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The article deals with the implementation of the rule by the Advisory Council on Public Records under the provisions of the Public Records Act of 1967 in Great Britain. Most contemporary historians saw the First World War as a historical watershed from which time onwards the activity and potential role of governments in influencing British economic and social development were much enhanced. As a result, particular areas of historical research, such as diplomatic history and historical studies of social and economic policy, were given enormous stimulus. For all historians access to records is essential. New records are almost always welcome and any restriction on access to information is generally deplored or regretted. In the initial euphoria at the release of so much new material comparatively little attention was paid to the status of the public records as research evidence. In 1970, however, doyen of British interwar historians, the late G. L. Mowat, referred to a part of the new material with characteristic shrewdness.

Copyright of Papers in Regional Science is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

There is high interest in economic development efforts involving cooperation or collaboration among metropolitan jurisdictions. To determine why some local governments engage in cooperative agreements while others do not, this paper investigates transaction obstacles, including bargaining, information, agency, enforcement, and division problems. The authors then advance an institutional collective action explanation for intergovernmental cooperation, focusing on the conditions under which these transactions costs are low. This work anticipates that the costs associated with interlocal cooperation are influenced by the demographic characteristics of communities, local political institutions, and the nature of regional government networks. Empirical analysis based on a national survey of local development officials provides support for several predictions from this model and identifies policy variables that, in turn, increase the prospects for cooperation, specifically through the development of informal policy networks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adolph Lowe's work was dedicated chiefly to developing "political economics" as a foundation for economic theory and instrumental analysis to direct a politically free economy along the path of economic growth. This paper argues that the public management inherent in instrumentalism is not likely to be acceptable in the U S or the U K, except in national economic emergency Yet, the formerly planned economies of central and eastern Europe, whose history is one of stringent control, may have a political preference for a Lowe type of instrumentalism to avoid the results of uncontrolled market processes. The reception accorded Lowe's political economics by economists, as members of a professional community, reflects their methodological preferences and policy views Those who are skeptical of the market clearing capability of the price mechanism, and explain capitalist development as an ongoing historical process, are more likely to be appreciative of instrumental analysis as a policy tool. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recent studies of state assumption of the CDBG-Small Cities program have been limited by two factors. First, they have been single-state case studies or confined to a small number of states. Second, they have adopted a narrow context for examining the likely impacts of community development following state assumption. This paper attempts to expand policy information based upon earlier work by studying a larger cross-section of states and considering the issues of redistribution and decentralization from a broader context. We find some significant policy changes from previous HUD program management but suggest that such may be due to the CDBG economic development amendment and an increase in multipurpose projects in the states. Unlike Morgan and England's (1984) recent article in PAR, we suggest that decentralization may not necessarily lead to decreasing redistributive community development policies in the states. Rather, redistribution may be incorporated within the enlarging proportion of multipurpose projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article analyses survey data regarding the impact of supreme audit institutions' (SAIs) performance audit on public administration in four Nordic countries. Regression analysis with pooled data from Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden indicates that performance audits have positive impacts on usefulness, changes, improvements and, to some extent, accountability, as perceived by auditees who have experienced the audits. The results show that some of the factors that earlier research found important for the impact of performance audits in some countries were insignificant for all the four Nordic countries, but that SAIs' legitimacy, audit quality and consequences of media attention were important factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores the relationship between public administration and economic development. Topics discussed include analysis of public administration; implementation of public policy; and need of human betterment along with antitrust to environmental regulation and fundamental cause of development.

Features of rational decision making (such as agenda entrance criteria and statement of jurisdiction) barely conceal the complexity of international accounting standard setting. In 2003, when the International Financial Reporting Standard for Small and Medium-sized Entities (IFRS for SMEs) project achieved agenda entrance, the International Accounting Standards Board's (IASB) jurisdiction was to develop, 'a single set of ... accounting standards ... to help participants in the world's capital markets'. Drawing on interviewees' recollections and other material, this study of how the project achieved agenda entrance finds within-IASB opposition to the project, arguing it was outside the IASB's jurisdiction that dissolved with the realisation that the IASB's jurisdiction would be changed to encompass the project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Canadian Geographer is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

