Public Wealth Research Articles

Unlocking public infrastructures? State aid and the common European data space

EU state aid rules are part of the EU’s competition policy, a form of soft law developed to nudge states away from public investments in many areas. Rules were used to impose that market competition holds a privileged position, and that enacting social, political, or economic benefits that might stifle competition requires a complicated legal and political negotiation process between the European Commission, Member States, and private companies. Nonetheless, many strategic projects or situations in recent years led to significant state aid. The Commission utilised a variety of means to encourage both private and public investments in EU based digital infrastructure that is critical for public media services and for unified European data space. Despite EU’s balancing act between the private and public interests, business interests are dangerously capturing the development in the media data space. To grasp the social and economic contribution of publicly financed productive activities, we approach public broadcasting systems as producers of public wealth of a peculiar kind whose activities and goals are defined by their public purpose, rather than the imperatives of capital and profitmaking. Unifying data spaces with too many design decisions conceded to capitalist production runs the risk of further neglecting social foundations of member states. We argue that the desired digital transformation would be more successful if it moved towards affirmative approaches to public services and public infrastructures, recognising the historical and contemporary contribution of the production of public wealth and public media in member states.

What determines citizens’ attitudes to municipal mergers?

ABSTRACT To what extent can citizens’ attitudes to municipal mergers be explained by costs and benefits incurred by merging with a specific consortium of neighbouring units? To answer this question, we analyse data taken from a survey to citizens of 119 Norwegian local governments in the fall of 2019, merely a few months before the merger of their own unit with one or more neighbouring units was to be implemented as the result of a national local government reform decided over two years in advance. In line with previous studies, we find that citizens tend to prefer merging with wealthier neighbours rather than poorer ones. Moreover, we find that this preference is only observable among respondents in smaller units merging with one or more larger units. Furthermore, differentials in private wealth among the merging units appear to affect preferences more than public wealth. However, we did not find support for the theoretical assumption that citizens prefer mergers with units that are similar in terms of political and societal characteristics. Overall, our study suggests that concerns over local redistributive losses may impede support for mergers and, hence, increase the political costs of implementing comprehensive structural reforms.

Main Predictor(s) of Good Corporate Governance in National Government Departments: A Decision-tree Classification and Prediction Analyses

Purpose: Good public sector corporate governance leads to good management, stewardship of public wealth, public engagement, and ultimately, better outcomes for citizens. As South Africa has one of the worst Gini coefficients in the world, its public sector should effectively address the challenges of inequality, poverty, and unemployment. Yet, almost 30% of national and provincial government departments obtain unfavourable audit outcomes. Methodology: Supporting the drive for clean audit outcomes that equate to good corporate governance, the research objective was to determine the predictors of national government departments’ corporate governance success. The study used CHAID (chi-squared automatic interaction detection) analyses, a decision-tree technique based on information reported over a 13-year period. Findings: The CHAID analyses indicated that national government departments’ corporate governance success is primarily explained by three factors, namely: a quality internal audit function (main predictor), the number of fraud incidents, and the number of internal control weaknesses. Implication: Even though all the variables in this study receive attention in literature and regulation, the problem of unfavourable audit outcomes persists. The question is where to focus on resolving the problem. Regulators may take note of where to focus their efforts in strengthening elements of good corporate governance.

Walras and Tugan-Baranovsky on socialism: Reconciling economic science and social ideal

Nowadays, Leon Walras (1839—1910) is well-known first and foremost for his “Elements of pure political economy, or the theory of public wealth” (1874, 1877) and Mikhail Ivanovich Tugan-Baranovsky (1865—1919) gained a wide recognition due to his book “Industrial crises in contemporary England: Their causes and influences on the life of the people” (1894), which had a significant impact on the development of economics. At the same time, both economists were deeply concerned not only with theoretical problems, but also with those that are now considered beyond the scope of theory, the problem of social ideal and that of a more just social system being among them. Walras and Tugan-Baranovsky associated the embodiment of the social ideal with socialism and strived for an economic system that corresponded to that ideal, albeit their conceptions of socialism being different. The principal opportunity to achieve reconciliation between science and ideal was associated with a synthetic approach reconciling the scientific method and ideal, economics being considered “a bridge” between them, or a «testing ground», where the reconciliation was to take place. Although history has shown that Walras’s and Tugan-Baranovsky’s ideas of socialism were utopian, the very fact that two eminent economists were deeply concerned with the problem of social ideal and socialism at a time when the foundations of modern economics were being laid, shows that the striving of economists to create objective and rigorous science was, to a measure, driven by their aspiration to solve the social problem and to set up a social and economic system which is rational and more just than the existing one

