In Search of Strategic Solutions: A Funders Briefing on Nonprofit Strategic Restructuring

Analyzes the options and benefits of nonprofit strategic restructuring. Examines the pressures that lead nonprofits to consider strategic restructuring, and the conditions that lead to, or prevent, successful results. Includes recommendations

Special Libraries, March 1941

Volume 32, Issue 3https://scholarworks.sjsu.edu/sla_sl_1941/1002/thumbnail.jp

AN OVERVIEW OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE SIZE OF LOCAL GOVERNMENT

This paper reviews many factors affecting the size of local government. These factors include: current demographic trends and changes in alternative service delivery arrangements, theoretical schools of thought, evidence on economies of size, whether current local governments are managed efficiently, and legal and political factors.Public Economics,

Health Center Financial Check-Up: Prescriptions for Strengthening New York's Diagnostic and Treatment Centers

Analyzes evidence of financial distress among nonprofit health centers and contributing factors for individual centers as well as the sector. Makes recommendations for the state, philanthropic organizations, public and private payers, and health centers

The Planning Tax: The Case against Regional Growth-Management Planning

Regional growth-management planning makes housing unaffordable and contributes to a business-unfriendly environment that slows economic growth. The high housing prices caused by growth-management planning were an essential element of the housing bubble that has recently shaken our economy: for the most part, this bubble was limited to urban regions with growth-management planning. In 2006, the price of a median home in the 10 states that have passed laws requiring local governments to do growth-management planning was five times the median family income in those states. At that price, a median family devoting 31 percent of its income (the maximum allowed for FHA-insured loans) to a mortgage at 6 percent, with a 10 percent down payment, could not pay off the mortgage on a median home in less than 59 years. In contrast, a median home in the 22 states that have no growth-management laws or institutions cost only 2.7 times the median family income. This meant a family could pay off a home in just 12.5 years. Growth-management tools such as urban-growth boundaries, adequate-public-facilities ordinances, and growth limits all drive up the cost of housing by artificially restricting the amount of land available or the number of permits granted for home construction. On average, homebuyers in 2006 had to pay $130,000 more for every home sold in states with mandatory growth-management planning than they would have had to pay if home price-to-income ratios were less than 3. This is, in effect, a planning tax that increases the costs of retail, commercial, and industrial developments as well as housing.The key to keeping housing affordable is the presence of large amounts of relatively unregulated vacant land that can be developed for housing and other purposes. The availability of such low-cost land encourages cities to keep housing affordable within their boundaries. But when state or other planning institutions allow cities to gain control over the rate of development of rural areas, they lose this incentive, and housing quickly becomes unaffordable. States with growth-management laws should repeal them, and other states should avoid passing them

Options for Regional Decision Making in Metro Atlanta

Who loses if nothing is done? The city of Atlanta, with its central location, mature transit network, excess capacity in utilities, and reasonably aggressive public officials will probably thrive no matter what happens outside the I-285 perimeter. Communities outside the boundaries of the ten-county Atlanta Regional Commission (ARC) area will enjoy the temporary fruits of being the next ring of new suburban development. Caught between the Atlanta magnet and the sprawling communities outside the ARC, ARC's suburban communities may bear the worst of the downside effects of the current regional decision-making structure. In the end, though, it is all of North Georgia that loses as congestion, pollution, rising taxes, and reduced quality of life diminish its attractiveness to economic development

Macroeconomic Policy Advice and the Article IV Consultations: A European Union Case Study

The IMF makes policy recommendations to European countries through its Article IV consultations and resulting papers. This paper examines IMF policy recommendations to see whether they have contributed to the ongoing crisis in Europe, and also how they might affect other European Union goals such as those of Europe 2020, which seeks to reduce social exclusion, promote public investment in research and development, and promote employment and education.The paper examines the policy advice given by the IMF to European Union countries in 67 Article IV agreements for the four years 2008-2011 (IMF 2012c).Content analysis finds a consistent pattern of policy recommendations, which indicates (1) a macroeconomic policy that focuses on reducing spending and shrinking the size of government, in many cases regardless of whether this is appropriate or necessary, or may even exacerbate an economic downturn; and (2) a focus on other policy issues that would tend to reduce social protections for broad sectors of the population (including public pensions, health care, and employment protections), reduce labor's share of national income, and possibly increase poverty, social exclusion, and economic and social inequality as a result.Europe remains mired in its second recession in three years, and the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) most recent (October 2012) World Economic Outlook (WEO) sees its problems as perhaps the most important drag on world economic growth. The IMF is also part of the so-called "troika" -- with the European Commission (EC) and European Central Bank (ECB) that has been deciding or strongly influencing economic policy in the eurozone, as well as affecting policy in the rest of the European Union, especially since the world economic crisis and recession of 2008-2009. This paper raises questions as to whether the IMF's policy advice has contributed to the ongoing economic problems in Europe

Hospital Integration and Vertical Consolidation: An Analysis of Acquisitions in New York State

While prior studies tend to view hospital integration through the lens of horizontal consolidation, I provide an analysis of its vertical aspects. I examine the effect of hospital acquisitions in New York State on the distribution of market share for major cardiac procedures across providers in target markets. I find evidence of benefits to acquirers via business stealing, with the resulting redistribution of volume across providers having small effects, if any, on total welfare with respect to cardiac care. The results of this analysis--along with similar assessments for other services--can be incorporated into future studies of hospital consolidation.