Market-based Reforms Research Articles

Pipe sharing: A capacity allocation method for incorporating economy and fairness in the multiproduct pipeline

To guarantee fair access to pipeline facilities, pipe companies around the world have promoted market-based reform measures that are subject to governmental regulation. The pipe company should allocate transport capacity to shippers based on their nominations and then make schedules that align with the operational process. The reasonable mechanism is crucial for allocation results, affecting the carrier's revenue and shippers' fairness. Aiming at this issue, this paper puts forward an allocation mechanism of combining priority rules with historical data based on summarizing existing mechanisms. A multi-objective optimization model for capacity allocation that simultaneously considers economic and fairness metrics is developed. Finally, the efficient frontiers describing the economy-fairness trade-off are generated through using ε-constraint method, which can be selected by the pipe company based on its preference. Using data from a real pipeline as a case study, the solutions under different mechanisms are quantitatively evaluated. The results show that different mechanisms are applicable differently. Compared with other existing mechanisms, the proposed mechanism brings the pipe company the maximum cost of 1665.98 × 104CNY. On the basis of realizing the fair allocation, the proposed method ensures the pipe company to obtain the maximum transport cost to a certain extent as well.

The unfairness of place: A cultural history of the UK's ‘postcode lottery’

The 'postcode lottery' has become a dominant political framing for place-based health inequalities in Britain, used by patient groups, politicians and in media coverage of regional health and healthcare inequalities. Using newspapers, parliamentary material and health policy documents, this paper traces how this term has changed and expanded from its origins as a protest about access to new pharmaceutical treatments, to a broader commentary about geographical variations in the quality of NHS and other public services, health outcomes, and deprivation. It traces this emergence and evolution from its origins in the 1989-91 introduction of the 'internal market' and the 1994 reintroduction of the National Lottery, through to New Labour health reforms, the introduction of austerity, and the Levelling Up programme in the present day. This paper finds that the term's concern with unfairness has enabled its incorporation into a range of political positions, both as a defence of universalism against market-based reforms in the NHS, and to rationalise distinctions between 'unequal' and 'unfair' disparities in health outcomes. We conclude that understanding and addressing place based differences and inequalities in health, healthcare, and health outcomes may be aided through investigation of cultural ideas and values as well as the deep histories of place and local services.

Institutional Environment, Institutional Arrangements, and Risk Identification and Allocation in Public–Private Partnerships: A Multilevel Model Analysis Based on Data from 31 Provinces in China

As an important part of market-based reforms, the issue of “risk” has always been a part of the public–private partnership (PPP) debate, and the way in which risks are managed determines the sustainability of market-based reforms. This study systematically examines how the institutional environment and institutional arrangements affect the effectiveness of PPP risk identification and allocation. The study aims to establish a multi-source database of all publicized PPP projects in 31 provinces during the period of 2017–2021 in China, and it incorporates different levels of influencing factors, such as the institutional environment and institutional arrangements, into a framework. Through the application of a multilevel model, the impact of the political–institutional structure at the provincial level and institutional arrangements at the social capital and project levels on PPP risk identification and allocation is judged hierarchically. It is found that only social capital at the institutional environment level can directly and positively contribute to the effective identification and allocation of PPP risks, while both the degree of potential market competition and the degree of integration at the project level have a positive effect on its risk profile. In addition, there are cross-level moderating effects, with social capital, government transparency, and government–business relations positively improving risk allocation and identification through the degree of market competition, with no significant coordinating effect on the degree of contractual integration. This study goes beyond the existing one-dimensional risk profile analysis and risk typology to dismantle the “black box” of risk identification and allocation, which is a process of continuous negotiation, and to provide a sustainable governance mechanism for the market-oriented reform of public services in the institutional arena.

Connecting the Dots: Are the New Public Management and Policy capacity related?

The New Public Management (NPM) and Policy Capacity (PC) have garnered significant attention in the field of public administration. NPM is frequently associated with market-based reforms and the privatisation of public services, whereas PC pertains to a government's ability to design, implement, and evaluate policies effectively. Despite the vast literature on these concepts, there remains a dearth of studies examining their connection. This paper seeks to bridge this gap by exploring the linkages between NPM and PC. Drawing from a comprehensive review of articles and journals, most studies revealed that the two concepts are indeed related in some way.

