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Policy Advice (policy + advice)
Selected AbstractsReluctant Customers: Presidents and Policy AdviceINTERNATIONAL STUDIES REVIEW, Issue 1 2003Paul't Hart Groupthink or Deadlock: When Do Leaders Learn from Their Advisors? By Paul A. Kowert. Albany: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. 265 pp., $65.50 cloth (ISBN: 0-7914-5249-2), $21.95 paper (ISBN: 0-7914-5250-6). [source] An Evaluation Crucible: Evaluating Policy Advice in Australian Central AgenciesAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2000Michael Di Francesco Policy advice is a core function of government that until quite recently remained outside the formal processes of performance evaluation. Evaluation, by its very nature, is designed to question both the effectiveness and relevance of government activities; applying it to policy advice opens up a traditionally confidential and politically sensitive arena. This paper reports on an evaluation experiment in Australian government , policy management reviews (PMRs) , that sought to evaluate the quality of central agency policy advice. It traces the development of the PMR model around interdepartmental committee processes, the bureaucratic politics that diluted the focus on policy outcomes, and examines how central agencies steered evaluation away from questions of public accountability towards arrangements for achieving more effective control of the processes underpinning production of advice. By targeting the process rather than outcomes of policy advising, PMRs sought unsuccessfully to adhere to the divide between management and policy and, in doing so, marked out the limits to performance evaluation. [source] The political economy of natural disaster insurance: lessons from the failure of a proposed compulsory insurance scheme in GermanyENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 6 2007Reimund Schwarze Abstract This paper studies the politico-economic reasons for the refusal of a proposed compulsory flood insurance scheme in Germany. It provides the rationale for such a scheme and outlines the basic features of a market-orientated design. The main reasons for the political rejection of this proposal were the misperceived costs of a state guarantee, legal objections against a compulsory insurance, distributional conflicts between the federal government and the German states on the implied administrative costs and the well known charity hazard of ad hoc disaster relief. The focus on pure market solutions proved to be an ineffective strategy for policy advice in this field. Copyright © 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment. [source] Creating Securities Markets in Developing Countries: A New Approach for the Age of Automated TradingINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2001Benn Steil The past decade has been one of enormous change in the securities trading industry. Automation of trading systems, led by the continental European exchanges and US ,electronic communications networks' (ECNs), has resulted in significant declines in trading costs, massive increases in turnover, internationalization of trading and settlement system operations, and major reforms in exchange governance. Yet the policy advice given to developing country governments looking to create or expand securitized finance in their markets has been largely unaffected by these developments. This is unfortunate, as developing countries now have the opportunity to leapfrog the evolving infrastructure of the mature markets and to define the global efficient frontier in trading technology, exchange governance, investor access and market structure regulation. This paper analyses the technological and economic forces driving change in the securities trading industry, and examines the implications for developing markets. [source] Debt management in Brazil: evaluation of the real plan and challenges aheadINTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF FINANCE & ECONOMICS, Issue 1 2002Afonso S. Bevilaqua Abstract The Brazilian domestic debt has posed two challenges to policy-makers: it has grown very fast and its maturity is extremely short. This has prompted fears that a default or a compulsory lengthening scheme would be imposed. Here, we analyse the domestic public debt management experience in Brazil, searching for policy prescriptions for the next few years. After briefly reviewing the recent domestic public debt history, we decompose the large rise in federal bonded debt during 1995,2000, searching for its macroeconomic causes. The main culprits are the extremely high interest payments,which, until 1998, were caused by the weak fiscal stance and the quasi-fixed exchange-rate regime; and since 1999, by the impact of the currency depreciation on the dollar-indexed and the external debt,, and the accumulation of assets of doubtful value, much of which may have to be written off in the future. Simulation exercises of the net debt path for the near future underscore the importance of a tighter fiscal stance to prevent the debt-GDP ratio from growing further. Given the need to quickly lengthen the debt maturity, our main policy advice is to foster, and rely more on, inflation-linked bonds. