The Political Economy of Fiscal Policy

If there has been a dominant trend in the evolution of the modern industrial societies of this century it has been the growing importance of government in the allocation of social resources. It is important that we appreciate the fundamentally political nature of the formation of government economic policy. This survey reviews and assesses our present understanding of how the political system might shape a nation's fiscal policy. Our approach is eclectic, drawing both from economics and political science, and decidedly micro-analytic in its orientation. From economics we adopt the perspective of utility maximizing agents and the analytics of trade, agreement, and market failure. From political science we learn just how and when these individual agents might act collectively to provide public goods, redistribute income, or issue government debt. Together the micro-analytics of economics and political science form the core theory of the 'new' political economy and provide a framework for understanding the emergence, and the performance, of governments. There is no more important test for the new discipline than providing a compelling explanation for the formation of fiscal policy in democratic societies.

The Mechanism Design Approach to Student Assignment

The mechanism design approach to student assignment involves the theoretical, empirical, and experimental study of systems used to allocate students into schools around the world. Recent practical experience designing systems for student assignment has raised new theoretical questions for the theory of matching and assignment. This article reviews some of this recent literature, highlighting how issues from the field motivated theoretical developments and emphasizing how the dialogue may be a road map for other areas of applied mechanism design. Finally, it concludes with some open questions.National Science Foundation (U.S.

Media outlets and their moguls: why concentrated individual or family ownership is bad for editorial independence

This article investigates the levels of owner influence in 211 different print and broadcast outlets in 32 different European media markets. Drawing on the literature from industrial organisation, it sets out reasons why we should expect greater levels of influence where ownership of individual outlets is concentrated; where it is concentrated in the hands of individuals or families; and where ownership groups own multiple outlets in the same media market. Conversely, we should expect lower levels of influence where ownership is dispersed between transnational companies. The articles uses original data on the ownership structures of these outlets, and combines it with reliable expert judgments as to the level of owner influence in each of the outlets. These hypotheses are tested and confirmed in a multilevel regression model of owner influence. The findings are relevant for policy on ownership limits in the media, and for the debate over transnational versus local control of media

This Way Down to a Debt Crisis

What will happen if the United States continues to ignore the size and growth of the national debt? This Way Down to a Debt Crisis is a "magazine from the future" that "reports" what might happen if the nation does not address the many dangers posed by rising national debt.What would a genuine debt crisis look like? This Way Down looks at several possible outcomes if public debt continues to rise at current rates. Scenario articles include, "Quake from Treasury Default Spreads," Emergency Government Cutbacks Continue," "'Stagflation' Returns," "Why Slower Wage Growth?," and :"A Narrow Escape." "This Way Down shows dramatically the risks of the troubling fiscal policy followed by the United States for decades. Now is the time for a real debate on our federal budget misbehavior. Our economic future demands fixing our structural deficit," said Dr. Joseph J. Minarik, CED's Senior Vice President and Director of Research, who prepared the report. This Way Down to a Debt Crisis outlines several "alternative futures" -- the potential consequences of, and a possible political solution for, a U.S. debt crisis -- as they might occur, through hypothetical news articles. Although these articles are of course fictitious, and include fictitious characters to illustrate the human consequences, they are based on sound economics and finance. Because the future is unknowable, it is by no means certain that any one of these scenarios will occur as described. In fact, the future is highly likely to surprise us in many respects. However, CED believes that these scenarios reflect well the serious outcomes of continued policy failure in the stewardship of the federal budget

Creating a Legacy: Building a Planned Giving Program From the Ground Up

This book explores if, when, and how to use planned giving as part of a fundraising strategy. Includes tips and practical examples, as well as the dos and don'ts associated with building a well-integrated planned giving program

Beer - the ties that bind

It started with the Beer Orders (1989). A watershed decision was made by the Law Lords in July 2006. For one man, Bernie Crehan, this was the culmination of a 15 year episode in the pub trade, in which he has made legal history as the first UK case of damages for breach of competition law being awarded by a court. Possibly hundreds of other cases hung on their Lordships’ decision and Nomura, the Japanese bank that took over the chain called Inntrepreneur, had a total potential liability of £100m. And it all concerns Article 81, vertical agreements, and the price of a pint of beer. In 1989, the UK Monopolies and Mergers Commission published its lengthy and longawaited report on Beer. The Commission “…recommended measures that eventually led brewers to divest themselves of 14000 public houses. The MMC claimed that their recommendations would lower retail prices and increase consumer choice. There is considerable doubt, however, that their objectives were achieved.” (Slade, 1998, p565). In their report, the MMC noted rising real prices of beer and seized upon the power of the then big six brewers exercised through their considerable tied estates as being a prime motor. Consequently, they recommended that the ties be substantially cut. At that stage, the MMC (unlike the present day Competition Commission) did not determine remedies and it was left to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) to formulate the remedies (the Beer Orders) and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) to supervise their implementation. Thus the OFT found itself implementing the Beer Orders in the face of a brewing industry determined to fight back.

Victorian Women's Trust, Annual Report 2009/2010

We are an independent advocate for women and grant maker dedicated to improving the status of women and girls. We are now among the world's oldest women's funds, and pride ourselves on a thirty-year tradition of progressive philanthropy, strategically targeted to maximise our impact across the range of issues we seek to address - violence against women and girls, gendered discrimination and disadvantage, the quest for due recognition of the value of women's paid and unpaid work, and towards equal representation in the decision making processes that shape our lives