Competing Public Values Amidst Fiscal Crisis: The Case of State Takeover System in Michigan

The article analyzes contested reasoning and public values conflict in the state takeover of municipalities via emergency managers (EM) to address fiscal crisis. We investigate the following questions: (1) which public values are associated with the EM intervention strategies?; (2) is there a competition among those values? A content analysis of nearly 500 official documents in four Michigan municipalities reveals that EM interventions reflect a strive for fiscal accountability and legality at the expense of democratic values. This study contributes to the growing body of research on public values, and it advances our understanding of decision-making processes under stress.

“We just need the developer to develop”: Entrepreneurialism, financialization and urban redevelopment in Lexington, Kentucky

Since the 1980s US city governments have increased their use of more speculative means of financing economic redevelopment. This has involved experimenting with a variety of financial and taxation instruments as a way of growing their economies and redeveloping their built environments. This very general tendency, of course, masks how some cities have done well through the use of these instruments while others have not. The work to date has tended to pivot around a “winner-loser dichotomy”, which emphasises either the capacity of US cities to be able to experiment and speculate through the use of one financial instrument or another or their failings with these instruments, resulting in bankruptcy and fiscal crisis. This paper presents a case study of Lexington, Kentucky and using archival research and interviews we argue that speculative financial instruments are harder to choreograph for some cities than for others. We draw particular attention to US cities beyond those that tend to be over-represented in the metro-centric academic literature. This argument has conceptual significance. Building theory out of the experiences of US cities such as Lexington, Kentucky turns attention to the work required by city governments as they seek to finance the redevelopment of their downtowns. We make the case for a continued appreciation of the messy politics around the use of financial instruments, and its indeterminate, open and unpredictable nature in an era of fragile and uncertain entrepreneurial US urban policy-making.

Index of the Cycle of Money - The Case of Greece

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to apply the theory of cycle of money in the case of Greece. Prior works have determined the economic characteristics of the case of Latvia, Serbia, and Bulgaria, according to the concept of the theory of cycle of money. The index of the cycle of money suggests how an economic system should counteract a monetary and fiscal crisis and studies how well-structured is Greece’s economy. The estimations of the index of the cycle of money of Greece are compared with the global average index of the cycle of money. The results reveal that Greece is above the average global value. Then, Greece’s results reveal that it is a well-structured economy and can face an economic crisis. The current work is important as represents the strength of Greece’s economy with emphasis to the period of 2012 - 2017, of financial and economic crisis. The theory of the cycle of money covers the gap that exists for the structure and functionality of the economy, which formed on the derivative of GDP, giving the cycle of money. Moreover, it is the only theory that enhances the economy, without any negative effect of the fiscal or the monetary policy, as uses the same amount of money of an economy appropriately.

Crise Fiscal e seus Impactos nas Contas Públicas: um estudo de caso em Municípios do Pará, às margens da BR222 / Fiscal Crisis and its Impacts on Public Accounts: a case study in Municipalities of Pará, along the BR222

A crise econômica brasileira, desencadeada a partir de 2014, criou um ambiente de forte pressão por equilíbrio fiscal e intensificou os desafios para as administrações municipais. Esta pesquisa indica a estrutura que levou alguns municípios brasileiros ao seu status de desequilíbrio fiscal. O estudo analisou a conjuntura econômico-financeira de Abel Figueiredo, Bom Jesus do Tocantins, Dom Eliseu e Rondon do Pará, municípios paraenses que estão localizados às margens da BR222, entre os anos de 2014 a 2018, a fim de compreender os prováveis impactos decorrentes da crise fiscal e as particularidades inerentes a esta conjuntura. A pesquisa possui natureza qualitativa, trata-se de um estudo de caso múltiplo, que se realizou por meio de pesquisa bibliográfica, documental e a coleta de dados secundários. Analisou-se os demonstrativos contábeis municipais e os indicadores de gestão fiscal, baseando-se nos princípios financeiros e orçamentários contidos na Constituição Federal e os parâmetros estabelecidos pela Lei de Responsabilidade Fiscal. Os resultados da pesquisa apontam os desequilíbrios ocorridos nas finanças de todas as prefeituras analisadas e a dimensão da dependência destes municípios em relação aos repasses intergovernamentais. Dentre os principais problemas enfrentados pelo poder executivo destes municípios está a alta destinação de receita para as despesas com pessoal, o que acarreta em menos investimentos e maior rigidez do orçamento, estreita o espaço para novas despesas e para investimentos. Conclui-se que todos esses desajustes levaram estas cidades a uma situação fiscal crítica.

Ethical Problems in Nigerian Fiscal Administration (An Analysis of Political Emoluments and Remuneration)

Political Emoluments have never been only a Nigerian issue, but also a fiscal issue facing global economy today. It has become an ethical issue in public financial management, thereby hampering on the economic growth of national and international economies, respectively. Nevertheless, this paper takes into consideration such ethical issues, laying emphasis on the constitutional background of how this finance issue can be resolved legally and ethically. The major methodology to researching on this fiscal issue is a descriptive, explanatory, and prescriptive analysis, putting together the legal provisions of the Nigerian constitutions as a DNA for appropriate recommendations as a way forward. The paragraph 31 and 32 of the 3rd Schedule of the Nigerian Constitution is the major area of focus for the analysis of this paper, thereby drawing a line between the adoption of the written and spirit of the aforementioned section of the constitution in theory and practice in order to curb the fiscal crisis in the Nigerian public Emoluments laws.

