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Policy Design (policy + design)
Selected AbstractsMonetary Policy Design: Institutional Developments from a Contractual PerspectiveINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 3 2000Carl E. Walsh Twenty years ago, most industrialized economies were just starting the costly process of disinflation. There was little consensus that these disinflations would be successful, or that low inflation once achieved could be maintained. While the USA achieved low inflation without changing its policy making institutions, many other countries did reform their central banking institutions, making them more independent of political influences. In this paper, I address three questions. First, is independence enough? Second, how do the details of an institution's structure translate, through their impact on incentives, into different policy outcomes? And third, can institutions serve as commitment mechanisms? [source] Policy Design and the Acceptability of Environmental Risks: Nuclear Waste Disposal in Canada and the United StatesPOLICY STUDIES JOURNAL, Issue 1 2000Michael E. Kraft This article examines the controversial process of developing high-level nuclear waste disposal policy in Canada, with some comparison to experience in the United States. It argues that a policy design perspective can assist in understanding the difficult social and political issues associated with waste disposal and the environmental and health risks that it poses. I examine several critical questions related to such an endeavor and link them to long-term goals of building a sustainable society. Success in formulating and implementing a nuclear waste policy in Canada will depend on the nation's capacity to create requisite processes of public participation. Particularly important are those actions that can help the public understand and assess environmental risks, including related ethical and social issues, and build public trust and confidence in the siting processes and the implementing agencies. [source] Private Property and the Law of Nature in Locke's Two Treatises: The Best Advantage of Life and ConvenienceAMERICAN JOURNAL OF ECONOMICS AND SOCIOLOGY, Issue 3 2009B. Jeffrey Reno The study of policy lies at the intersection of economics and ethics, dealing, to a great extent, with private property. Policy design therefore assumes an understanding of the relationship between property and human nature, a matter of great interest to John Locke. Locke's teaching, however, is far from clear, often composed of a set of dual arguments. Yet close attention to the dualistic arguments is revealing: the two objects Locke associates with property,life and convenience,correspond to the two bases upon which he grounds the right to property: labor and consent. His argument reflects the changing economic nature of property, and also provides insight into the poles within which people behave according to the Law of Nature. Thus, a full explication of the relationship between Locke's Law of Nature and doctrine of property illuminates the economic and ethical principles that ought to inform policymakers and analysts. [source] What Happens to the State in Conflict?: Political Analysis as a Tool for Planning Humanitarian AssistanceDISASTERS, Issue 4 2000Lionel Cliffe It is now part of received wisdom that humanitarian assistance in conflict and post-conflict situations may be ineffective or even counterproductive in the absence of an informed understanding of the broader political context in which so-called ,complex political emergencies' (CPEs) occur. Though recognising that specific cases have to be understood in their own terms, this article offers a framework for incorporating political analysis in policy design. It is based on a programme of research on a number of countries in Africa and Asia over the last four years. It argues that the starting-point should be an analysis of crises of authority within contemporary nation-states which convert conflict (a feature of all political systems) into violent conflict; of how such conflict may in turn generate more problems for, or even destroy, the state; of the deep-rooted political, institutional and developmental legacies of political violence; and of the difficulties that complicate the restoration of legitimate and effective systems of governance after the ,termination' of conflict. It then lists a series of questions which such an analysis would need to ask , less in order to provide a comprehensive check-list than to uncover underlying political processes and links. It is hoped these may be used not only to understand the political dynamics of emergencies, but also to identify what kinds of policy action should and should not be given priority by practitioners. [source] Cost of compliance assessments and the water industry in England and WalesENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2002Paul McMahon Environmental compliance cost assessments (CCAs) are being increasingly demanded and used in the water industry, in order to allow regulators to balance conflicting objectives. The 1999 periodic review of water company price limits concerned massive environmental expenditures, and consequently major use of CCAs. There were major differences between Ofwat (the economic regulator) and the water companies relating to the compliance costs submitted. The assumptions used by Ofwat vis-ŕ-vis future efficiency savings and the cost of capital are notable causes of the differentials. There are a number of other reasons why this differential might have arisen, including gaming. However, the principal cause might be more a real lack of knowledge on the part of companies of future efficiencies and the actual costs of projects. The CCAs produced in the water industry have had massive impact on policy design. A number of specific improvements to CCA are identified. These changes relate to increased collaboration between industry and regulators in working groups to design/approve, inter alia, regulatory methodologies for use in the periodic review. More detailed guidance is required for preparation of a CCA. Further use of compliance cost databases is recommended. The entire process would be facilitated by increased training and awareness raising of economics for the engineers largely responsible for preparation of CCAs. