Government Objectives Research Articles

Administrative Authority-driven Public Engagement: A Case Study of Local Government’s Commendation Governance in China

In recent years, China’s central government has focused strategically on motivating local governments to allocate more administrative resources to enhance performance in non-economic areas, such as environmental and cultural services. As a governance practice, the central government has initiated “evaluation and commendation” campaigns among local governments. The main governance objective of these local government campaigns is to solicit public engagement, including public participation, support, and actions. Based on a case study of the campaign to establish a National Civilised City, this paper presents the local government’s governance logic, operating mechanism, and governance performance in soliciting public engagement in “evaluation and commendation” activities. We find that in “evaluation and commendation” campaigns, characterised by short-term authority commendation incentives and shortage of governance resources, the local governments adopted the unusual governance mechanism of “administrative authority-driven public engagement”, using both flexible and mandatory strategies. The flexibility strategy leads to the active participation of citizens, but the mandatory strategy makes public engagement stay at the superficial level, characterised by surface-level cooperation and inner rejection, causing partial exclusion and separation between the government and the public, in turn exhibiting a “ratchet effect” in governance performance.

Context and Purpose of Collaborative Governance in Rural Development in Joint Village-Owned Enterprises (BUMDesma): Choice or Motivation?

The rural development policy provided in Law No. 6/2014 on villages as a solution to overcome poverty and improve welfare at the village level has failed due to lack of serious intention, mutual trust, commitment and common understanding of goals. This research aims to explain the context and objectives of collaborative governance between villages and third parties (private sector) in joint village enterprises (BUMDesma): choice or motivation? The method used in this research uses a qualitative research type with a descriptive approach to provide the results of the context and objectives of collaborative governance between villages and third parties (private sector) in BUMDesma in Ngantang sub-district, Malang District. The results of this research show that commitment is very important in collaborative governance of rural development, but what happens is that collaboration goes badly, has no meaning and significance, and collaboration in the implementation of rural development runs covertly with the aim of competition between village governments characterized by the ego sectoral village area that is concerned with the needs of each village.

Government subsidy policies for guarantee financing: Risk compensation vs. fee reduction

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) often rely on credit guarantee companies (guarantors) to obtain financing from banks. To encourage guarantors’ engagement and reduce SMEs’ guarantee costs, governments commonly implement two subsidy policies: risk compensation, which shares a fraction of guarantors’ losses, and fee reduction, which reimburses SMEs for a fraction of their guarantee fees. This paper formulates a game theoretical model to analyze the impact of these two policies on the decisions and profits of a capital-constrained SME firm and a profit-maximizing guarantor, and how a government should choose between the two policies. We find that under each policy, the total expected profit improvement of the firm and the guarantor is greater than the government expected expenditure incurred if and only if the firm's default probability is below a threshold. Comparing the two policies with a budget constraint, we find that if the government's objective is to maximize the firm's expected profit, risk compensation outperforms fee reduction. But if the objective is to maximize the total expected profit of the firm and the guarantor, which policy performs better depends on the firm's default probability. Moreover, if the government aims to maximize social welfare, risk compensation performs as well as or better than fee reduction. We also consider the case where the guarantor is publicly owned and not-for-profit; in this case, under each policy, the expected profit improvement of the firm is always lower than the government expected expenditure.

Divergent governance over African communities in two Chinese cities

ABSTRACT This article examines the different approaches to governing sub-Saharan African traders in urban China due to varying urban growth strategies. Over the past two decades, an increasing number of African migrants have settled in Chinese cities, primarily Guangzhou and Yiwu, to run businesses focused on exports. However, they have been treated differently by local governments. The Guangzhou government's goal of attaining global city status has resulted in the mobilization of racial ideologies to create a socio-spatial hierarchy that marginalizes Africans, categorizing them as “undesirable” for the globalizing city and its “advanced” industries. Conversely, the Yiwu government's objective of becoming an international trading hub for Global South markets has led to a greater emphasis on African communities and a heightened sensitivity towards racial dynamics. This comparative analysis highlights how a city's position in the global economy and its corresponding growth strategies shape its interactions with migrant populations.

