Benevolent Governance and Fiscal Federalism in Veit Ludwig von Seckendorff’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Teutscher Fürsten Stat</Emphasis> (1656): Comment on Erik S. Reinert

The author comments on Erik S. Reinert’s presentation held at the 17{th} Heilbronn Symposion in Economics and the Social Sciences in June 2004.     

How parties and interest groups protect their ties: The case of lobbying laws

Scholars have recently shown renewed interest in the study of party-interest group ties. According to previous studies, traditional ties between parties and organized interest are a matter of the past. Globalization, deindustrialization, and neoliberalism have posed serious challenges to their survival. Recent contributions suggest that, while these ties are indeed weaker than before, they have not disappeared. How do parties and groups protect their ties? This paper attempts to provide a partial, though often neglected, answer: their relationship survives when both actors work together to protect it. While previous literature identified regulatory policies, such as ethics and transparency regulations, as detrimental to party-group ties, their introduction is erroneously treated as independent from these ties. Through a comparative case study of the introduction of lobbying laws in Austria, Australia, and Ireland, this paper suggests that parties and groups shape the content of lobbying regulations in such a way to protect their relationship.     

Economic resilience after the Great Recession: an examination of unreserved fund balance in Michigan counties

ABSTRACT

This paper examines fiscal slack, in the form of unreserved fund balance, as a tool used by local governments to enhance economic resilience. It adapts ecological, engineering, and organisational definitions of economic resilience and investigate their relevance to local financial management in the United States after the Great Recession in 2008. Using group-based trajectory modelling, we identify different strategies of fund balances used by Michigan counties. The change of fund balance does not delineate any pattern theorised by the resilience concepts. We also find different factors that motivate local officials to manage their fund balances differently. The study suggests a nuanced understanding of fiscal slack used by local governments for economic resilience that goes beyond unreserved fund balance.     

Poor versus rich countries: a gap in public attitudes towards fiscal solidarity in the EU

Abstract

Existing research has primarily focused on the role of utility and identity in shaping individuals’ European Union (EU) preferences. This article argues that macroeconomic context is a crucial predictor of attitudes towards transnational financial assistance, which has been omitted from previous analyses. Using data from the 2014 European Election Studies (EES) Voter Study for 28 EU member states, this article demonstrates that citizens living in poorer EU countries are less willing to support fiscal solidarity than their counterparts in more affluent countries. Country affluence serves as a heuristic, moderating the relationship between individual-level utility and identity considerations and willingness to show solidarity to member states with economic difficulties. When a country does not fare well economically, citizens’ views on providing help to others remain negative, irrespective of individual-level utilitarian and identity considerations. Our findings have implications for understanding the decision-making calculus underlying preference formation.     

财政政策与财政法

近年来,在我国财政领域,财政政策增长很快,但财政法律却没有相应地增长。财政政策的增长可以从权利增长、风险社会等角度得到解释,但财政立法的停滞只能从法律工具主义、法律虚无主义、经典计划经济体制的家长制等方面进行解释。财政领域＂政策繁多而法律稀缺＂的弊端是很多的,它不但导致了政策的效力递减甚至失效,解决不了复杂的社会经济问题,而且还导致了人们法律意识和价值观的扭曲。因此,加强、加快财政立法,哪怕是先出台不完善、不成熟的财政立法,也胜于财政立法的缺位。在立法机关与行政机关之间进行财政权的分权和制衡,是我国财政法治建设的根本出路。     

20世纪90年代以来日本财政政策失效成因

二战后,日本通过实施凯恩斯的积极财政政策,实现了经济的高速增长。然而,伴随着20世纪90年代经济的长期萧条,传统的财政政策失效。本文通过巴罗模型检验了日本各项财政支出对经济增长的影响。实证分析结果表明：公共投资效果不佳成为日本财政政策失效的主要原因,而优化公共投资结构、提高公共投资乘数、调整财政支出结构,防范财政风险可以提高日本财政政策效应。     

Fiscal Decentralization in Comparative Perspective: Analysis of the Intergovernmental Grant Systems in Indonesia and Thailand

Decentralization can inadvertently lead to local fiscal disparity. One type of intergovernmental fiscal transfers, the general-purpose grant, can help equalize local fiscal imbalances. This article examines the extent to which the general-purpose grant systems in Indonesia and Thailand help mitigate local fiscal disparity. The findings show that the general-purpose grant system in Thailand does not effectively address disparities in local fiscal conditions. Localities with more own-source revenues and higher per capita income receive more general-purpose grants than those with weak fiscal capacity. In contrast, Indonesia’s general-purpose grant allocation system provides more resources for economically disadvantaged and conflict-ridden provinces.     

GIS supporting intelligence-led policing

Tightening budgets and increased demand for public accountability has placed additional stress on already limited police department resources. Web-based crime mapping provides significant improvement over previous methods of information dissemination, allowing police departments to continue to work quickly and efficiently within these limitations. This modern technology has enabled a more proactive approach to policing, including intelligence led-policing and public facing crime maps. As such, officers are now able to better consider spatial patterns related to historic crime, and determine more informedly where crimes may occur in the future, and allocate their limited resources accordingly.     

In Defence of British Politics Against the British Political Tradition

This article explores some of the current themes round the perceived crisis in British politics in supposed an age of ‘anti‐politics’. Drawing on Bernard Crick's In Defence of Politics, it offers a critique of what is referred to as a dominant British political tradition and in so doing seeks to challenge ‘demand‐side’ accounts that ostensibly defend the traditional arena politics of the Westminster system. Instead, it argues that developments around issues such as big data, social media and freedom of information have led to a more open society in recent years. It concludes by suggesting that if traditional political institutions wish to restore a greater degree of legitimacy, they need to ‘do’ or, more particularly, ‘supply’ politics differently, adapting to these changes by seeking out new modes of openness, engagement and accountability.     

Public Financial Management Systems and Countries' Governance: A Cross‐Country Study

The objective of this study is to explore whether a relationship exists between public financial management (PFM) systems and expert perceptions of countries' governance in an international cross‐country study. We examine the extent to which variations in accounting, budgeting and auditing practices are associated with governance in a sample of 97 countries that represent different levels of development, analysing the differences between countries classified into factor, efficiency and innovation‐driven economies. Our concept of governance perception includes three dimensions: accountability, government effectiveness and corruption. We find that countries with a higher level of economic development show, on average, more sophisticated PFM systems characterized by the presentation of accrual‐based financial statements, the application of value for money audits and higher budget transparency. When analysing the sub‐samples of countries according to the level of economic development, we find that countries with similar governance perception scores show different patterns of PFM practices, suggesting that there is no one‐size‐fits‐all approach. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.