Policy-driven food security: investigating the impact of China’s maize subsidy policy reform on farmer’ productivity

IntroductionChina is the largest producer, consumer, and trader of grain. Changes in China’s agricultural policies will affect global food trade and thus impact food security. In this paper, we use China’s maize subsidy system reform (MSSR) as a quasi-natural experiment to investigate the impact of market-oriented reforms in price support policy on the productivity of grain.MethodsWe use official Chinese government panel data on farm households and a PSM-DID model to overcome the endogeneity problem of policy change.Results and discussionThe empirical results show that MSSR can increase maize productivity. The MSSR is divided into two phases: eliminating the maize purchase price and implementing maize producer subsidies. The policy effect of eliminating the purchase price exceeds the implementation of producer subsidies. Further analysis reveals that for farmers with a larger scale of cultivation, higher level of specialization, and higher degree of part-time employment, the MSSR enhances their productivity more significantly. In the high quartile, the MSSR reduces farmers’ productivity. In the low quartile, the MSSR raises farmers’ productivity, suggesting that the MSSR reduces the productivity differences among farmers. The results of our study suggest that market-based reform of price subsidies is an effective institutional arrangement to mitigate resource mismatch and increase food productivity, and point to the need to continue to improve the MSSR, explore diversified maize producer subsidy policies, and take into account the impact of other subsidies on farmers’ maize production behavior.

Swedish business as a social movement? Mobilising the masses against wage-earner funds, 1975–1991

In 1975, the Swedish Trade Union Confederation proposed transferring ownership of firms to union-controlled wage-earner funds. This radical idea was met with fierce resistance from Swedish business and was watered down by the Social Democratic Party upon implementation in 1984. PR campaigns opposing the funds initiated by the Swedish Employer Confederation centred around public rallies and, according to the organisers, in the 1980s these evolved into an ‘anti-socialistic movement’. During a decade in which Western business interests advocated heavily for market-based reforms, the campaigns became a unifying issue for the Swedish business community. Drawing on theories on business-backed activism and protest movements, this article discusses the unique case of how Swedish employers borrowed tactics typically associated with organised labour for large-scale public mobilisation. This movement was enabled by a combination of genuine public discontent and the employers’ organisational and financial resources, even though it lost momentum over time.

Schools as Solutions, Students as Problems: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Institutional Scripts in High School Websites

Purpose: In this study, we used critical discourse analysis to examine what school websites convey about the expected roles of educators and students. Research Design: We analyzed 13 high school websites from a mid-sized urban district that has implemented several market-based reforms and has a centralized school choice model. We employed the concept of scripts from institutional theory to analyze what messages these websites communicate about the roles of different educational actors, how these messages relate to existing societal power dynamics, and how they relate to the school model or school demographics. Findings: For students and educators, the sites expressed that students had an important problem, while the school and educators were offered as the solution. This common framework manifested in four distinct patterns, which we describe as the savior, cultivation, assimilation, and marketplace scripts. Implications: By critically examining school websites and other semiotic materials, leaders and other stakeholders can work to “root out” potentially harmful assumptions and narratives and envision alternatives that offer empowerment and transformation.

Friedman or Jencks? Early childhood education vouchers in practice

Market-based educational reforms, including vouchers, have been a highly contested topic in education policymaking over the last three decades. Vouchers have been used in practice to promote educational choice and student success by facilitating “free” market competition and eliminating the monopolistic privileges of public schools. Nonetheless, market-based reforms, particularly education vouchers, are not commonly used in early childhood education (ECE). This article examines the arguments for and against market-based education reforms and education vouchers and provides a brief overview of five voucher programs that aimed to improve ECE delivery. Comparisons of these programs demonstrate that neither Friedman’s liberal market nor Jencks’ social policy approaches are definitively superior to one another. The effectiveness of an ECE voucher program depends on the specifics of the policy text and the context in which it is introduced.

Role of management education in adapting the Indian public sector to market-based economic reforms

