Did Jamie Oliver Really Put School Dinners on the Agenda? An Examination of the Role of the Media in Policy Making

Healthy eating is high on the government's agenda in current times and to all intents and purposes the media appears to have played a crucial role in putting it there. While media focus is no doubt intense and playing a vital role in public education (take Jamie Oliver's 2005 Channel 4 documentary, ‘School dinners’, for example), the question that lies at the heart of this article, is whether the media has led the government agenda on healthy eating and school dinners as appears to be the case. A close examination of the evidence suggests otherwise: government policy was already well set before the media began to show a concerted interest and hence its influence on policy‐making is more limited than might be expected. Rather than setting agendas per se, the media's role has been to refine and energise existing policy areas and to facilitate implementation.     

Eyes wide shut? Reforming and defusing checks and balances in Argentina

How effective are autonomous audit agencies (AAAs) in curbing corruption and improving fiscal governance in emerging economies? AAAs are autonomous oversight agencies tasked with scrutinising government finances. However, they are not as effective as they could or should be, partly because of the political constraints they face and the political economy context in which they are embedded. This article assesses the performance and trajectory of the Argentine AAA. It suggests that AAAs can have only a limited impact when formal fiscal institutions are undermined by informal practices and undercut by adverse political incentives. It further highlights the limits of radical reform strategies based on the import of exogenous institutional models. This research has important research and policy implications for the reform and strengthening of AAAs in developing countries. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

关于我国证券市场中政府行为的分析

本文从我国经济改革与我国证券市场的特点出发 ,分析了我国证券市场中政府行为的合理性 ,政府行为产生的原因、以及政府行为对我国证券市场运行机制的扭曲 ,并对规范我国证券市场中的政府行为提出了相关的建议。     

关于政府在互连网上形象的思考

政府在互连网上的形象关系到政府在公众心目中的地位。树立良好的政府网上形象的重要意义、现存问题及相应的完善措施应予以充分重视     

Financial Health in Australian Local Government: The Application of a Funding Assessment Model to Brisbane and Sydney City Councils

Local government financial viability measurement in an accrual budgeting environment poses complex challenges. Financial measures frequently generate conflicting results. A rating scale to assess financial management, constructed originally for South African municipalities (Dollery & Graves, 2009), represents a useful tool to analyze financial health trends. Applying a “Likert-like” scale to financial performance measures to assess “funding compliance”, the model in this article assists municipalities to avoid financial difficulties. To demonstrate the applicability of this model, we apply the model to the Brisbane City Council and the Sydney City Councils. Results show that the model represents a valuable aid to financial management decision-making.     

The Influence of Resistance to Change on Public-Sector Reform Implementation: The Case of Italian Municipalities’ Internal Control System

The present research tries to contribute to the academic debate on public management reform adoption, focusing on the reasons for the discrepancies between actual and formal changes and using resistance to change as theoretical basis. The study hypothesizes that high levels of individual and organizational resistance to change may be associated to the formal implementation of public management reforms. The research results allow to confirm the hypothesis when large-size municipalities are considered, while when considering medium-size entities a definite evidence of a relation between resistance to change and the formal implementation of the reforms does not emerge.     

Public Administration Reform and Its Implications for Foreign Petroleum Companies in Kazakhstan

Since 2000, Kazakhstan has followed the New Public Management reform trajectory in modernizing its public sector and public service delivery. This article employs an actor-centered perspective to examine the effects of the public administration reform and its implications for foreign petroleum companies in Kazakhstan. The study builds on primary sources in the form of 81 semi-structured interviews with public servants, representatives of foreign petroleum companies and experts. The main conclusion is that the reform effects are ambiguous. Despite some success in greater efficiency of public services, many weaknesses remain, with highly varying implications for foreign petroleum companies.     

Did the Big Stick Work? An Empirical Assessment of Scale Economies and the Queensland Forced Amalgamation Program

In 2007, the Queensland Government imposed forced amalgamation with the number of local authorities falling from 157 to just 73 councils. Amalgamation was based inter alia on the assumption that increased economies of scale would generate savings. This paper empirically examines pre- and post-amalgamation (2006/07 and 2009/10) for scale economies. For the 2006/07 data, evidence of economies of scale was found for councils with populations up to 98,000, and thereafter diseconomies of scale. Eight percent of councils in 2006/07 (ten councils) – representing 64% of the state’s population – exhibited diseconomies of scale. For the 2009/10 data, the average cost curve remained almost stationary at 99,000 residents per council, but almost 25% of all councils (thirteen councils) were now found to exhibit diseconomies of scale. The compulsory merger program thus increased the proportion of Queensland residents in councils operating with diseconomies of scale to 84%.     

Municipal Mergers in New Zealand: An Empirical Analysis of the Proposed Amalgamation of Hawke’s Bay Councils

Local government policymakers across the developed world have frequently employed municipal amalgamation to improve the operation of local councils, and New Zealand is no exception. This paper empirically examines claims made in Potential Costs and Savings of Local Government Reform in Hawke’s Bay that the merger of the five local authorities in the Hawke’s Bay Region of New Zealand would generate significant cost-savings. We empirically test for the existence of scale economies in a single merged Hawke’s Bay council and find that no cost-savings can be expected. This removes a key argument for a forced Hawke’s Bay amalgamation.     

Does Size Still Matter? An Empirical Analysis of the Effectiveness of Victorian Local Authorities

Efficiency approaches to the question of whether population size matters to optimal local government have proved largely inconclusive. However, recent exploratory empirical work employing an effectiveness approach – as proxied by citizen satisfaction survey data – offers a promising way forward. The present paper seeks to build upon an earlier cross-sectional analysis of Victorian local government by employing longitudinal data over a three-year period – 2008 to 2010 – for Victorian local authorities. The greater depth of data confirmed the positive associations with population density but suggests that negative linear relationships dominate over parabolic associations for population size. This result underlines the need for the collection of more local government citizen satisfaction data by Australian local government systems, given its potentially fruitful application in tackling contentious questions in contemporary local government policy debates.