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment. [source] The need for adaptability in EU environmental policy design and implementationENVIRONMENTAL POLICY AND GOVERNANCE, Issue 5 2001Matthieu Glachant Is the application of the EU environmentally policy satisfying in the field? In particular, are the environmental objectives set in the directives met? This paper explores the issue of the effectiveness of the European environmental policy. It is based on the results of a recent study, which has consisted in evaluating the implementation of three pieces of EU environmental legislation in France, Germany, Netherlands and United Kingdom. The legislation studied was Directive 89/429 regulating atmospheric emissions from domestic waste incinerators, Directive 88/609 dealing with SO2 and NOx emissions from large combustion plants (LCPs) and Council Regulation 1836/93 concerning the voluntary participation of industrial companies in an EU Eco-Management and Audit Scheme (EMAS). The result of the study suggests that simply posing the problem in terms of ,implementation deficit' is not sufficient. In fact, over-compliance with directive goals is even observed in certain cases. By contrast, the evaluation suggests the prevalence of interactions between the considered implementation process and other parallel policy processes at the implementation stage. The study shows that this interplay between policies has a huge impact on implementation environmental results, which can be either positive or negative. Based on this statement, an important question for EU policy is how implementation can efficiently cope with such interactions, which means finding ways to maximize potential synergies, or alternatively to reduce inconsistencies, with the other policy components. Given that policy interactions are difficult to predict at the policy formulation stage of the policy, adjustments necessarily occur at the implementation stage. In this context, implementing EU environmental policy requires policy systems able to adjust at low costs. In this paper, this property is called adaptability and is given a precise content. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment [source] The Distribution of Wealth of Older Self-Employed BritonsFISCAL STUDIES, Issue 1 2003Simon C. Parker Abstract Little is known about the wealth of older self-employed people, despite growing interest in this labour market group. This paper utilises the British Retirement Survey to fill the gap by providing novel estimates of their lifetime wealth. The findings dispel the idea that the self-employed live in poverty; indeed, they seem to be a relatively wealthy group, holding a broad spread of assets and subject to moderate lifetime wealth inequality. These findings may help inform modelling of retirement behaviour of this group, as well as pension policy design. [source] Fiscal Policy and UncertaintyINTERNATIONAL FINANCE, Issue 2 2002Alan J. Auerbach Government fiscal aggregates are often manipulated over the course of the business cycle in order to provide counter,cyclical stimulus. Changes that are not discretionary , the so,called ,built,in stabilizers', also significantly vary over the business cycle, in a manner that is even more predicatable than the periodic discretionary measures. Such measures introduce important bi,directional interactions between policy and uncertainty. On the one hand, activist policy may heighten the general level of uncertainty in the economy, by adding policy ambiguity to the more fundamental sources of uncertainty. On the other hand, the design of optimal policy itself depends crucially on levels of uncertainty concerning the state of the economy in the short and long run. In this paper we review recent work that explores the impact of uncertainty on optimal policy design, proceeding from the short to the long run. [source] District health systems in a neoliberal world: a review of five key policy areas,INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF HEALTH PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT, Issue S1 2003Malcolm Segall Abstract District health systems, comprising primary health care and first referral hospitals, are key to the delivery of basic health services in developing countries. They should be prioritized in resource allocation and in the building of management and service capacity. The relegation in the World Health Report 2000 of primary health care to a ,second generation' reform,to be superseded by third generation reforms with a market orientation,flows from an analysis that is historically flawed and ideologically biased. Primary health care has struggled against economic crisis and adjustment and a neoliberal ideology often averse to its principles. To ascribe failures of primary health care to a weakness in policy design, when the political economy has starved it of resources, is to blame the victim. Improvement in the working and living conditions of health workers is a precondition for the effective delivery of public health services. A multidimensional programme of health worker rehabilitation should be developed as the foundation for health service recovery. District health systems can and should be financed (at least mainly) from public funds. Although in certain situations user fees have improved the quality and increased the utilization of primary care services, direct charges deter health care use by the poor and can result in further impoverishment. Direct user fees should be replaced progressively by increased public finance and, where possible, by prepayment schemes based on principles of social health insurance with public subsidization. Priority setting should be driven mainly by the objective to achieve equity in health and wellbeing outcomes. Cost effectiveness should enter into the selection of treatments for people (productive efficiency), but not into the selection of people for treatment (allocative efficiency). Decentralization is likely to be advantageous in most health systems, although the exact form(s) should be selected with care and implementation should be phased in after adequate preparation. The public health service should usually play the lead provider role in district health systems, but non-government providers can be contracted if needed. There is little or no evidence to support proactive privatization, marketization or provider competition. Democratization of political and popular involvement in health enhances the benefits of decentralization and community participation. Integrated district health systems are the means by which specific health programmes can best be delivered in the context of overall health care needs. International assistance should address communicable disease control priorities in ways that strengthen local health systems and do not undermine them. The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria should not repeat the mistakes of the mass compaigns of past decades. In particular, it should not set programme targets that are driven by an international agenda and which are achievable only at the cost of an adverse impact on sustainable health systems. Above all the targets must not retard the development of the district health systems so badly needed by the rural poor. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source] Reforming pensions: Principles, analytical errors and policy directionsINTERNATIONAL SOCIAL SECURITY REVIEW, Issue 2 2009Nicholas Barr Abstract This article, sets out a series of principles for pension design rooted in economic theory: pension systems have multiple objectives, analysis should consider the pension system as a whole, analysis should be framed in a second-best context, different systems share risks differently, and systems have different effects by generation and by gender. That discussion is reinforced by identification of a series of widespread analytical errors , errors that appear in World Bank work, but by no means only in World Bank work: tunnel vision, improper use of first-best analysis, improper use of steady-state analysis, incomplete analysis of implicit pension debt, incomplete analysis of the impact of funding (including excessive focus on financial flows, failure to consider how funding is generated, and improper focus on the type of asset in trust funds), and ignoring distributional effects. The second part of the article considers implications for policy: there is no single best pension design, earlier retirement does little or nothing to reduce unemployment, unsustainable pension promises need to be addressed directly, a move from pay-as-you-go towards funding in a mandatory system may or may not be welfare improving, and implementation matters , policy design that exceeds a country's capacity to implement it is bad policy design. We illustrate the ranges of designs of pension systems that fit the fiscal and institutional capacity constraints typical at different levels of economic development. The potential gains from simplicity imply that a country capable of implementing an administratively demanding plan does not necessarily gain from doing so. New Zealand has a simple pension system through choice, not constraint. [source] The Economics of Nonpoint Pollution ControlJOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SURVEYS, Issue 3 2001James S. Shortle A timely literature on the design of economic incentives for nonpoint pollution control has been emerging. We describe the nonpoint pollution control problem, some of the peculiar challenges it poses for policy design, and the policy-related contributions of the theoretical and empirical literature on the economics of nonpoint pollution. [source] ON OPTIMAL ENVIRONMENTAL TAXATION AND ENFORCEMENT: INFORMATION, MONITORING AND EFFICIENCYNATURAL RESOURCE MODELING, Issue 1 2001CARLOS MARIO GÓMEZ GÓMEZ ABSTRACT. The purpose of the paper is to contribute to the narrowing of the distance between formal theory and practical environmental policy design. We formulate a general and comprehensive theoretical model in order to take into account the different informational and technological problems which characterize the definition and implementation of environmental taxes in a second best world where there also are distortionary taxes. Having formalized these problems, we present a general model which allows us to discuss the existence of efficient and implementable environmental quality objectives and policy instruments, and to analyze many particular cases. [source] Intrinsische Motivation und umweltpolitische InstrumentePERSPEKTIVEN DER WIRTSCHAFTSPOLITIK, Issue 2 2001Erik Gawel In the discussion on the rational choice model of individual behavior, a growing emphasis has recently been placed on the importance of intrinsic motivation. Contrary to assumptions made in the standard economic literature, it is suggested that an individual's motivation to act may not be exclusively determined by external influences (incentives, restrictions) and (given) personal preferences, but, in addition, depends on intrinsically anchored ethical preferences. Intrinsic motivation may diminish if parallel external incentives, such as rewards or orders, come into play: Insofar as external intervention weakens the corresponding intrinsic motivation to act, the (normal) effect of relative prices is opposed by a (countervailing) crowding-out effect of intrinsic motivation. The effect of (over-) crowding-out has been thematized especially in the context of environmental policy. It was suggested that subsidies may support intrinsic incentives whereas taxes and licences (especially though command-and-control measures) tend to undermine them. This paper critically analyzes the impact of intrinsic behavior considerations on the evaluation of environmental policy instruments. It is argued that, if at all, economists' standard recommendations for policy design with respect to subsidies need not be revised even if intrinsic motivation plays any role for the agents' environmental bevavior. Furthermore, command-and-control policy might rather support than weaken intrinsic motivation. [source] Does Earmarked Revenue Provide Property Tax Relief?PUBLIC BUDGETING AND FINANCE, Issue 4 2008Long-Term Budgetary Effects of Georgia's Local Option Sales Tax This study examines the long-term effects of the 1% General-purpose Local Option Sales Tax (LOST) on the level of property tax in Georgia counties with a pooled interrupted time-series analysis. The LOST has been earmarked for property tax relief in Georgia counties since 1976, but debates remain on whether the proceeds have been used as additional revenues. We find that the adoption of LOST brought short-term property tax relief but not long-term property tax reduction. The result suggests that long-term property tax relief would not be realized by earmarked revenue without careful policy design to safeguard fungibility. [source] Squeaky Wheel Gets the Oil: Incentives, Information and Drought PolicyTHE AUSTRALIAN ECONOMIC REVIEW, Issue 2 2007Arthur Ha Most economic assessments conclude there is no economic efficiency case for governments to provide drought assistance. However, significant public funds are allocated to farmers during droughts and there is a second-best case to improve drought policy design. In this article we show that the National Drought Policy suffers from adverse selection, moral hazard, incentive compatibility and government commitment problems. We use ABARE farm-level data that suggest that at least adverse selection was a problem in Victoria during the 2002-03 drought. These results are replicated at the national level. The current approach of the Commonwealth and state governments is ineffective because it is very difficult to design an efficient and fair drought policy that relies on ex post revelation of information. An alternative approach is investigated where incentives are designed so that farmers self-select into one of a number of drought policy agreements consistent with their capacity to prepare for drought. [source] | |||||||||||||