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Promoting sustainable compliance: Styles of labour inspection and compliance outcomes in BrazilINTERNATIONAL LABOUR REVIEW, Issue 2-3 2008Roberto PIRES Abstract. Can workers' rights and social protections be reconciled with firms' competitiveness and productivity? In contrast to current development policy advice, which emphasizes the "flexibilization" of labour laws, this article contributes to an ongoing debate about styles of inspection by exploring the causal links between different regulatory practices and economic development and compliance outcomes. Findings from subnational comparisons in Brazil challenge established theories about the behaviours of firms and regulatory agencies, and indicate that labour inspectors have been able to promote sustainable compliance (legal and technical solutions linking up workers' rights with firms' performance) by combining punitive and pedagogical inspection practices. [source] Principal-Agent Problems in Humanitarian Intervention: Moral Hazards, Adverse Selection, and the Commitment DilemmaINTERNATIONAL STUDIES QUARTERLY, Issue 4 2009Robert W. Rauchhaus A number of recent studies have concluded that humanitarian intervention can produce unintended consequences that reduce or completely undermine conflict management efforts. Some analysts have argued that the incentive structure produced by third parties is a form of moral hazard. This paper evaluates the utility of moral hazard theory and a second type of principal-agent problem known as adverse selection. Whereas moral hazards occur when an insured party has an opportunity to take hidden action once a contract is in effect, adverse selection is the result of asymmetric information prior to entering into a contract. Failing to distinguish between these two types of principal-agent problems may lead to policy advice that is irrelevant or potentially harmful. Along with introducing the concept of adverse selection to the debate on humanitarian intervention, this study identifies a commitment dilemma that explains why third parties operating in weakly institutionalized environments may be unable to punish groups that take advantage of intervention. [source] An Evaluation Crucible: Evaluating Policy Advice in Australian Central AgenciesAUSTRALIAN JOURNAL OF PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION, Issue 1 2000Michael Di Francesco Policy advice is a core function of government that until quite recently remained outside the formal processes of performance evaluation. Evaluation, by its very nature, is designed to question both the effectiveness and relevance of government activities; applying it to policy advice opens up a traditionally confidential and politically sensitive arena. This paper reports on an evaluation experiment in Australian government , policy management reviews (PMRs) , that sought to evaluate the quality of central agency policy advice. It traces the development of the PMR model around interdepartmental committee processes, the bureaucratic politics that diluted the focus on policy outcomes, and examines how central agencies steered evaluation away from questions of public accountability towards arrangements for achieving more effective control of the processes underpinning production of advice. By targeting the process rather than outcomes of policy advising, PMRs sought unsuccessfully to adhere to the divide between management and policy and, in doing so, marked out the limits to performance evaluation. [source] Fishing Rights as an Example of the Economic Rhetoric of Privatization: Calling for an Implicated Economics,CANADIAN REVIEW OF SOCIOLOGY/REVUE CANADIENNE DE SOCIOLOGIE, Issue 3 2000Melanie G. Wiber Au cours des dernières années, toutes les sciences sociales ont eu à produire des travaux de recherche aux répercussions d'ordre public. Mais dans quelle mesure ces sciences sociales devraient-elles inter-venir dans le domaine de l'ordre public quand leurs recommandations dans ce domaine créent des situations inattendues et préjudiciables? Dans cet article, nous nous penchons sur cette question en étudiant l'exemple de l'économie et des modèles de droits privés de propriété dans les pêcheries des provinces de l'Atlantique. Ces modèles sont comparés et mis en contraste avec les modèles anthropologiques et juridiques afin de montrer dans quel domaine et pour quelle raison l'économie s'est égarée dans l'élaboration de modèles de droits de propriété sur les ressources halieutiques. De ce fait, les recommandations de politique économique en matière de droits de propriéte dans l'industrie de la pêche sont erronées. En conclusion, nous proposons que les économistes soignent leur rhétorique afin de susciter des attentes et de créer des solutions qui donnent un caractère plus raisonnable à leurs recommandations. In recent years, all the social sciences have come under pressure to produce research that has public policy implications. But how implicated should those social sciences be when their policy advice leads to unexpected and perhaps detrimental outcomes? This paper explores this issue using the example of economics and private property rights in the Canadian Maritime fisheries. It compares and contrasts economic models of property rights with those in anthropology and law to show where and why economics has gone astray in its fish property rights models. It suggests that, having gone astray, economic policy advice on fisheries property systems is flawed. It concludes that economists should pay more attention to the role of their rhetoric in the construction of expectations and outcomes that make their recommendations seem the more reasonable. [source] | |||||||||||||