PurposeIn 1991, India embarked on market-based economic reforms initiatives pillared on liberalization, privatization and globalization (LPG). The reforms exposed the public sector enterprises to competitive market forces, raising the need to identify and develop the competencies necessary for survival. Executive training programs were initiated to prepare public enterprises for the market-based reforms. Three decades later, the reforms especially privatization is witnessing renewed interest under the current administration. In this context, the article takes a closer look at the structure of management education provided to public sector officers in India. The article also identifies barriers for implementing the learnings from the management courses in the workplaces and suggests approaches for closing the gap.Design/methodology/approachThe study follows a thematic approach based on unstructured interviews of senior executives of Indian public sector enterprises covering oil and gas, aeronautical, power and transportation sectors. New public management (NPM) is used as a yardstick of “business-like” characteristics of public sector enterprises.FindingsDespite heavy investment, trainings have had only partial success in implementing the core objective of NPM, i.e. to provide quality services in a professional manner to meet citizen requirements. The study found that though concepts of NPM are introduced at multiple management training programs, the public enterprises lag in the implementation of NPM. The ingrained hierarchical and procedural culture of the enterprises was often highlighted as the challenge to its implementation.Practical implicationsThe study will be of significance to Indian policymakers in designing management education programs to public sector employees. It brings out – (1) various models of management education provided to public servants across industries, (2) provide evidence on the extent of NPM implementation, (3) identify barriers for transitioning the learnings from the management courses to workplace and (4) suggest changes for improving effectiveness.Originality/valueThe existing research on LPG in India covers the economic transformation post-implementation and the factors contributing to the success of its implementation. This study adds to the limited literature available on the management education of public servants in the country.

Urban education reform in wicked times: The limits and possibilities of building civic capacity in Detroit

After decades of market-based education reforms, the landscape of urban school districts across the country have been transformed. Yet, this is neither a sign of the effectiveness of such reforms nor a widespread consensus over the contents and form of urban schooling. Education reform remains a wicked problem, particularly along racial lines, making it nearly impossible to build broad-based coalitions around the actual improvement of teaching and learning. Thus, this article seeks to address this matter as a political problem. I do so by examining a case study in Detroit, a one-year period (2015-2016) in which two education regimes emerge to fight for their version of public schooling in the final legislation for a new school district. Using Page’s (2016) strategic framework for building civic capacity, I compare the regimes’ leadership strategies and find different levels of engagement with building civic capacity. However, higher levels of engagement did not necessarily yield the desired policy outcome. I conclude by discussing the limits of building civic capacity when local control itself has been gutted by decades of market-based reform and how future strategic frameworks need to consider changes in the urban political economy as barriers to building civic capacity.

Pipeline sharing: Potential capacity analysis of biofuel transportation through existing pipelines

In response to resource depletion and tightening carbon emissions policies, the product oil is gradually being substituted by biofuels and faced with falling demand. A large number of studies have been done on the optimization of the biofuel supply chain, but few of them have considered the existing petroleum pipelines for policy reasons. Market-based reforms in the oil and gas industry have provided the possibility of pipeline sharing, whereby pipeline owners can use the remaining delivery capacity to transport other liquid fuels that are allowed into the pipeline, such as biofuels, thereby increasing pipeline benefits and reducing biofuel logistics costs. This paper develops a logistics optimization model considering multi-product pipeline scheduling from the perspective of biofuel suppliers and proposes a pipe-rail transportation mode to assess the optimization potential of logistics costs. Finally, this paper verifies the feasibility of the proposed approach using a logistics system in a region of China as a practical case study and conducts a sensitivity analysis on whether changes in the demand for product oil and biofuels affect the choice of pipeline opening location, concluding that there is no effect within a 4-fold increase in biofuel production and a 0.78-fold decrease in product oil demand.

Does low-carbon city pilot affect the enterprise competitiveness in China? Based on a staggered difference-in-difference model.

China has recently instituted the low-carbon city pilot (LCCP) policy in target areas to control its greenhouse gas emissions. Studies examining those environmental regulations have not focused on how they affect enterprise competitiveness, especially emphasizing the LCCP's dynamic effect. Here, we use the quasi-experimental opportunities of the LCCP policy along with a staggered difference-in-difference model to evaluate and explain the influences and transmission mechanisms of the LCCP policy on enterprise competitiveness. The empirical results show that (1) the construction of low-carbon cities significantly reduces, by 3.56%, the average enterprise competitiveness. Also, capital-intensive and small firms are more susceptible to adverse effects from the LCCP policy, but those effects weaken with time. (2) The LCCP policy affects enterprise competitiveness by increasing operating costs and reducing R&D. (3) However, those adverse effects can be suppressed when a region's degree of marketization is high and industry competition is fierce. Although our results show that the LCCP policy indeed brings more significant economic costs, those economic distortions can weaken through market-based reforms and improved market competition.

