Fiscal Responsibility and Multi-Level Governance

Author(s):  
Enrico Guarini ◽  
Anna Francesca Pattaro

Public-policy assumptions regarding sub-national governments' financial behavior are based on economic rationality. Therefore, to achieve fiscal stability at the macro level, central governments use fiscal rules both to constrain the behavior of local policymakers and to resolve deficit/debt biases. Using the Italian fiscal governance system as an illustrative example, this chapter considers both the tensions derived from achieving fiscal responsibility at the national level in a decentralized environment and the difficulties of maintaining adequate performance at the local government level. It is argued that the public management perspective can be helpful not only at the micro level but also at the macro level in developing public policies to promote fiscal stability. It is suggested that public policy should adopt a more holistic approach toward fiscal responsibility in multi-level governance environments. Such an approach requires a deep understanding of the determinants of financial viability of public sector organizations.

2020 ◽  
pp. 2268-2294
Author(s):  
Enrico Guarini ◽  
Anna Francesca Pattaro

Public-policy assumptions regarding sub-national governments' financial behavior are based on economic rationality. Therefore, to achieve fiscal stability at the macro level, central governments use fiscal rules both to constrain the behavior of local policymakers and to resolve deficit/debt biases. Using the Italian fiscal governance system as an illustrative example, this chapter considers both the tensions derived from achieving fiscal responsibility at the national level in a decentralized environment and the difficulties of maintaining adequate performance at the local government level. It is argued that the public management perspective can be helpful not only at the micro level but also at the macro level in developing public policies to promote fiscal stability. It is suggested that public policy should adopt a more holistic approach toward fiscal responsibility in multi-level governance environments. Such an approach requires a deep understanding of the determinants of financial viability of public sector organizations.


Author(s):  
ALEXANDER I. CHERKASOV

The system of multi-level governance is being established in the countries — members of the European Union, within the framework of which there is considerable redistribution of authority between the main levels of power. These levels — supranational, national and subnational — are becoming increasingly interdependent, and there is the lack of unambiguous domination of a single particular level of power or an institute.The decision-making mechanism within the multi-level governance system is sufficiently fragmented. It is consensus — based and involves participation of not only formal state institutions but also of different non-governmental structures connected with the civil society. Finally, we have a new system of mutual relations between the state and the society with borders becoming more transparent.There are two major dimensions of the multi-level governance being described in the scientific literature — the "vertical", based on the interaction of three power levels mentioned above, and the "horizontal", involving the dynamic interaction of state and non-governmental structures, with the activities of the latter being often of a network origin. Mutual relations of the power levels in the European Union are complex and dialectical. The subnational level begins to play an increasingly important role, and this role is no longer necessarily mediated by governments of the corresponding countries, i.e. by the national level. Subnational authorities are active on the European arena through their representative offices and channels of communication available to them. Meanwhile many European states failed so far to create more or less strong regions able to perform significant powers and to serve as real limiters to the powers of their national governments.With consideration of asymmetry typical for the territorial organization of public power in the European Union and the growing economic and political crisis the perspectives of the multi-level governance seem to be rather vague. The ideologists of the corresponding concept managed only to give a new interpretation of the decision-making process in the European Union, but they failed to describe clearly enough the mechanisms of further development of the European integration.


Author(s):  
Priyastiwi Priyastiwi

The purpose of this article is to provide the basic model of Hofstede and Grays’ cultural values that relates the Hofstede’s cultural dimensions and Gray‘s accounting value. This article reviews some studies that prove the model and develop the research in the future. There are some evidences that link the Hofstede’s cultural values studies with the auditor’s judgment and decisions by developing a framework that categorizes the auditor’s judgments and decisions are most likely influenced by cross-cultural differences. The categories include risk assessment, risk decisions and ethical judgments. Understanding the impact of cultural factors on the practice of accounting and financial disclosure is important to achieve the harmonization of international accounting. Deep understanding about how the local values may affect the accounting practices and their impacts on the financial disclosure are important to ensure the international comparability of financial reporting. Gray’s framework (1988) expects how the culture may affect accounting practices at the national level. One area of the future studies will examine the impact of cultural dimensions to the values of accounting, auditing and decision making. Key word : Motivation, leadership style, job satisfaction, performance


Author(s):  
Sona N. Golder ◽  
Ignacio Lago ◽  
André Blais ◽  
Elisabeth Gidengil ◽  
Thomas Gschwend

Voters face different incentives to turn out to vote in one electoral arena versus another. Although turnout is lowest in European elections, it is found that the turnout is only slightly lower in regional than in national elections. Standard accounts suggest that the importance of an election, in terms of the policy-making power of the body to be elected, drives variation in turnout across elections at different levels. This chapter argues that this is only part of the story, and that voter attachment to a particular level also matters. Not all voters feel connected to each electoral arena in the same way. Although for some, their identity and the issues they most care about are linked to politics at the national level, for others, the regional or European level may offer the political community and political issues that most resonate with them.


