Fiscal Resources Research Articles

Planning as strategy for improving Black and Latinx student equity: Lessons from nine California community colleges

In 2014, California policymakers passed the Student Equity Plans (SEP) policy to address disparities in the community college system. The reform effort formalized a campus-wide planning effort that required institutions to examine their data for disparities, develop goals and strategies to mitigate identified inequities, and use new fiscal resources to realize their plans. In recent years, there has been an increase in the enactment of state-level higher education policies, but few, if any, have focused on the notion of equity or explicitly named racial and ethnic groups as policy beneficiaries. This study examines nine student equity plans in the state’s largest community college district. Drawing upon critical policy analysis, we place a focus on understanding if, and how, the planning process was used to address inequities facing Black and Latinx students. Based on our analysis we found several themes on how plans identified and address barriers facing Black and Latinx students. After examining 178 equity activities, we found only 28 promising activities that explicitly targeted Black and Latinx students with culturally relevant, data-driven, evidence-based strategies. These findings have compelling implications for policymakers seeking to develop reform efforts and institutions using policy to address current and historic inequities faced by Black and Latinx students. The use of planning for improvement is commonplace in educational policy, but we find that more training and capacity-building efforts are necessary to use planning as an opportunity to address racial inequity in community college.

Assessing Tribal College Priorities for Enhancing Climate Adaptation on Reservation Lands

AbstractOn reservation lands, tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) are key to preparing indigenous communities to adapt to the effects of a changing climate. The original mission of TCUs, to improve access to higher education and to sustain the cultural heritage of indigenous people, facilitates close ties between TCU faculty and staff and the indigenous communities they serve. Since 1994, the land‐grant status of TCUs allows access to limited federal funds in support of research, education, and outreach to improve food security, natural resource management, and rural quality of life, while expanding public access to higher education to underserved populations in remote rural areas. This study was designed to assess the priorities for enhancing climate adaptation on reservation lands. It summarizes the results of an assessment implemented at the 2016 Annual First Americans Land‐Grant Consortium Conference. Study participants included faculty, administrators, outreach educators, support staff, and students representing 25 of the 37 TCUs in the United States. Results from this national assessment suggest that in order for TCUs to effectively meet the climate adaptation needs of indigenous communities, additional fiscal and human resource investments are necessary. Specifically, this includes fiscal support to enhance climate science teaching, research, and professional development programs. Additional goals include creating or expanding food‐sovereignty programs, increasing community outreach education, investigating climate change impacts on water resource quality, access, and related ecological services, and exploring renewable and alternative energy opportunities.

Unlikely pioneers: creative climate change policymaking in smaller U.S. cities

With the U.S. federal government stepping away from climate change, a number of cities have indicated that they will continue their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Broad statistical analysis and case studies of larger and often progressive cities have provided some insight into what drives local governments to act on climate change mitigation. However, the vast majority of U.S. municipalities, most of them small, do nothing. Understanding what might drive smaller, poorer, and less progressive places is important if local governments are expected to take the lead on this issue of the global commons. In this exploratory study, I examine a group of “unlikely pioneers”—communities that statistical modeling indicates are the least likely to undertake climate change action, but then do act. Using interviews and document reviews in 12 of these communities, I seek to answer the question: what drives these unlikely pioneers to act? I find that local leaders reframe climate change action as a way to save money and attract economic development. Personal environmental ethics drive small town leaders to reduce greenhouse gase emissions. Citizen committees can provide technical resources and political support. Otherwise, and more subtly, citizens can create a political environment that reduces resistance to climate change policymaking. Despite research that indicates fiscal health is correlated to increased sustainability, no communities in this study initiated climate change mitigation from general revenues. All required grants or other revenue to act. In four of the communities, the income from municipally owned utilities provided the fiscal resources for climate change programs.