Wasting Public Wealth—The Antecedents and practice of Public Land Management in Pakistan 

Wasting Public Wealth—The Antecedents and practice of Public Land Management in Pakistan 

Social Forms Beyond Value: Public Wealth and Its Contradictions

Revisiting the history of the development of software and communication technologies, this article demonstrates that while the early techno-utopian theories have been balanced by more sombre approaches, the emancipatory potential of productions whose outputs do not take the commodity form deserves further theoretical reflection. Social form and value-form literature provides a way to rethink publicly financed activities and activities of software communities as a variety of social forms of wealth and productions within capitalist social formations. Public wealth, it is argued, is a useful umbrella concept to approach the forms of wealth in the sphere of software, media and communication. With digitally storable matter, due to its replicability at near zero cost, it is of utmost importance that the state provides an institutional framework, primarily for capital, but also for public wealth, to be coded. In this setting, legal form, its content and function play a key role in the contested reproduction between forms of public wealth and capital.

Islamic Economic Framework for the Exercise of Islamic Financial Activities: its Conformity with Maqasid Shari`ah

ABSTRACT With the establishment of Islamic banks throughout the latter half of the 20th century, Islamic finance became institutionalized. The emergence of new Islamic banks was accompanied by the emergence of Islamic insurance firms and other Islamic financial organizations. The Maqasid al-Shari’ah in financial transactions reveals the overarching goals and significance to which it aspires through decision-making. It is clear from the careful and continuous examination of several Qur'anic verses and the Prophet's (PBUH) Sunnah regarding financial matters that the Shari'ah has adhered to specific objectives in formulating its financial laws and regulations. These objectives include the fair distribution of wealth within society, continual wealth investments, the satisfaction of economic prosperity for all through the satisfaction of basic human needs, the openness of financial transactions to avoid disputes, and the legitimacy of ownership of private and public wealth. The study offers a Maqasid-based development paradigm, which views development from the perspective of extracting benefit and removing harm. This calls for fostering things that make life simpler, more meaningful, and prosperous while preventing all causes of harm, socioeconomic hardship, and underdevelopment. The approach's strength lies in the proper weight it accords to morality, spirituality, and faith as catalysts for prolonged moderate growth and in its emphasis on all-encompassing yet restrained material progress. The study argues for a detailed investigation of the economic growth and the science of Maqasid al-Shari'ah. The qualitative method is applied in this study to evaluate the fundamental concept of Maqasid Al-Shariah from the primary and secondary sources of knowledge in Islam, which shows the model of the economic system to identify the challenges of governing the Islamic banks and Islamic financial activities accordingly. Keywords: Islamic banks, Islamic Insurance, Financial Institutions, Maqasid al-Shari'ah

Public debt and welfare in a quantitative Schumpeterian growth model with incomplete markets

This paper quantifies the welfare effects of counterfactual public debt policies using an endogenous growth model with incomplete markets. The economy features public debt, Schumpeterian growth, infinitely-lived agents, uninsurable income risk, and discount factor heterogeneity. Two versions of the model are specified, one with households holding equity in the group of innovating firms. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy to match the degree of wealth inequality, the share of R&D expenditure in GDP, the firms’ exit rate, the average growth rate, and other standard long-run targets. When comparing balanced growth paths, I find large welfare gains in equilibria characterized by governments accumulating public wealth. The result is robust to the mechanism used to generate a highly concentrated wealth (i.e., preference heterogeneity or “superstar” income shocks). Welfare effects decompositions show that level effects and growth effects reinforce each other. The responses of both the intermediate goods and their market conditions are key in explaining the large level effects. The version of the model without equity is computationally easier to solve, allowing to consider transitional dynamics. Taking into account the dynamic adjustment to the new long-run equilibrium, I show that the transitional welfare costs are not large enough to change the sign of the welfare effects stemming from a change in public debt. I find that eliminating public debt would lead to a 0.8% increase in welfare, while moving to a debt/GDP ratio of 100% would entail a welfare loss of 0.5%. A decomposition analysis shows that growth accounts for approximately 50% of the overall welfare effects.

