ‘From process consultation to a clinical model of development practice’ in the August 1997 issue of Public Administration and Development. Following the paradigmatic analyses those commentaries introduce, it begins by trying to clarify the range of meanings attributed to the term ‘paradigm’. It then argues, that Blunt's critique does actually derive from a particular single (i.e. mono-) paradigm, the application of which causes my initial arguments to be mis-represented, and exemplifies the limits of that paradigm in practice. It goes on to agree that generic process approaches do have some cultural limitations, and that they can be used for ideological manipulation, although not inevitably in the pursuit of so-called democratic values. The clinical-process model is, however, distinct from these generic approaches and actually provides some safeguard against these problems. The article moves on to demonstrate that a multi-paradigm approach to practice, as opposed to analysis, is illusory, because it is impossible, and deceptive, as claims for multi-paradigm practice conceal the practitioner's inescapable paradigmatic assumptions. In conclusion it argues that until we recognize that ‘development’ per se is a ruling paradigm we are all imprisoned within it. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Does public participation matter? Inclusive growth in East Asia

Inclusiveness in economic development has lately emerged as a critical factor for development. This paper adopts an analytical concept of inclusive growth to evaluate East Asia’s economic success. It contests the Western conceptualization of the critical role of public participation in development, and argues that it has played a limited role in terms of inclusive growth in East Asia. Several factors have influenced the outcome of research in this area including the choice of methodology adopted, the challenge of defining and measuring inclusive growth, and the unclear mode and impact of public participation in the process.     

Resistance to European Law and Constitutional Identity in Germany: Herbert Kraus and Solange in its Intellectual Context

This article recasts our understanding of the Federal Constitutional Court's Solange decision by tracing its lineage within the domestic context and as part of a new history of EU law. The external dynamic of the decision, a moment of judicial discourse between two of Europe's highest panels, has been the focus of many studies. Much rarer are attempts to embed the decision within its internal context: the struggle within the German legal academy to accept the primacy of EU law. Central to this contextualisation is the reinvigoration of the ‘structural congruence’ theory of Herbert Kraus, which long shaped the German reception of EU law. This article recounts Kraus' theory, tracing the struggle for the German legal consciousness between three positions: constitutionalists, traditionalists, and the congruence advocates. While Hallstein's constitutionalism is most closely associated with Germany's early Europhilia, even he admitted by 1975 that Kraus had won the day.     

Dilemmas and consequences of prior criminal record: a criminological perspective from England and Wales

This article considers the contemporary architecture of criminal record usage in England and Wales. We focus upon impact on ‘employment status’, partly because work is often now seen as key to good health and other self-esteem indicators in the modern world. First, we examine in the context of England and Wales, (a) the development of the contemporary criminal record system and extent of availability of prior record information in terms of employment (and other licensing purposes) and (b) the factors that helped shape the current architecture. Second, this article outlines what is known from the British criminological literature on employment and conviction records and what more is needed in terms of criminological research. Finally, we consider how convictions become ‘spent’ – in particular the English approach to ‘expungement’/sealing of the criminal record according to the 1974 Rehabilitation of Offenders legislation.     

Public Sector Risk Financing: Exploring the Potential Use of Weather Derivatives by Fire and Rescue Services

The floods of 2007, experienced across much of England, resulted in local authority organisations, including Fire and Rescue Services, mounting large-scale responses and incurring additional and unexpected expenditure. Although central government activated funding schemes, some local authorities fell below the thresholds set and had to absorb the additional costs. This raised a question of what alternative methods were available to allow these local authority organisations to finance such unexpected costs. Weather derivatives are widely used in certain sectors to manage the financial risk that arises from undesirable weather conditions and the objective of this research is to explore the reactions of an FRS towards the use of these financial instruments in managing additional costs, such as those arising from the 2007 floods. Our findings suggest that a combination of risk-aversion, lack of specific financial knowledge and comfort with the status quo seem set to stifle development of weather derivatives as an innovation in public sector risk financing. However, this exploratory study suggests that the method has some merit and is at least worthy of further examination.