Author(s):  
Alec Stone Sweet ◽  
Clare Ryan

In Europe, a cosmopolitan legal order was instantiated through the combined impact of Protocol no. 11 of the ECHR (1998), and the incorporation of the Convention into national legal systems. As a result, two processes—(i) the evolution of constitutional pluralism at the national level; and (ii) the development of rights protection at the transnational level—became causally connected to one another. The first undermined traditional models of domestic orders wherein the notions of constitutional unity and centralized sovereignty reinforced one another. The second process created a multi-level legal system whose effectiveness depends on the extent to which the European Court is able to induce and sustain the cooperation of national courts and officials. The constitutionalization of the proportionality principle, at both the domestic and transnational levels, provided a doctrinal interface for inter-jurisdictional dialogue, and the collective enforcement of the UPR.


Author(s):  
John McCarthy ◽  
Tibor Bors Borbély-Pecze

Public policy formation and implementation for career guidance provision are complex issues, not least because in most countries career guidance is a peripheral part of legislation for education, employment, and social inclusion. Policy solutions are compromises by nature. Regulations and economic incentives are the main policy instruments for career guidance provision, but there is often incoherence between the intentions of the regulations and the economic incentives provided for policy implementation. The intermediary organizations that serve to implement policy add significant variability to policy effects. International bodies and organizations have shown significant interest in the role of career guidance in education and employment policies through the undertaking of policy reviews, the formulation of recommendations for career guidance, and, in some cases, providing economic incentives to support their implementation. However, there is a dearth of evaluation studies of policy formation and implementation at the national level.


2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (5) ◽  
pp. 727-744
Author(s):  
Sujani Thrikawala ◽  
Stuart Locke ◽  
Krishna Reddy

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between corporate governance (CG) and microfinance institution (MFI) performance, using a dynamic panel generalised method of moments (GMM) estimator to mitigate the serious issues with endogeneity. Design/methodology/approach Inconsistent findings and a general lack of empirical results for the microfinance industry leave an unclear message regarding the impacts of CG on MFI performance, especially in emerging economies. The authors use GMM estimation techniques to examine whether CG has an influence on MFI performance. Findings This study confirms that the MFIs’ contemporaneous performance and CG characteristics are statistically significantly positively linked with their past performance. This study finds statistically significant governance effects on MFI performance, including the presence of international directors and/or donor representatives on the board, client representatives on the board, percentage of non-executive directors and the quality of the national governance system. Practical implications These findings provide some insights for policy-makers and practitioners to develop suitable policies and guidelines to streamline MFIs’ operations in emerging countries. Moreover, national and international investors and donors may use these finding as a benchmark for their investment and funding decisions. Originality/value This paper is the first to estimate the CG and performance relationship of MFIs in a dynamic framework by applying the GMM estimation method. This approach improves upon traditional estimation methods by controlling the likely sources of endogeneity. Further, this paper examines whether quality of national-level governance characteristics is related to performance measures of profitability and outreach of MFIs.


2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 3-6
Author(s):  
Prof. univ. dr. habil. Mihaela Rus ◽  
Lect. univ. dr. Mihaela Sandu ◽  
Tanase Tasente

We can talk about public policies when a public authority - central or local - intends, with the help of a coordinated action program, to modify the economic, social, cultural environment of social actors. At national level, public policies can appear from any of the major state institutions (Parliament, President, Government, central or local authorities). The study of public policies is different from the traditional academic research, having an applied approach, oriented towards: (1) designing and developing solutions for the problems of society, (2) Interdisciplinarity, (3) Orientation towards problem solving: it does not have a purely academic character, but it is oriented towards the problems of the real world, looking for solutions for them, (4) Normativity. The general stages of this process are as follows: (1) defining the problem, (2) making the decision, (3) implementation of public policy, (4) monitoring and evaluation of public policy.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Vesa Jormanainen ◽  
Jarmo Reponen

We report the large-scale deployment, implementation and adoption of the nationwide centralized integrated and shared Kanta health information services by using the Clinical Adoption Framework (CAF). The meso and macro level dimensions of the CAF were incorporated early into our e-health evaluation framework to assess Health Information System (HIS) implementation at the national level. We found strong support for the CAF macro level model concepts in Finland. Typically, development programs were followed by government policy commitments, appropriate legislation and state budget funding before the CAF meso level implementation activities. Our quantitative data point to the fact that implementing large-scale health information technology (HIT) systems in practice is a rather long process. For HIT systems success in particular citizens’ and professionals’ acceptance are essential. When implementation of the national health information systems was evaluated against Clinical Adoption Meta-Model (CAMM), the results show that Finland has already passed many milestones in CAMM archetypes. According to our study results, Finland seems to be a good laboratory entity to study practical execution of HIT systems, CAF and CAMM theoretical constructs can be used for national level HIS implementation evaluation.


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