Disclosure Of Community Welfare: Implications Of Super Premium Tourism Program Implementation

This study aimed to find out whether public wealth indicated the implementation of Labuan Bajo, the super-premium tourism program, in the Manggarai Barat sub-district. Moreover, the data were both primary in the form of interviews and secondary in the form of documents. The study was descriptive- qualitative with a case-study approach. Furthermore, the informants were the head of the office, the head of the creative cluster, and also making its analysis. As a result, the implementation of the super-premium tourism object affected the Local Owned-source Revenue, improved natural resources, infrastructure, and the disclosure of public wealth. Likewise, the implementation of Labuan Bajo had been well-applied as the public revenue level was inclined, education access was easily obtained, and better quality of public health.

LEGITIMATE PURPOSES In The INHERITANCE Of WOMEN

So, Allaah says (interpretation of the meaning): "I am the one who has chosen me to do so, The inheritance system in Islamic law breaks down public wealth and does not make it stacked in the hands of people without others.

Decommodifying wealth: Lauderdale and ecological economics beyond the Lauderdale paradox

The term “Lauderdale paradox” has been used by ecological economists since the late 1980s. It refers to the idea, developed by the Earl of Lauderdale in 1804, according to which private riches – the sum-total of the exchangeable value of goods – and public wealth – the sum-total of the use value of goods – vary in opposite directions. The Lauderdale paradox has been used in ecological economics in relation to the valuation of ecosystem services, and also in connection to some branches of political ecology, especially eco-Marxism. Based on a careful reading of Lauderdale's work, taking into account his political context, this article shows that some of the recent interpretations of the Lauderdale paradox, especially regarding wealth indicators, deserve to be qualified in the light of the original meaning of Lauderdale's words. Other aspects of Lauderdale's reflections that could be sources of inspiration for today's research programs in ecological economics are also emphasized: the extension of environmental accounting to human capital, the study of commodification and decommodification processes in a comprehensive anthropological perspective, and the specification of the characteristics of a steady-state economy.

Modelling of the effects of luminaire installation geometries and other factors on road illumination system photometric parameters and energy efficiency

PurposeProperly planned road illumination systems are collectively a public wealth and the commissioning of such systems may require extensive planning, simulation and testing. The purpose of this simulative work is to offer a simple approach to facilitate luminance-based road lighting calculations that can be easier to comprehend and apply to practical designing problems when compared to complex multi-objective algorithms and other convoluted simulative techniques.Design/methodology/approachRoad illumination systems were photometrically simulated with a created model in a validated software platform for specified system design configurations involving high-pressure sodium (HPS) and light-emitting diode (LED) luminaires. Multiple regression analyses were conducted with the simulatively obtained data set to propound a linear model of estimating average luminance, overall uniformity of luminance and energy efficiency of lighting installations, and the simulatively obtained data set was used to explore luminaire power–road surface average luminance characteristics for common geometric design configurations involving HPS and LED luminaires, and four categories of road surfaces.FindingsThe six linear equations of the propounded linear model were found to be well-fitted with their corresponding observation sets. Moreover, it was found that the luminaire power–road surface average luminance characteristics were well-fitted with linear trendlines and the increment in road surface average luminance level per watt increment of luminaire power was marginally higher for LEDs.Originality/valueThis neoteric approach of estimating road surface luminance parameters and energy efficiency of lighting installations, and the compendia of luminaire power–road surface average luminance characteristics offer new insights that can prove to be very useful for practical purposes.

Content and consequences of institutional reforms in post-socialist countries

Institutional reforms affect the efficiency of the economy through the mechanism of resource mobility, expectations, trust, the dynamics of the shadow range and corruption, the degree of economic freedom and the overall innovative capacity of the economy. The nature and content of these influences are controversial and sometimes uncertain. Therefore, when carrying out reforms, it is necessary to take into account the specific peculiarities of the connection between changes in the institutional environment and the processes of functioning and development of the economy. Most often, institutional reforms have a differentiated impact on economic entities: the change of rules will affect some positively in the short term, but negatively in the medium term, and will have the opposite effect on others. The effects of a short-term positive impact for individual subjects are mostly determined by redistributive processes, since it takes a certain amount of time for a significant and sustainable increase in public wealth under successful reforms. During institutional reform, a purposeful change of a certain set of institutions takes place, carried out by subjects who develop and implement a transformation plan. Through the system of various state bodies using various mechanisms, tools and measures the state, on one hand, introduces institutional reforms, on the other, institutional prerequisites have a determining role in the implementation of state policy in various areas, economic area in particular. The article focuses on the institutional reforms of post-socialist countries at the end of the 20th century, which were aimed at the transition of countries from a command-administrative economy to a market economy. The experience gained from studying the positive and negative features of these reforms will help prevent mistakes in the implementation of institutional reform of Ukraine to ensure its effective development taking into account the country's national characteristics.