LCM2021 – the UK Land Cover Map 2021

Abstract. Land cover is a key environmental variable, underpinning widespread environmental research and decision making. The UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (UKCEH) has provided reliable land cover information since the early 1990s; this supports multiple scientific, government and commercial objectives. Recent advances in computation and satellite data availability have enabled annual UKCEH land cover maps since 2017. Here, we introduce the latest, annual UK Land Cover Map representing 2021 (LCM2021), and we describe its production and validation. LCM2021 methods replicate those of LCM2017 to LCM2020 with minor deviations in cloud-masking processes and training data sourcing to enhance accuracy. LCM2021 is based on the classification of satellite and spatial context data into 21 land cover or habitat classes, from which a product suite is derived. The production of LCM2021 involved three highly automated key stages: pre-processing of input data, image classification and production of the final data products. Google Earth Engine scripts were used to create an input data stack of satellite and context data. A set of training areas was created based on data harvested from historic UKCEH land cover maps. The training data were used to construct a random forest classifier, which yielded classified images. Compiled results were validated against 35 182 reference samples, with correspondence tables indicating variable class accuracy and an overall accuracy of 82.6 % for the 21-class data and 86.5 % at a 10-aggregated-classes level. The UK Land Cover Map product suite includes a set of raster products in various projections, thematic and spatial resolutions (10 m, 25 m and 1 km), and land–parcel or vector products. The data are provided in 21-class (all configurations) and aggregated 10-class (1 km raster products only) versions. All raster products are freely available for academic and non-commercial research. The data for Great Britain (GB) are provided in the British National Grid projection (EPSG: 27700) and the Northern Ireland (NI) data are in the TM75 Irish Grid (EPSG: 29903). Information on how to access the data is given in the “Data availability” section of the paper.

Rational social distancing policy during epidemics with limited healthcare capacity.

Epidemics of infectious diseases posing a serious risk to human health have occurred throughout history. During recent epidemics there has been much debate about policy, including how and when to impose restrictions on behaviour. Policymakers must balance a complex spectrum of objectives, suggesting a need for quantitative tools. Whether health services might be 'overwhelmed' has emerged as a key consideration. Here we show how costly interventions, such as taxes or subsidies on behaviour, can be used to exactly align individuals' decision making with government preferences even when these are not aligned. In order to achieve this, we develop a nested optimisation algorithm of both the government intervention strategy and the resulting equilibrium behaviour of individuals. We focus on a situation in which the capacity of the healthcare system to treat patients is limited and identify conditions under which the disease dynamics respect the capacity limit. We find an extremely sharp drop in peak infections at a critical maximum infection cost in the government's objective function. This is in marked contrast to the gradual reduction of infections if individuals make decisions without government intervention. We find optimal interventions vary less strongly in time when interventions are costly to the government and that the critical cost of the policy switch depends on how costly interventions are.

Factors influencing the effectiveness of credit card fraud prevention in Indonesian issuing banks

The increase in online credit card transactions in the digital era has caused an increase in credit card cyber incidents. This is happening globally, including in Indonesia. Thus, it will affect a bank’s reputation as well as its financial losses. Therefore, optimal fraud risk management is needed in a banking effort to prevent credit card fraud. In response, this article intended to study credit card fraud prevention by examining the relationship between digital security required for customer data security; fraud brainstorming to identify process weaknesses; and compliance management to manage regulatory compliance. The next step was to test whether the anti-fraud specialist is competent to moderate this relationship. This study used a quantitative approach. This study included 27 Indonesian card issuers. Primary sources were used to collect data for this study. The primary data were analyzed using a structural equation model (SEM). The results of the study show that digital security, fraud brainstorming, and compliance management were positively and significantly related to the prevention of credit card fraud, at a significance level of 5%, the t-statistic has a numerical value of 6.161, 5.079, and 5.98 each. Furthermore, testing the moderating effect obtained t-statistic values of 7.330, 4.161, and 7.694. Competency results obtained with positive and significant influence moderate the relationship between these factors and credit card fraud prevention. These findings have policy implications for banking and government objectives in fighting credit card fraud through implementing prevention strategies. AcknowledgmentsThis research was conducted as part of the process of study completion at the Padjadjaran University, Bandung, Indonesia. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to the respondents who participated in this research.

The inconsistency of immigration policy: the limits of “Top-down” approaches

ABSTRACT To what extent can we infer government objectives from policies on paper? We show that this assumption in migration scholarship is problematic because most states adopt immigration policies that are inconsistent, combining or alternating between contradictory objectives. Further, we develop a measure to track how immigration policy inconsistency varies over time. We use these methods to demonstrate that some of the main theories of policy inconsistency, which focus on variables located at the national scale, find limited empirical support. Based on these findings, we make the case for further research into the local scale of politics, focusing on the agency of street-level bureaucrats and migrants. We then discuss the potential for crossing quantitative and qualitative divides in order to further explore the impact of local factors on national immigration policies.