Market-Based Reform, Industrial Restructuring and Economic Development of Cuba

This paper examines whether market-based reform, industrial restructuring and diversification efforts have contributed to economic development of Cuba. The disintegration of the Soviet Union led to serious depression in Cuba in the early 1990s. To overcome the economic difficulties, the Cuban government began to adopt market-based reform in the mid-1990s. Cuba gradually strengthened market-based reform measures again in the late 2000s and economic growth rate rose in the meantime. Cuba could diversify its economic structure from its heavy reliance on the agricultural sector to the service sector. Cuba has overcome the negative effects of US’ economic sanctions by strengthening its bilateral relationships with countries within the socialist bloc such as the Soviet Unionand Venezuela and developing value-added industries where it has a comparative advantage. The government’s emphasis on education appears to have contributed to the development of the Cuban economy led by tourism, exports of professional services such as medical services, and a technology-intensive pharmaceutical industry. Meanwhile, insufficient allocation of resources to science and engineering coupled with the chaos in Venezuela have had negative impacts on Cuba. Finding other trade partners and foreign investors while emphasizing science and technology education may provide better opportunities for the Cuban economy.

Wild Fish Welfare in UK Commercial Sea Fisheries: Qualitative Analysis of Stakeholder Views.

Simple SummaryEvery year an estimated 1.5–2.7 billion wild fish are caught by UK commercial sea fishing fleets subjecting most to severe stressors. Scientific research shows that fish are sentient beings, but UK animal welfare laws do not protect commercially caught wild fish. For example, stunning fish before slaughter is rare and gutting them alive is a common practice. There are therefore major welfare issues in wild capture sea fisheries, no laws to protect the welfare of wild fish at sea, and great potential to reform practice to improve the lives of billions of sentient fish. The article investigates this through reporting findings from interviews with 18 experts with a stake in wild fish welfare. The article reviews the UK fishing industry, policy context and scientific evidence that fish are sentient, linked to stakeholder views about what fish experience during wild capture. The article then analyses industry practices, resultant welfare harms and stakeholder attitudes towards them. No participant disputed that fish are sentient and all were able to identify key stressors to fish in different stages of the capture process, together with potential mitigations. Interviews revealed that harms can be worsened by their hidden nature along with conservative industry attitudes towards brutal practices which would be unacceptable in other areas of animal food production. The article raises awareness of an under-researched welfare problem in UK wild capture sea fisheries but should have wider significance to many fishing nations.An estimated 1.5–2.7 billion wild fish are caught by UK commercial sea fishing fleets annually. Most are subjected to severe stressors during capture; stunning is rare and gutting alive is common practice. Fish are recognised in UK law as sentient beings, but commercially caught wild fish are excluded from welfare protections. Animal welfare impacts in wild capture sea fisheries are therefore on a massive scale, with major potential for legislative and market-based reforms. Interviews were conducted with 18 experts working within the fishing and seafood industry, fisheries management, scientific research and animal/fish advocacy organisations. The findings reveal a significant welfare gap between societally acceptable ways to treat sentient animals and the reality of capture fisheries. The participants pointed to harms caused to fish throughout different stages of the capture process caused by combinations of variables from fishing gear and methods to biological, environmental and other factors, noting that all require mitigation. Interviews revealed that the nature of harms may be exacerbated by conservative attitudes towards brutal practices in the industry, driven by profit and efficiency and free from legal restraint. To address the welfare gap, stakeholders favour engagement with the industry to improve understanding of harms and to identify mutually beneficial and shared objectives through alleviating stressors to fish in the capture process. This empirical research is focused on UK wild capture sea fisheries. However, given the dearth of welfare legislation globally, it has significance for fishing nations and the many billions of wild sea fish captured each year around the world.

Looking Toward the Field: A Systematic Review to Inform Current and Future School Takeover Policy

The purpose of this study was to examine the presence of race in the research discourse surrounding school takeover. This study utilized a framework of color evasiveness to better understand this policy phenomenon. Through a systematic review of 32 peer referred articles four themes emerged: race and racism, political (dis)empowerment, market-based reforms, and takeover effectiveness. Ultimately, while race was present in the literature to varying degrees a nuanced view of how race plays a role in school takeover was on average lacking

Collective Action for the Market-Based Reform of Land Element in China: The Role of Trust

The market entry of collectively-owned operating construction land (COCL) is an important policy of the Chinese government to promote the flow of rural land elements in the market. Describ-ing, characterizing, and understanding collective action for COCL marketization in China is conducive to identifying potential contradictions in a timely manner, constructing common goals, and promoting stakeholder cooperation to improve the efficiency of land marketization. Our re-search question is to identify which conceptual and theoretical models would be most appropriate to evaluate the market-based land reform in China. Relying on a narrative review approach, we interpret the literature and infer that trust is conducive to cracking the collective action puzzle of COCL marketization, and propose a conceptual or theoretical framework for the joint analysis of social capital, trust, and cooperation performance for modeling and investigating the important role of trust in collective action. Concentrating on the role of social rationality in land marketization, we suggest a pathway to break away from the collective action dilemma focusing on land property rights to build stakeholder trust relationships. Subsequent research could continue by developing indicators to measure social capital, trust, and cooperation performance and empirically investigate the relationship between them on this basis.