Managing knowledge through social media

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to conceptualise social media usage (SMU) as a contributory, knowledge management (KM) tool towards entrepreneurial behaviour amongst small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). Although an underdeveloped concept in entrepreneurship, the conceptual analysis of KM presents evidence which links SMU as complementary to changing KM conventions.Design/methodology/approachThe pertinent KM and SMU literatures of the SME context were reviewed to form an understanding of this context. Employing a mixed-methods approach, a pragmatic, thematic investigation of SMU-enhanced KM was facilitated.FindingsSubstantial benefits of innovative SMU, as a management tool towards SME entrepreneurialism, were witnessed. SMU enhances the administration of real-time knowledge, encouraging creativity. However, longer-term costs of employing requisite personnel, and anticipated organisational restructuring, present challenges. The paper identifies the potentials of social media technologies in overcoming KM issues. The authors propose a reasoned process model towards entrepreneurial exploitation by acknowledging systematic phases of research, concept, institutionalise, develop, target and assess, referred to as the RCIDTA model.Practical implicationsThe authors argue that KM, through social media, facilitates interactions to execute innovative processes within SMEs ever-changing infrastructures. It also informs nascent entrepreneurs, in considering the benefits of systematic KM, and novel SMU, opportunities. The RCIDTA model for SMEs can be utilised in improving knowledge ecosystems of entrepreneurial SMEs, promoting innovation towards sustained organisation growth.Originality/valueThis paper embraces the growing approach of SMEs applying SMU. SMU and its cost efficiency support the start-up activity. This paper highlights central issues concerning the exploitation of sector-specific KM, including organisational strategy, structure, brand formation, fiscal and personnel resource allocation and market share.

Moroccan tax potential: Econometric analysis through the tax effort

Abstract. This paper aims to analyse the Moroccan tax potential compared to a sample of countries (panel), relying on the tax effort concept, wich allows isolating the part of the government public levying. It is an international study, using a panel data (25 countries-26 years). The result of econometrics estimations shows the positive effect of the GDP per capita, the openness degree of the economy, the monetization degree and the part of industrial Added Value on the public potential while the part of agricultural Added Value had a negative impact. Analyzing the tax effort, we find that Morocco had a negative effort between 1990 and 2004. But, since 2005, the policies pursued after the reform helped reverse the trend to achieve a positive effort. It means that Morocco exploits all his fiscal resources from the standard of the sample. Keywords. Tax burden, Tax potential, Tax effort, Structural factors, Panel. JEL. E62, G28, H21, C50.

The role of collective mobilization in the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India (1950–2005)

ABSTRACTThis paper argues that the divergent performance of the rural economies of China and India after 1950 was a product of the different capabilities of the Chinese and Indian governments to mobilize the labor force and financial resources of the rural population. By mobilizing unpaid labor and the financial resources of the villagers through mediation by the collectives (before 1984) and local administrations (from 1984 to the abolition of agricultural taxation and compulsory rural labor mobilization in 2006), the Chinese state developed rural infrastructure and the quality of the labor force at a pace and geographical scope that was far beyond its limited fiscal capacity. Efforts by the Indian state to establish rural organizations with similar mobilization capabilities failed due to the effective opposition of well-entrenched political and economic interests in the countryside. Unable to mobilize the labor and financial resources of the villagers, the Indian government relied primarily on its limited fiscal resources, which produced a much slower development of physical infrastructure and labor force quality. These are the primary reasons why China’s rural economy developed much more rapidly than India’s, which contributed significantly to the divergence of their national economies in the post-1950 era.

Fiscal fault, financial fix? Capital Markets Union and the quest for macroeconomic stabilization in the Euro Area

This article seeks to situate and explain the European Union’s push for a Capital Markets Union – and thus for a more market-based financial system – in the broader context of macroeconomic governance in politically fractured polities. The current governance structure of the European Monetary Union severely limits the capacity of both national and supranational actors to provide a core public good: macroeconomic stabilization. While member states have institutionalized fiscal austerity and abandoned other macroeconomic levers, the European polity lacks the fiscal resources necessary to achieve stable macroeconomic conditions – smoothing the business cycle, ensuring growth and job creation and mitigating the impact of output shocks on consumption. Capital Markets Union, we argue, is the attempt of European policymakers to devise a financial fix to this structural capacity gap. Using its regulatory powers, the Commission, supported by the European Central Bank (ECB), seeks to harness private financial markets and instruments to provide the public policy good of macroeconomic stabilization. We trace how technocrats, think tanks, and financial-sector lobbyists, through the strategic use of knowledge and expertise, established securitization and market-based finance as solutions to the European Monetary Union’s governance problems.