Xraying Economic and Financial Theories of Distribution of Banks’ Credits and Profitability of Banks

The paper reviewed Theoretical framework, neo-classical economics and modern finance theory: Commercial Loan Theory, Credit Risk Theory, Theory of Bank-Based Financial System, Debt intermediary hypothesis, Preference-Adverse Selection Theory, Financial Intermediation Theory, Supply leading theory, Loan Pricing Theory, Shiftability Theory Of Liquidity, Agency Theory, Theories of Economic Growth, Harrod–Domar Model, Solow–Swan Model, Theories of liquidity management, Liability/Liquidity Management Theory, Liquidity Preference Theory, theories of profitability, Profit Maximization Theory, Clark Theory of Profitability, Schumpeter Theory of Profitability, Income Theory of Money, Anticipated Income Theory, Portfolio Theory, Asset Liability Management Theory, Neo-Classical Theory of Interest Rate, Classical theory of political economy and development, Pecking Order Theory (POT)/Hypothesis Of Lending, Financial Repression Hypothesis, Asymmetric Information Theory, Pro-Concentration Theory, Trade-off Theory and Signaling Hypothesis as it relates with Banks’ credits, profitability of banks. Many economists have stressed that banks as a major component of financial system, provide linkages for the different sectors in order to ensure the attainment of the macroeconomic objective of government. A bank is a financial intermediary that accepts deposit from customers and channels the amount mobilized to borrowers in the form of loans and advances. Bank credits represent the amount of loan and advances to individuals and organizations from banking system. The likes of McKinnon (1973) and Shaw (1973) noted that the efficiency of financial intermediation is affected by regulatory regime at a point in time. Deregulation involves a regulatory framework that permits the development of competitive system where consumers are served at reasonable cost. In other words, it is believed that liberalization allows for a market driven intermediation which leads to competition

Effect of Accountability of MDAs on Sustainable Economic Development in Nigeria

Accountability in the public sector throughout the world is being given serious attention in view of the fact that the government is the highest spender of public fund. The aim of this study is to show that societies which exhibit the norms of unethical behavior and lack of accountability are more likely to encounter difficulties. Such difficulties would prevent the accomplishment of the sustainable developmental goals and objectives of government, thereby leading to lack of sustainable development. Data for the study was collected from primary sources through the use of questionnaires. The data collection is from the finance departments of ministries, department and agencies of the federal government located in Plateau state. A probability method of simple random sampling technique was employed in selecting the respondents to be administered the questionnaire. For the purpose of data analysis, the multiple linear regression analysis technique was adopted to determine the effect of accountability in public sector on sustainable economic development. From the analysis carried out it was found that accountability in MDAs has a significant effect on sustainable development in Nigeria and it was recommended that accountability should be integrated into all aspects of public sector especially MDAs management in order to preserve sustainable development and the public trust in government and its officials.

AGILE IT SERVICE MANAGEMENT DESIGN OF FINTECHCO DIGITALIZATION BASED ON COBIT 2019 DEVOPS FOCUS AREA

The Indonesian Financial Technology (Fintech) industry plays a pivotal role in driving digital technology advancements and propelling the nation's growth. The rapid development of Fintech presents a unique challenge for established financial companies, necessitating effective government regulation through a Sandbox approach. FintechCo, operating under the watchful eye of State-Owned Enterprises and the Financial Service Authority, must strike a delicate balance between their agile services and security risks. Hence, FintechCo necessitates an examination of optimal agile services through the utilization of five stages derived from the Design Science Research approach. This need arises to adhere to the Good Corporate Governance standards established by State-Owned Enterprises (SOE) and the Financial Services Authority (FSA). The cutting-edge COBIT 2019 DevOps Focus Area framework is employed for analysis. The research identifies three highest priority Governance and Management Objectives (GMOs): Managed Security Services (DSS05), Managed Problem (DSS03), and Managed Solution Identification and Build (BAI03). These GMOs are thoroughly evaluated, and comprehensive recommendations are provided based on their seven key components. There is an estimated 17% increase in the average capability score, from 2.82 to 3.30, across all three GMOs. The contribution of this study is twofold: to serve as a valuable knowledge resource for agile IT services in digitalization within organizations and to offer practical implications for FintechCo to enhance their digitalization. Furthermore, this research sets a precedent for the Fintech industry, signifying a benchmark for excellence and innovation.