The economic anthropology: theory and terminology issues

The intensive course of socio-economic progress on a planetary scale makes it possible to strengthen the integration process in the economic and economic activities of the peoples of the world. The preservation of characteristic local ethno-economic structures and economic and cultural traditions, as well as their use, are becoming important in the implementation of national goals and objectives for the stable development of countries as a solution to problems related to food security, unemployment, real incomes of the population and the environment. In a number of leading research centers of the world, priority is given to the study of economic life, the traditions of creating material wealth inherent in various social, national-ethnic and agrarian-economic societies. They pay special attention to the theoretical and practical problems of economic anthropology, concerning such topics as socio-economic, cultural diversity, ethno-economic structure of peoples living in a certain natural and geographical environment. In this article “Theoretical problems of ethno-economics”, special attention is paid to the scientific characterization of ethno-economics as a new concept in ethnology and economics, as well as to the analysis of theoretical problems, the concepts of marginalism, formalism, substantivism, which the term regard to share public wealth, and production equally to every member of society, and institutional theory.

“Political Anatomy” and the Idea of Public Wealth from William Petty to Adam Smith

Inthe article, the author attempts to solve three interrelated problems. First, by offering new readings of key texts authored by leading British thinkers and representatives of different strands of seventeenth-century economic thought, she explores the emergence of the labour theory of value in the intellectual context of the seventeenth-century scientific revolution and under the influence of its inspirer, Francis Bacon. Secondly, the author raises the question of the exact form in which the idea of labour as the source and foundation of social wealth, expressed by William Petty, an active critic of the doctrine of mercantilism and one of the founding fathers of English political economy, was initially embodied, as well as the “art of numbers” – quantitative methods of economic and demographic statistics, in his first economic work – “A Treatise on Taxes and Contributions”, published in 1662. Thirdly, the author examines and evaluates the economic ideas and proposals of William Petty and his associates as an integral part of their political views and ideas about “social wealth” and the importance of scientific knowledge for the improvement of public administration. She pays particular attention to the connection between the economic views of William Petty, a major Irish landowner, as set out in “The Political Anatomy of Ireland”, “A Treatise on Ireland,1687”, and other statistical works, and George Berkeley, Bishop of Cloyne, with the assessment of the prospects for the development and future arrangement of Ireland, as well as with proposals for the unification of the two and even all three Kingdoms.

Environmental aspects of the use of land resources

The article considers ecological aspects of using land resources. The main ecological aspects of using land resources are identified according to three main groups: soil conditions, relief characteristics, climatic conditions. Furthermore, the soil conditions of land holdings and land use are characterized by such indicators as: types of soils, the thickness of the humus horizon, its water permeability, erodibility, the content of humus, minerals, dusty and fine sand fractions, compaction of the soil layer, etc. Among the characteristics of the relief, the most significant ones for ensuring the ecological sustainability of land ownership and land use include: steepness, shape, length and exposure of the slope, height difference and the degree of dismemberment of territories by ravines, streams and hydrographic networks, the magnitude of local bases of erosion, etc. Among the climatic conditions, solar radiation (light), temperature and water regimes, as well as other conditions forming the microclimate are important. It has been established that ensuring the sustainable use of land resources, taking into account ecological aspects, is a complete set of methods and tools, with the help of which the processes of land use and protection are organized, regulated and coordinated, and the reproduction of soil fertility as a natural resource element of public wealth and a specific ecological feature is ensured. Currently, the use of land resources must be carried out on an ecological basis, that is, while ensuring ecological balance in the adjacent territories in the process of interaction between man and nature, coordination of ecological and economic interests. It is emphasized that the main principles of ensuring the ecological sustainability of using land resources are: the obligation of greening of nature use in general and the land use system in particular; in the process of formation of land uses and land ownership, it is necessary to ensure the fulfillment of basic ecological, socio-economic and technological conditions; the criteria of the rationality of formed land uses are high economic, ecological and recreational efficiency and, as a result, preservation of the health of people living in the given territory; the formation of ecologically sustainable land use must be supported by a system of ecological, including environmental protection, substantiation and regulation. Key words: land, agricultural lands, land resources, use of land resources, ecological aspects.

