{"title":"Institutional quality, corruption, and impartiality: the role of process and outcome for citizen trust in public administration in 173 European regions","authors":"S. Van de Walle, K. Migchelbrink","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2020.1719103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2020.1719103","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We empirically study whether citizens´ trust in public administration is influenced by the outcomes delivered by public services or by due process (administrative impartiality or absence of corruption) from a regional perspective. The paper fits a multilevel model on a unique dataset (N= 129,773) with observations nested in 173 European regions, using data from a series of pooled Eurobarometer surveys and from the European Quality of Government Index. We find that both public service outcomes and processes have a significant impact on citizens´ trust in public administration, but that process, and in particular absence of corruption is the strongest institutional determinant.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2020.1719103","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43127150","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Nationalizations, bailouts and efficiency","authors":"Ernesto Crivelli, Klaas Staal","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1566065","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1566065","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT We develop a theoretical model in which there are public and private firms and a government. When firms become insolvent, the government can intervene with bailouts or nationalizations. The government only intervenes when the bankruptcy of a firm entails social costs. In this setting, we analyze how government interventions affect allocative and productive efficiency. Nationalizations of private firms after unprofitable investments lead to increased allocative efficiency despite private ownership. The effort level chosen by the managers and employees working for a firm is also affected by the possibility of government interventions, reducing the productive efficiency advantage of private firms.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1566065","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42180571","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Determinants of institutional quality: an empirical exploration","authors":"J. Alonso, Carlos Garcimartín, Virmantas Kvedaras","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2020.1719102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2020.1719102","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Recent literature has underlined the role that institutions play in the process of development, making it essential to understand why differences exist in the quality of institutions across countries. The goal of this study is to investigate the determinants of institutional quality. Our results confirm that institutional quality is conditioned by variables that can be modulated by public policy, such as income per capita, international openness, education, taxation, and patterns of income (re)distribution. Our conclusions differ from the pessimistic outlooks of works highlighting deterministic factors, such as colonial or geographical factors, as determinants of institutional quality.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2020.1719102","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46629645","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A modeling framework for enhancing aid effectiveness","authors":"J. Lin, K. Vu, K. Hartley","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2018.1551137","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2018.1551137","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The development literature lacks consensus about the link between aid effectiveness and governance improvement. A basic rational actor model is introduced to clarify how donors can influence recipient behaviors and more broadly how foreign aid can support or impede governance quality improvement. Adopting the underutilized perspective of donor behavior, this study identifies mechanisms through which aid hinders governance improvement and offers substantive recommendations about how donors can enhance aid effectiveness, including strategies for donors to raise the level of effort recipients devote to project success.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-04-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2018.1551137","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44919245","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"From turnpikes to toll-roads: a short history of government policy for privately financed public infrastructure in Australia","authors":"Sebastian Zwalf","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2020.1716754","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2020.1716754","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Australia has been a world leader in the use of privately financed public infrastructure projects (PFPI), otherwise known as public private partnerships (PPPs), since their first use in the modern-PFPI-era commencing in 1980. This article argues that Australian PFPI has evolved through four key phases and tracks the key inflection points in debate. Critical dimensions in these phases include the enabling policy apparatus, tax status, competitive tension, risk transfer, accounting treatment, value-for-money, government guarantees and hybrid finance. It suggests that the evolution of PFPI policy can be attributed to political tendencies, responses to public scrutiny and advances in technical approaches.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-03-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2020.1716754","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41751995","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Re-interpreting re-municipalization: finding equilibrium","authors":"B. Voorn, Marieke L. van Genugten, S. van Thiel","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1701455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1701455","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The remunicipalization literature posits that municipalities increasingly reject privatization in favor of in-house service delivery. A frequent interpretation is that remunicipalization therefore demonstrates a rejection of business-like service delivery in local public service delivery. We perform a systematic review of the literature on remunicipalization, to argue why this interpretation may be inaccurate. First, remunicipalization often involves corporatization, and these public corporations are very business-like. Second, cost savings are often at the root of remunicipalization rather than political ideology. We call for a more nuanced debate on remunicipalization in the literature.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-02-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1701455","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44397348","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Politicians, bureaucrats and the public–private choice in public service delivery: anybody there pushing for remunicipalization?","authors":"Daniel Albalate, G. Bel","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1685385","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1685385","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Empirical evidence on remunicipalization remains scarce, and even more so as regards potential differences in the roles played by politicians and bureaucrats in service delivery reform. We use information obtained from a survey of Spanish municipalities to investigate differences in the service delivery preferences of politicians and technical staff, as well as differences in their respective propensities to reform. The results we obtain suggest that bureaucrats have both a stronger preference for private participation in service delivery and for reforming services than do politicians.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1685385","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48988323","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
C. Campos-Alba, Emilio José De La Higuera Molina, G. Pérez-López, J. Zafra-Gómez
{"title":"Drivers of contracting back in local governments: analysing efficiency, opportunistic political cycles, political corruption and financial factors","authors":"C. Campos-Alba, Emilio José De La Higuera Molina, G. Pérez-López, J. Zafra-Gómez","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1689359","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1689359","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The main aim of this paper is to examine the likelihood of local governments remunicipalising public services that were previously contracted out. To do so, we studied a sample of 141 Spanish municipalities with between 20,000 and 50,000 inhabitants, with particular reference to contracting back operations conducted in the period 2014–2016, using a random-effects panel logit model. We found that local authorities that contracted back public services were mainly influenced by the wish to achieve higher levels of efficiency, by political behaviour in a pre-electoral year, and by political corruption detected in the previous year.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1689359","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49486370","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Adjusting an institutional framework to a globalising world: the creation of new institutions in the EEC, 1957-1992","authors":"Emmanuel Mourlon-Druol","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1683009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1683009","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article explores the development of all new EEC institutions between 1957 and 1992 within policy areas relevant to the possible development of a European single currency. It argues that if most institutions created pre-1992 were not crisis management institutions as would be the case post-2008, some important institutions were created in response to the perception of a structural international banking/political/economic crisis, particularly in the 1970s. This comparison in time underlines the continuity of reflections about the missing elements of a functioning single currency area, the obstacles to reform, and sheds light on the radical institutional changes that occurred post-2008.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1683009","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43919743","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The socio-economic value of satellite earth observations: huge, yet to be measured","authors":"A. Tassa","doi":"10.1080/17487870.2019.1601565","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17487870.2019.1601565","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Earth-observing satellites provide regular and accurate data that can support evidence-based decisions and public policies in a wide range of domains, potentially bringing huge socio-economic benefits. However, obstacles to effective data exploitation and poor awareness about their impacts risk hindering this potentiality and threaten the investments. Leveraging on the case of the Copernicus Programme, we review the challenges related to the full exploitation of free environmental space data and to the measurement of the related impacts. We then discuss the need for empirical approaches based on value-chain analysis with the objective to stimulate further societal and economic research.","PeriodicalId":51737,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Economic Policy Reform","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":2.1,"publicationDate":"2020-01-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17487870.2019.1601565","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"49181078","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"经济学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}