ESG Mutual Fund Voting on Executive Compensation Shareholder Proposals

ABSTRACT We investigate how mutual funds with environmental, social, and governance (ESG) objectives vote on shareholder proposals related to executive compensation. Using a sample of 94,695 votes by 2,354 mutual funds from 2012 to 2021, we find ESG funds are 9.4 percent more likely than non-ESG funds to vote in favor of such proposals, and the likelihood increases to 19.2 percent for proposals aligning executive compensation with environmental and social (ES) objectives. ESG funds are also 14.9 percent more likely to support proposals to improve transparency, but only 7.0 percent more likely to support proposals about redesigning compensation. Our results are consistent with ESG funds perceiving greater net benefits from supporting shareholder compensation proposals, particularly those related to ES objectives and transparency. Additionally, funds committed to ESG objectives in regulatory filings are more likely to support such proposals than fund families that voluntarily signed the United Nations’ Principles of Responsible Investment. JEL Classifications: G23; G30; M12; M14.

Excellent Customer Services and Tax Revenue Generation: A Theoretical and Conceptual Review

Revenue generation from taxpayers is one prime and important component of government fiscal acquisitions. Taxation is the process of levying and collection of tax from taxable persons and organizations or establishments. The objectives of government using taxation include revenue generation to help the government to finance increasing public sector expenditure and to promote social, economic and good governance through provision of merit goods. Merit goods include health and education that must not be left solely to private hands, though private participation should also be encouraged. Revenue generated from tax can also be used to provide commonly consumed goods and services for which individuals cannot be levied. Public goods include internal security through maintenance of law and order by police and other security agencies, external security through defense against external aggression by Navy, Army and Air Forces, and provision of basic amenities such as pipe borne water, street lights and roads. We reviewed tax customer services provided by internal revenue agencies and explore options that are available for excellent customer services to be provided in this parlance. We conclude by identifying gaps in the research domain as a way of setting the stage for further research on the subject matter Keywords: Revenue, Government, Tax, Taxation, Public Good, Fiscal, Finance, Security, Customers Journal Reference Format: Obadeyi Juliana Adepeju & Adeyemo, Felicia (2023): Excellent Customer Services and Tax Revenue Generation - Theoretical and Conceptual Review. Social Informatics, Business, Politics, L:aw, Environmental Sciences & Technology Journal. Vol. 9, No. 3. Pp 9-20 www.isteams/socialinformaticsjournal. dx.doi.org/10.22624/AIMS/SIJ/V9N3P2.

Human Development Index: Examining the Effect of Fiscal Decentralization and the Moderating Role of Private Investment

Bali Province is a tourist destination and has rapid economic growth in Indonesia, but Bali Province faces several challenges in terms of the Human Development Index (HDI). The achievement of HDI is the responsibility of local governments, especially in autonomous regions. With regional autonomy, the government has the flexibility to increase the degree of fiscal decentralization and design appropriate budget allocations. Bali Province is also one of the investment destinations for investors which certainly has an impact on people's lives. This research will try to examine the effect of the level of fiscal decentralization of a region on the achievement of the Human Development Index. This research also tries to use the role of private investment as a moderator. The research data comes from the financial statements and publications of the Central Bureau of Statistics of Bali Province for the period 2012-2021. The results of data testing show that fiscal decentralization has a positive and significant effect on HDI. Private investment has not been able to moderate the relationship between fiscal decentralization and HDI. When a region has a high level of financial independence, of course, the local government can more freely determine regional spending policies, especially to sectors that can increase HDI. In addition, local governments also need to pay attention to investments made by the private sector, so that they are in line with the government's objectives in increasing HDI.

South Africa's energy policy: Prioritizing competition and climate change for decarbonisation

An affordable, reliable, and renewable power supply is essential for economic recovery and to ensure the economy reaches its potential output over the long term. The policy framework needs to catch up to the market's need for (i) competition to address increasing tariffs and the widening capacity shortfall and (ii) the increased role of renewable energy to facilitate the country's energy transition. This study examines how competition and climate change have influenced policy reform and implementation in the South African energy sector, by reviewing its historical context and regulatory framework. Furthermore, the study estimates the cost of neglecting these objectives in policy formation by assessing the impact on the energy system, the economy and the environment. The lifting of the embedded generation threshold policy reform, which will support climate and competition objectives, albeit after the fact, is expected to yield economic, social and environmental benefits. This study empirically demonstrates this by utilising the E3ME model developed by Cambridge Econometrics to support the case for the ex-ante prioritising of climate and competition considerations in energy policy. While energy security should remain the primary objective, energy policy can be leveraged to promote other government objectives, such as increased market participation and decarbonisation.

