On the Design of Equalizing Grants

This article considers the design of grants to offset fiscaldisparities. We define a fiscal disparity as a condition inwhich towns must levy a different tax rate in order to providethe same level of public services. We consider ways of measuringdisparities, as well as ways of allocating grants to alleviatedisparities. In order to focus the presentation, we concentrateon lump-sum grants for unrestricted use from a state governmentto general purpose local governments within that state. We concludeby presenting an example of a grants formula for the state ofNew Jersey which meets our specifications.     

AN EVALUATION OF FURTHER REFORMS IN THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY'S PRESIDENTIAL NOMINATION PROCESS

By 1992, the party of the majority, the Democratic Party, will have been out of power for twenty years of a twenty-four year span. Since 1968, numerous reforms in the presidential nominating process have been considered and adopted by the Democrats. These reforms have had the effect of opening the nominating process to rank-and-file Democrats through state primaries and participatory caucuses. While the reforms achieve this purpose, the end result is a mixed system that has been described as a disjointed hodgepodge of rules.
This article presents ten criteria of a sound nomination system. Then a panel of researchers and practitioners weighs seven options for further reform against the ten criteria. Several policy options are considered by the panel as improvements over the current presidential nomination system.     

Boom and Bust Budgeting: Repetitive Budgetary Processes in Nigeria, Kenya and Ghana

One of the least studied topics in comparative budgeting is how governments budget during economic and boom and bust cycles. Theory and past evidence suggest that national budgets of poorer countries are made and remade continuously over these periods. Case material from Nigeria as well as supplemental information from Ghana and Kenya illustrate the principal features of the persistence, types, and sequence of such repetitive budgeting. The experience of the three countries in boom and bust budgeting has considerable implications both for a theory of comparative budgeting and for national budget management and policy in Subsaharan Africa specifically.     

Chicago political economy: A public choice perspective

George J. Stigler (Ed.), Chicago studies in political economy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988. Pages xviii + 641.     

Whose wants in ‘needs-based planning’? Some examples of unwritten agendas from the provincial integrated rural development programmes of Papua New Guinea

The rhetoric of ‘needs’-based planning requires little refining. What must be questioned and recognized are the values of decision makers and the unwritten agendas of those involved in the planning process. Taking the example of some of the integrated rural development programmes (IRDPs) in Papua New Guinea, this paper looks at the way planners and others cast development and information ‘nets’. These nets abrogate indigenous development processes. The ‘nets’ make it easy for development professionals and others involved in planning to follow unwritten agendas and difficult for target groups to articulate their ‘needs’ and to understand what is going on. It is suggested that these problems are not unique to PNG and may well be relevant to ‘needs based planning’ in other situations.