Interrelation between Ecology and Inflation: Theoretical and Institutional Aspect

The article studies the issue of inflation and ecology in theoretical and institutional aspect. We realize the importance of classical factors of inflation, however we would like to highlight such factor as ecology, to be more precise, expenses on providing ecological well-being. In the near future global expenses on ecology can become a considerable reason for price rise. The contribution of ecological well-being to inflation was analyzed from theoretical point of view. The article also explains the mechanism of green inflation development: a growth in nonproduction spending on nature protection at the current stage of output can cause cost rising on average per unit of product. Interrelation between ecology and inflation is shown as a modified Kuznets ecological curve. The graph shows that inflation decreases with rising environmental pollution, but to a certain crucial moment, after which inflation starts growing. The author gives arguments to support the modified Kuznets ecological curve, the major one is the fact that the lower nature-protection costs of the producer that means a high level of pollution, the lower production costs are and thus the lower inflation is and visa verse. The author analyzed results of sociological research that demonstrated that customers are not ready to pay for ecology improvement and price regulation mechanism does not work in this case. In the institutional aspect the fact that price mechanism cannot be used was proved by using the problem of ‘free-rider’ and information asymmetry in regard to ecological well-being as public wealth, which could lead to adverse effects. Certain non-market solutions of the problem of ecology and inflation were proposed.

Have public environmental appeals inspired green total factor productivity? empirical evidence from Baidu Environmental Search Index.

Literatures focus on whether formal environmental regulatory policies can effectively stimulate green total factor productivity (GTFP), but generally ignore the role of informal institutions such as public environmental appeals. This paper uses inter-provincial panel data and Non-Radial Slacks-Based Measure (SBM) model to measure GTFP. With the Baidu Environmental Search Index presenting the public environmental appeals, the dynamic panel System Generalized Method of Moments (SYS-GMM) and Differenced Generalized Method of Moments (DIFF-GMM) methods are used to explore the effect, transmission mechanism and conditions of the public's environmental demands on green total factor productivity. The study concludes that public environmental appeals are beneficial to improve GTFP, and this result still holds after endogenous and robustness tests. The mechanism results show that the green technology innovation effect is an important mechanism for public environmental appeals to improve GTFP. In addition, public environmental appeals of different pollutants and different locations have heterogeneous effects on GTFP. In addition, the public wealth level, human capital level, and government institutional environment play an important role in the impact of public environmental appeals on GTFP.

Grand theft in international law

Abstract Commonly subsumed under the legal concepts of corruption and money-laundering, the theft of public wealth on a massive scale with the aid of transnational financial institutions has, so far, largely been neglected by legal scholarship and legal practise. Drawing on two grand theft cases, this article’s objectives are threefold. Firstly, it explains the concept of grand theft by illustrating how it operates. Secondly, it retraces legal responses to grand theft in jurisdictions of countries, which are home to key financial markets places, to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of this legal regime in practice. Thirdly, it reflects on the obstacles to researching grand theft.

The Role of the Family as a Social Institution in the Formation of Society in Modern Times

A social institution is a special type of integrative whole formed on the basis of objective connections of people. It acts as an organized system of social norms and relationships which encompass public wealth and values to meet the basic needs of society. Social institutions, which are the object of research of different sciences, are similar in terms of purpose and functions. These include the family, the elders, the property, and so on. These institutions, in turn, are an integral part of the institution of the family. 
 The various processes taking place in the world in modern times affect each individual in a reciprocal way. It is more appropriate to name globalization, urbanization, migration as whole demographic processes among them. The process of globalization connects the degradation of centuries-old values and principles in this direction with economic factors. In this case, the distances that separate people from each other limit the ability to assess the personal qualities. Thus, in the presented article, the concepts related to this issue act as a factor confirming the existence of socio-psychological functions that are an integral part of the family institution. This tendency inherent in intergenerational relations raises the issue of ethnic worldview, the problem of unity of past and future.