No Money, No Representation: A Case Study of Zeguo Town in China

Authoritarian regimes rely on fiscal resources to build patronage networks. And so it is with China. Budget making is usually dominated by government leaders. However, some local governments in recent years have invited ordinary people to review budgets and even to determine parts of budgets. Why would local leaders make themselves accountable to their constituencies in an authoritarian setting? Why would local governments in China tie their own hands? Using detailed description of a township government, this article argues that fiscal affluence based on land is an important factor for local governments in launching fiscal reform. Richer areas have become more fiscally accountable by opening up new discussion and encouraging citizen participation.

Government liabilities for disaster risk in industrialized countries: a case study of Australia

ABSTRACTThis paper explores sovereign risk preferences against direct and indirect natural disasters losses in industrialized countries. Using Australia as a case study, the analysis compares expected disaster losses and government capacity to finance losses. Utilizing a national disaster loss dataset, extreme value theory is applied to estimate an all-hazard annual loss distribution. Unusually but critically, the dataset includes direct as well as indirect losses, allowing for the analysis to consider the oft-ignored issue of indirect losses. Expected annual losses (direct, and direct plus indirect) are overlaid with a risk-layer approach, to distinguish low, medium and extreme loss events. Each risk layer is compared to available fiscal resources for financing losses, grounded in the political reality of Australian disaster financing. When considering direct losses only, we find support for a risk-neutral preference on the part of the Australian government for low and medium loss levels, and a risk-averse preference in regard to extreme losses. When indirect losses are also estimated, we find that even medium loss levels are expected to overwhelm available fiscal resources, thereby violating the available resources assumption underlying arguments for sovereign risk neutrality. Our analysis provides empirical support for the assertion that indirect losses are a major, under-recognised concern for industrialized countries. A risk-averse preference in regard to medium and extreme loss events recommends enhanced investment in both corrective and prospective risk reduction in relation to these risks level, in particular to reduce indirect losses.

No taxation, no representation: An investigation of the relationship between natural resources and fiscal decentralization

Rents from natural resources can alter the relationship between central and local governments by providing a new source of government financing. We develop a model to explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and resource abundance. Our model indicates that natural resource rents can detach central government expenditures from the tax base so that the central government can spend more to persuade a fractious periphery to remain under central government control. Thus, other things being equal, higher natural resource rents can result in less decentralized government expenditures. We empirically explore the relationship between fiscal decentralization and natural resource rents using a panel of 60 countries over the past 40 years. Empirical results support our economic model: A 1% increase in natural resource rents as a fraction of gross domestic product results in government expenditures that are 0.53% less decentralized.

Liberia: 2018 Article IV Consultation-Press Release; Staff Report; and Statement by the Executive Director for Liberia

This 2018 Article IV Consultation highlights that Liberia’s economy appears poised for recovery, as growth bottomed out in 2016 and edged to 2.5 percent in 2017. However, Liberia remains fragile with poor living conditions for the majority of the population. Moreover, a decline in aid inflows, which were elevated during 2014–16, has put pressure on the exchange rate and fiscal resources. The government is thus facing the daunting task of pursuing a demanding development agenda in the face of high expectations. Assuming the implementation of sound policies, the medium-term outlook appears favorable. The main upside risk is an increase in commodity prices and output, while downside risks include difficulties in mobilizing resources to fill the financing gap and in pursuing structural and institutional reforms.

Development of variable renewable energy policy in developing countries: a case study of Sri Lanka

Development of policy for variable renewable energy (VRE), such as wind and solar power, could be difficult in developing countries that have limited capacity, limited technical, and fiscal resources. Sri Lanka is such a case. Although Sri Lanka has a potential to develop VRE, the development was neither sufficient nor smooth. This study explores the development of VRE in the 2000s and analyses the impacts of the cost reflective feed-in-tariffs (FITs). The study finds that VRE public policy in Sri Lanka can be improved in a number of ways: better coordination among government agencies; technology specific policy and accommodation of cost dynamics; and redesign of subsidy policies. Generally, the governance mechanism suggested in this research is an innovated structure to coordinate multiple government agencies by specifying policies according to technologies and redesigning the subsidy structures by accommodating the cost dynamics.

