Willingness to pay taxes through mutual trust: The effect of fairness, governability, tax-enforcement and outsourcing on local tax collection rates

This study extends our understanding about the interrelationship between taxation policy, democracy and financial performance in local governments. Every government, particularly local ones, would like to make their residents more willing to pay taxes. Based on the trend of making local authorities less reliant on national budgets and the ever-increasing expectations that they provide high quality services, we investigated how public perceptions about the local government's fairness, tax enforcement, governability and the outsourcing of local tax collection affect the percentage of local property taxes collected. We used a survey of 607 Israeli residents randomly sampled from municipalities that do and do not outsource, and independent data about tax collection rates. The results indicate that perceptions about tax enforcement and governability mediate the relationship between perceptions about fairness and tax collection rates. However, only within local authorities that outsourced tax collection was there a positive relationship between perceptions about tax enforcement and tax collection rates and a positive relationship between perceptions about governability and tax collection rates. Implications of the findings are discussed in the era of local democracy and local governance

Can Leadership Transform Educational Policy? Leadership Style, New Localism and Local Involvement in Education

In the realm of new localism and collaboration, local educational policymakers are called upon for responsible community leadership. Given the conceptual continuum between new localism and transformational leadership, this study examines the relationship between the leadership style of local educational policymakers and the involvement of local authorities in education. Data were obtained from 107 questionnaires submitted by mayors and directors of education affiliated with 100 local authorities in Israel. As predicted, there was a positive relationship between transformational leadership and the local authorities’ involvement in education, measured using four factors, but only for sound local authorities. We used five criteria to determine the soundness of the local authorities. In contrast, among less sound local authorities, there was an inverse relationship between transformational leadership and involvement in education. In general, in such communities, leaders seemed to prefer to leave educational issues to the central government. Thus, we present evidence for the boundaries of educational transformational leadership in the educational governance arena. Education-related policies are on the agenda of leaders even in weaker local authorities, but only to the extent that these policies can serve as an instrument to meet specific needs of the local community. All in all, there is no “one size fits all” for all aspects of new localism—i.e., central regulation towards local government, local policy, local leadership, and civic participation. Accordingly, policymakers, local leaders and residents must fit themselves to the blurred boundaries of new localism and collaborate towards better education. Implications of the findings are discussed

The Impact of Training on Druze Entrepreneurs’ Attitudes Towards and Intended Behaviors Regarding Local Sustainability Governance: A Field Experiment at the Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve

This article expands our understanding of biosphere reserve management by exploring the effect of green business-guidance training. Biosphere reserves promote conservation while enabling sustainable use by local communities, in keeping with the notion of local sustainability governance. In practice, however, many local communities regard biosphere reserves as an obstacle to their economic growth and prosperity, resulting in active resistance to them. Given this complexity, we ask whether green business-guidance training changes entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards and intended behaviors regarding local sustainability governance. To test this question empirically, we used action research and designed a before-and-after field experiment in the Mount Carmel Biosphere Reserve in Israel. Our findings suggest that green business-guidance training has a significant positive effect on entrepreneurs’ attitudes towards and intended behaviors regarding local sustainability governance and that biosphere reserve managements can improve local sustainability governance performance via training. We discuss our findings and suggest new paths for research in theory and practice