Policing Protest

In Policing Protest Paul A. Passavant explores how the policing of protest in the United States has become increasingly hostile since the late 1990s, moving away from strategies that protect protesters toward militaristic practices designed to suppress protests. He identifies reactions to three interrelated crises that converged to institutionalize this new mode of policing: the political mobilization of marginalized social groups in the Civil Rights era that led to a perceived crisis of democracy, the urban fiscal crisis of the 1970s, and a crime crisis that was associated with protests and civil disobedience of the 1960s. As Passavant demonstrates, these reactions are all haunted by the figure of black insurrection, which continues to shape policing of protest and surveillance, notably in response to the Black Lives Matter movement. Ultimately, Passavant argues, this trend of violent policing strategies against protesters is evidence of the emergence of a post-democratic state in the United States.

What Is the Collapse of the USSR?

The article justifies why the collapse of the Soviet Union should be analyzed as the intersection of a number of diverse processes and phenomena. According to the author, the existing discord within the discussion about the reasons for the collapse of the USSR can be largely explained by the fact that researchers are not trying to determine the essence of the phenomenon they are studying and to reveal the totality of its features. The lack of the reflection on what exactly the end of the existence of the USSR was and when it happened, leads to isolating individual components of the process. As a result, some authors associate the collapse of the USSR with the dire economic straits, others consider the rise of nationalism to be the main culprit, others emphasize the role of specific actors, etc. In order to determine what exactly the collapse of the USSR meant and when it happened, the author identifies the fundamental characteristics of the entity itself, dividing it into the USSR-system and the USSR-state, and traces how these characteristics changed. His research shows that the collapse of the USSR can be divided into at least two different, albeit related processes: the collapse of the system and the collapse of the state. The collapse of the system meant a change in a self-describing narrative, the most important elements of which were the discourse of the indisputable achievements of the 1917 October Revolution, the CPSU’s monopoly of power and its monolithic nature, confrontation with the capitalist countries and the socialist (state-owned) economy. It is the breakdown of these “load-bearing structures” that predetermined the future collapse of the state, making it possible for destructive factors to materialize in the form of a fiscal crisis, intra-elite conflict and mass mobilization.

KNOWLEDGE ECONOMY, GLOBALIZATION AND TAXATION: WHAT CAN THE STATE DO?

The article analyzes the State’s fiscal crisis and the impact on social inequalities in the global age. The old instruments of fiscal and monetary policy have lost much of their effectiveness, and they no longer allow capitalism to be governed at its present stage of development. The changes in the productive forces, modifying profoundly the economic structure, vary over time the effectiveness and the practicability of the macroeconomic regulation tools available for governments. The article sustains that is necessary to circumscribe the level of deep integration achieved by current economies to restore the redistributive action in modern democracies and to safeguard welfare systems, in order to face the effects of the technological restructuring underway. Globalisation, financialisation, and technological change are inextricably interconnected in cognitive capitalism and therefore require a unitary policy action to be adequately addressed by governments.

Till austerity do us part? A survey experiment on support for the euro in Italy

The COVID-19 pandemic worsened Italy’s fiscal outlook by increasing public debt. If interest rates were to rise, it would become more likely that Italy experiences a financial crisis and requires a European bailout. How does making EU funds conditional on austerity and structural reforms affect Italians’ support for the euro? Based on a novel survey experiment, this article shows that a majority of voters chooses to remain in the euro if a bailout does not involve conditionality, but the pro-euro majority turns into a relative majority for ‘Italexit’ if the bailout is contingent on austerity policies. Blaming different actors for the fiscal crisis has little effect on support. These results suggest that conditionality may turn Italian voters against the euro.

Public Investment and Fiscal Crisis in Brazil: Finding Culprits and Solutions

We investigate the relation between existing fiscal rules and investments in the context of a fiscal crisis in Brazil. We analyze existing fiscal rules at national and subnational levels, their enforcement, and proposed alternatives. Using narrative analysis, case studies, interviews, empirical estimation, and model simulations, we conclude that public investment is not closely related to fiscal rules in Brazil but is mainly determined by fiscal conditions both at national and subnational (state) levels. It is the steady increase of personnel expenditures in real terms that underlies the fiscal deterioration of the last decade, despite the existence of fiscal rules devised to prevent it. We argue that a constitutional rule limiting subnationals personnel expenditures to 50 percent of net revenues, triggering adjustment measures when reaching 47.5 percent, would be an effective instrument for subnational fiscal management, opening fiscal space for increasing investments. At the national level, despite the existence of several fiscal rules, the only effective fiscal anchor is the primary expenditure ceiling introduced in 2016, which has successfully curbed expenditures, including those of the judiciary and legislature.