Mechanisms Underlying Choice-Set Formation: The Case of School Choice in Chile

Many decisions involve selecting among many more options than an individual can effectively examine and consider. Therefore, people usually consider smaller and different “choice sets” as viable options. To better understand the processes affecting choice-set formation, we developed a computational model of how households become aware of potential choices in a context for which understanding household decision-making has important public policy implications: market-based reforms in education. In the model, households learn about the schools to which they can send their children through three mechanisms: find out about geographically proximate schools, access to publicly available information, and information gathered from interactions with other households. We calibrated the model using data from four cities in Chile, where students are not required to attend their neighborhood school. We then used the model to conduct hypothetical computational experiments that assessed how each mechanism impacted the sets of schools known to households before they make their choice (their “awareness set”). We found that the inclusion of a social interaction mechanism was crucial for producing simulated awareness sets that matched the awareness sets provided in a survey conducted by the Chilean Ministry of Education. We also found that the social interaction mechanism played the largest role in determining the quality and price range of the choices available in households’ awareness sets. Our findings highlight the importance of social interactions in a stage of decision-making before the direct impact of other individuals is typically made explicit. Moreover, it validates an approach that can be used in future models where understanding how decision-makers become aware of their options may be as important as the way they choose among them.

Governing for Whom? The Link Between Representative Governance and Segregation in North Carolina’s Charter Schools

Market-based reforms have become pervasive in the public sector, generating a vigorous debate about whether they promote public goals like effectiveness, efficiency, and equity. Nonprofit organizations are not only instrumental in the market for public services but also play important representative roles in democratic society. This article uses Guo and Musso’s theory of representative governance to examine how representation and participation in nonprofit governance influence representational outcomes in marketized environments. Leveraging the conflicting interests that nonprofit charter schools face in a geographic region marked by segregation, this article examines whether a nonprofit charter school’s representative capacity improves representational outcomes. Findings suggest that, on average, charter schools in the sample employed few mechanisms to increase representative capacity and that lower descriptive representation was linked to segregating outcomes rather than representational outcomes.

China's textbook approach to regulatory reform of the natural gas market

Natural gas, as a transition fuel, is considered essential for China's decarbonization and local air protection policy, yet the regulatory structure China relies on to promote gas use remains under-researched. China's central government recognizes the need for market-based reforms of the gas sector, but what regulatory and policy adjustments are necessary to reorganize gas supply on a market basis? The textbook approach to energy market reform, and its implementation in the European Union, provides important guidance on how to create a regulatory basis to support competition in gas supply, provided national institutional characteristics are taken into account. This article engages in a comparative analysis of China's gas market reform policies and their implementation at the provincial level, focusing on Guangdong, a laboratory of economic reforms in China. The analysis demonstrates that reforms in 2019–2021 integrated key aspects of the textbook model in China's gas regulations, including third-party access, price deregulation and ownership unbundling. However, the textbook is of limited use to address remaining institutional barriers to reform, including resistance of distribution monopolies to competition from state-owned enterprises. Guangdong's experience shows that reform is possible, but only if accompanied by institutional and pricing adjustments reconciling vested interests with competition.

Going Virtual: The Impacts of a Virtual Charter School Governance Reform

This article uses theories of public governance to explain the performance of Wisconsin’s virtual charter school sector. Specifically, longitudinal student-level data from Wisconsin is used to determine the characteristics and performance of students transferring into and out of virtual charter schools. The results show that students with lower test scores are more likely to transfer school sectors. Regression modeling indicates that students suffer immediate-term academic losses when they transfer into virtual charter schools, and immediate-term academic gains when they return to traditional public schools. The results highlight the explanatory power of modern theories of public governance, but call into question the assumption that market-based governance reforms will produce performance gains. The results also speak to the performance of virtual charter schools generally, and to the possible impacts and lessons of the Covid-19 related shift to virtual education in the U.S.