Development of variable renewable energy policy in developing countries: a case study of Sri Lanka

Development of policy for variable renewable energy (VRE), such as wind and solar power, could be difficult in developing countries that have limited capacity, limited technical, and fiscal resources. Sri Lanka is such a case. Although Sri Lanka has a potential to develop VRE, the development was neither sufficient nor smooth. This study explores the development of VRE in the 2000s and analyses the impacts of the cost reflective feed-in-tariffs (FITs). The study finds that VRE public policy in Sri Lanka can be improved in a number of ways: better coordination among government agencies; technology specific policy and accommodation of cost dynamics; and redesign of subsidy policies. Generally, the governance mechanism suggested in this research is an innovated structure to coordinate multiple government agencies by specifying policies according to technologies and redesigning the subsidy structures by accommodating the cost dynamics.

Uganda’s Fiscal Policy (2000-2016): Implications for Public Investment Management (PIM)

Uganda has recently pursued expansionary fiscal policies, driven by the desire to improve the country’s infrastructure, increase the production of assets, and facilitate accelerated growth. Nevertheless, providing more resources for capital development in line with the country development aspirations alone will not necessarily translate in optimal infrastructure investments. A question that arises is, what comes first: Is it to invest in the effort to establish effective systems for managing public investment in order to yield high returns or should financing these investments precede capacity challenges. Using a rich dataset of public sector projects defined by project, financing mix, sector etc; the paper carries out project absorptive capacity and overall fiscal trend analysis to ascertain whether budgeted projects translated to intended outturns. It is found that weak Public Investment capacity has led to less than budgeted public investment outturn which has reduced intended fiscal policy impact. As such, for Uganda to achieve its fiscal objectives there is need to balance its expansionary fiscal policies with the ability to absorb fiscal resources.

Is There a Fiscal Resource Curse? Resource Rents, Fiscal Capacity and Political Institutions

While several studies have focused on the effect of natural resources on economic development, less attention has been paid to their effects on other development outcomes. We contribute to this literature by studying the impact of resource rents on fiscal capacity, i.e., the ability of states to raise revenues from broad tax bases. We posit that natural resource rents reduce the incentives to invest in fiscal capacity. However, political institutions that limit the power of the executive, by reducing rulers’ discretion over the use of resource revenues, may mitigate, neutralise or reverse such negative effect. We provide empirical support for this hypothesis using a recently constructed data set on non-resource taxes and panel methods for 98 developing countries covering the period 1981-2011. Moreover, we show that the effect of resource rents is likely to work mainly through institutions that make the tax system accountable and transparent to citizens. Our findings imply that it is possible to develop both fiscal capacity and the natural resources sector, without any trade-off. Whether a fiscal resource curse exists or not is a question of what type of political institutions countries have adopted before they became resource-rich.

Comparing Communities: The Cultural Characteristics of Ethnic Social Capital

Social capital includes access to resources based on social networks, similar to how economic capital is access to fiscal resources. We explore ethnic social capital as a variant of social capital that includes the social resources that are available to a person as a result of being a member of an ethnic and cultural network. This study identifies the way that ethnic social capital is important for understanding the resilience of ethnic minority youth in the context of inequality including living in impoverished and high-crime neighborhoods. This study examines social capital in 239 males and females aged 14 to 22 years from a racially and ethnically diverse urban community with neighborhoods impacted by high levels of crime in the northeast United States. Compared with results from a racially homogeneous (non-Hispanic White) population living in an urban area of the Midwest, the diverse sample demonstrated different aspects of social capital that are highly correlated with the cultural value of collectivism. Specifically, the diverse sample showed significantly higher participation in their community and reaching out to support others. The sample in the Midwest, demonstrated greater feelings of safety in the community, greater satisfaction with their position in life, and greater ability to ask others for help. Both samples showed an equal level of tolerance for diversity. Results are discussed in terms of examining the cultural manifestations of ethnic social capital and resilience with ethnic minority populations.