The Institutional Dimension of Public-Private Partnerships: Governance

Failure to realize governance objectives is considered to be one of the reasons why public-private partnerships have become increasingly controversial and why there have been many negative experiences during the project process. This study examines the relationship between public-private partnerships and governance. In the framework pioneered by international organizations and accepted in the literature, it is possible to eliminate many problems experienced in public-private partnership projects by implementing governance principles. On the other hand, although there are many discussions in the literature on the conceptual basis of governance, there are no studies that address these conceptual debates within the framework of public-private partnerships. It is thought that this deficiency in the literature will also leave the discussions on the present and future of the relationship between public-private partnerships and governance incomplete. The originality of this study is that it evaluates the concept of governance in public-private partnerships and its foundations based on the New Institutional Economics and New Public Management approaches. When the concept is considered together with its foundations, the question of whether governance principles can really be a solution to the problems of public-private partnerships becomes controversial. Although the focus of the study is not on this debate, it aims to open the door to further discussions on the subject.

PROPERTY’S SHADOW: Governing Land and Plurality in Durban, South Africa

AbstractProperty as a legal assemblage works to produce and imagine space according to a dominant set of norms and principles, thereby casting an imagined projection into multiple worlds. This unduly narrows the lens through which governance actors perceive and mediate competing claims to urban space. In this article we engage this feature of property in the context of contestation over urban land in Durban, an intensely plural city of the global South. We focus on three sets of spatial practices that are, in different ways, in tension with municipal governance objectives in Durban to probe how social actors interface with property law through divergent logics and lexicons. We argue that a more hybrid legal conception of property is required to enable just and normatively hybrid governance of these (often competing) claims.

Science Diplomacy's Contribution to and Exploitation of International Relations

Science diplomacy is a novel academic concept. This project will analyse the positive function of science diplomacy in contemporary international relations and the use of science to achieve specific foreign policy objectives. This study aims to provide insight into the role of this science in external affairs work which analyses the impact of science diplomacy through a collection of journals, papers, news articles, and literature with the use of Document analysis. Even countries with mutually antagonistic political cultures may be able to approach international issues through concentrated scientific study due to the function of science diplomacy. Using the significance of science, the foreign service can influence or even meddle in the affairs of other nations. Therefore, scientific study diplomacy permits beneficial interactions between nations and the involvement of technologically and technologically powerful countries. The selection of science diplomacy is determined by the objectives of governments and diplomatic agencies.

Influence of Budget Allocations within Government Budget Execution on Market Participation: Case of Maize in the Southern Highland regions of Tanzania

Government budget allocations within budget execution are important in pushing the agricultural transformation agenda in Tanzania. However, agriculture public expenditure review studies show that with the exception of a few geographical areas in Tanzania, government budget allocations have generally been insufficient to bring about the desirable transformation from subsistence to commercial agriculture. Thus, this paper investigates the pivotal role of government budget allocations within budget execution in facilitating the commercialisation of maize, a crop that is both a major food and cash crop in Tanzania. It also assesses the factors that affect the performance of budget allocations. The descriptive survey design was employed whereby a cross-sectional survey was conducted to collect data from 180 local government officials in the Mbeya and Songwe regions that were sampled in the southern highland regions. Data was analysed through descriptive statistics and multiple regression using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The mean and standard deviation were used to measure budget allocations via the interpretation of means by Weak (Wk) and Strong (St). The findings show that the means of budget allocations were strong, and all four variables under it exerted a positive influence on maize commercialisation as measured through market participation. From the parameter estimates, standardised beta coefficient values were 0.468, 0.091, 0.030 and 0.167, respectively. In addition, the findings also show and confirm the requirement of the Maputo Declaration of 2003, which was reiterated by the Malabo Declaration of 2014, for governments in Africa to allocate at least 10% of their national budgets to agriculture. Based on the findings, the researchers conclude that effective and efficient budget allocations within budget execution are essential for achieving government development goals and objectives, including the transformation of agriculture from subsistence to commercial. It is recommended that the government should strengthen the budget execution process at all levels of government

Human rights in Palestine: from self-determination to governance

ABSTRACT This article traces a number of historical junctions to show the limited normative and political purchase of human rights in addressing Palestinian demands for sovereignty and self-determination. The article shows how Israel speaks about and addresses itself to normalised settler colonial conditions that constitutively exclude Palestinians. Under these conditions, law and rights are wielded as technologies of rules that presuppose and articulate hierarchies of standings and claims that preclude Palestinian sovereignty and self-determination. Even though, historically, Palestinians have attempted different methods to engage international law and human rights, they repeatedly came up against a geopolitical structure of domination nested in a normative order that either relegates them figuratively outside its border or includes them only as an object of governance.