Beyond the Numbers: on the road to achieving public value in community support organisations

Objective: To explore public value as a management tool for measuring outcomes, in Community Support Organisations (CSOs) and determine if further research is warranted.
 Design: A literature review on public value and outcome measurement in the community service sector was conducted to evaluate how public value best fits with CSOs.
 Setting: Public value has not previously been applied to measuring outcomes in CSOs and could provide beneficial information to assist in obtaining government funding as fiscal resources decline.
 Main outcome measures: The following question was considered; Can a public value framework be used as a management tool by CSOs to measure the value of their service? A flow chart applying a public value framework to outcome measurement of CSOs was developed.
 Results: Key elements identified were indicators, measures and outcomes. Stakeholders included; government, community sector, CSOs and consumer. A public value framework has the potential to be used for measuring outcomes in the community sector however realworld application is still required.
 Conclusion: This study provided preliminary application for a larger study and has provided evidence of a public value framework having the potential to be applied as an outcome measurement tool for CSOs.
 Abbreviations: CSO – Community Support Organisation

In Memoriam: Stephen Malkin

In Memoriam: Stephen Malkin

Corporate Social Responsibility: Institutional Behavior Differences in Extractive Industry

The developed countries’ institutional research undertaken on corporate social responsibilities (CSR) have shown a positive relationship between accessibility of financial related assets and CSR. Contentions that we classified as the Institutional Difference Hypothesis (IDH) drawn from the institutional writing, on the other hand, propose that institutional contrasts amid of developing and the developed economies are prone to result in diverse CSR propositions. Incorporating the rationale of IDH with understanding of knowledge from slack resource theory, we contend that there exists a negative relationship between fiscal resources accessibility and CSR investments for mining companies in Ghana, a sub-Saharan African developing economy. We utilize a well-protected data from the Ghana Investment Promotion Center (GIPC), Ghana Stock Exchange (GSE) and Ghana Chamber of mines (GCM) and find that Return on Ordinary Share, Return on Sales, and Net Profit were reliably connected with lower CSR disbursements. We highlight the ramifications of our discoveries for academics’ examination and corporate practitioners.

Integrated Acute Healthcare Commissioning Pathway in Ireland

The survival of the critically ill patient depends on timely access to a structured critical care pathway. Arising from historic legacy arrangements, fragmentation of acute healthcare service provision in Ireland has been evident with evidence of ineffectiveness and inefficiency. A key to success of ongoing Government and State acute healthcare reforms is integration of patient-centred acute healthcare commissioning. Commissioning Pathway: In line with reform policy, Critical Care Programme (CCP) facilitates integrated and standardised commissioning in the acute sector by collating and furnishing service outputs and outcomes information in an annualised recursive input to commissioners and to the political system as part of the fiscal resource allocation decision-making process. Fiscal Allocation: Easton defined politics as the “authoritative allocation of values” (1953). Following the fiscal Vote of the political system in Ireland, top-down bloc grant funding flows to hospital service providers from which blocs critical care funds currently emerge. Capacity And Capability: The critical care bedstock capacity to meet the need of the critically ill patients is monitored by the annual Census enumeration process, which is facilitated by CCP. The capability to meet the needs of the critically ill patients is strengthened by the national integrated critical care nursing education and training and workforce planning initiative, termed Career Pathway, also facilitated by CCP and Office of Nursing and Midwifery Service Director of Health Service Executive. These national critical care capacity monitoring and capability strengthening initiatives serve to integrate and standardize national and regional critical care service provision in line with a hospital system “hub-and-spoke” Critical Care Model of Care. Audit: National critical care activity and risk-adjusted outcomes for critically ill adult patients in Ireland are monitored by the National Critical Care Audit, operated and governed by National Office of Clinical Audit, affiliated to UK Intensive Care National Audit Research Commission (ICNARC). Commissioning Cycle: The national critical care activity and outcome information, including critical care surge activity information, emerging from Audit is collated and evaluated against policy, regulatory, legislative and professional standard inputs. An annual normative national input thus is facilitated and thus recursively provided to the commissioners and the political system The aim and intended impact of this integrated commissioning pathway or cycle is to improve the survival, quality-of-life and experience of the critically ill patient in Ireland, to strengthen and sustain the critical care workforce and to modernize the care pathway and ease the care journey for the most vulnerable patients in the acute healthcare sector.