A government's budget represents a statement of its priorities. During the past 25 years, the international community has recognized that gender equality is essential for sustainable economic growth and full social development, and it has called upon nations to use their budgets to promote genderequitable resource allocation and revenue generation. More than 60 countries have answered this call by implementing gender-responsive budgets at the national and subnational levels. However, gender-responsive budgeting is virtually unheard of among public finance scholars and U.S. public administration scholars and practitioners. Here we define gender-responsive budgeting, discuss the need for it, describe the lessons learned, and discuss its potential as a budget reform. We hope our commentary will bring gender-responsive budgeting into the mainstream of research in the U.S. public administration community and into the practice of government budgeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban sprawl has evolved into an exceptionally complex public policy problem in the United States over the course of recent decades. One factor that has made it particularly difficult to deal with is its relationship to the fragmented structure of the American system of land use governance. Acting on behalf of their residents, local governments enact land use regulations to secure lifestyle preferences for low density, suburban living environments while at the same time ensuring a high quality of public service provision. This article examines the effect of this process on metropolitan spatial structure through a series of econometric models designed to test the following hypothesis: that fragmentation promotes sprawl by increasing the proportion of growth that occurs at the unincorporated urban fringe. The estimation results reveal substantive evidence that municipal fragmentation and several related factors - including special districts, infrastructure investments, and white flight processes - have a significant and enduring effect on the growth of outlying areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The credible constraint of morally hazardous or opportunistic behavior can enhance efficiency. This idea is applied to an examination of local government institutions to identify how council-manager government constrains opportunism in economic development by substituting low-power bureaucratic incentives for high-power electoral incentives. A panel design isolates changes in the use of development strategies or instruments in 516 cities. The central argument presented here is that the Progressive ideology of the separation of politics and administration, institutionalized in the council-manager plan, allows administrators and elected officers to more easily resist opportunistic behavior. Economic and political forces have significant effects that are different for mayor-council communities than for council-manager communities. The influence of strategic planning is evident in council-manager cities, but not in mayor-council communities. Under council-manager government, development is carried out in a discriminating manner, leading to lower levels of financial incentives but more loan and business-attraction programs. In conclusion, the authors discuss how the career patterns of city managers are shaped by the incentive structures created by the council-manager plan. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Develops a model that describes the growth of the public sector as a joint result of the process of economic development and the political institutions in place. Use of panel data for about 65 developing and developed nations for the period 1950-1990 in the model; Mechanisms in the growth of the public sector; Relation of the political regime to economic development.

This article presents an analysis of link of state employment and training and economic development programs in the United States. Effectiveness of state economic development programs is contingent on successful coordination of traditional physical capital and human capital improvement activities. The major stimulant to better linkages has been the growing perception that the movement of physical capital is heavily influenced by the skills and educational levels of the potential workforce. The article focuses on examination of the degree to which states have attempted to link physical and human capital development programs and to explore the correlates of these state efforts. The study explores the political, socioeconomic, and programmatic correlates of state organizational efforts. The results show that states which have forged the closest linkages are those which are confronted by declining economies despite extensive state fiscal incentives in support of the private sector and in which governors have fewer constraints on their powers to impose organizational changes.

In most contemporary states ethnic conflict provides the context in which public administration (PA) must operate, the intermediary between the state and economic development. These relationships -- hitherto neglected in most PA and economic development literature -- are manifested both in the internal structures of PA (recruitment practices to government and government-related positions) and by government policies and programs that allocate resources and services differentially among members of competing ethnic communities. As PA tends to reflect the interests of the dominant ethnic community, aggrieved communities mobilize to demand redress, in the form of self-determination or more equitable treatment, by civil or violent means. Inter-ethnic or ethnic-state relationships may be regulated through PA by systematic preferences, individual market-merit processes, or power sharing arrangements. These alternatives are complicated by differential perceptions of what constitutes fairness and by intra-ethnic tensions and divisions. How PA in pursuit of economic development influences and is influenced by ethnic politics calls for enhanced attention by scholars and analysts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A pressing public policy question, particularly since the advent of intense international economic competition from Asian countries in the 1980's, has been whether the institutions of government play a necessary and special role in industrial development and technological innovation. This question has been debated at length since the early 1970's. The debate has grown more heated in recent years, with prominent economists arguing for and against government involvement and the creation of an industrial policy. It has also received increased attention in theoretical and empirical research by various scholars. In particular, empirical studies of the remarkable progress of Japan and other Pacific Rim countries have cited government policy as a major factor in that success. These arguments are compelling, but much remains to be done before the empirical case incontrovertibly linking industrial policy to economic growth is established. The article focuses on the question of economic development, government policy and technological innovation in a particular technological domain — computing technology — and in a particular region-the Asia-Pacific region. INSET: Variables and framework.;Data and analysis..

This article presents news related to public administration in the U.S., as of April 2001. The rapid proliferation of federally sponsored programs to assist communities in many ways has been accompanied by administrative confusion in Washington and in the communities being helped. The article examines problems of community planning and development. If there is to be a single system of coordination at the community level, embracing the multicounty organizations for non-metropolitan areas and the model cities mechanism for urban programs, then there must be a single point of leadership and coordination in the federal government. The inability of state governments to assume their necessary role in the solution of national problems must itself be recognized as a national problem, and one that must be approached and solved through national action like any other national problem. The article also presents comments on the reorganization plan of 1970 proposed by U.S. President Richard Nixon. Reorganization plan has the merit of ending a prolonged and costly inertia in the development of the presidential office.

This article seeks to explore the validity of the assumptions used by Congress and the Executive Branch in setting organizational criteria to be met by nationally subsidized local and regional nonfederal agencies. Multicounty economic development districts are specifically considered to test the proposition that variations in scale, treated as neutral in designing these units, can have negative effects for both the ability of certain local groups to have their interests represented in district policy and for the implementation of national goals through district programs. The data that are available and inferences which can be drawn from them support the hypothesis. Consequently, if predictable and successful national- local organizational linkages are to be established, efforts are needed to produce an explicit set of testable propositions about the interrelationship of organizational scale, structure, and behavior at the subnational level to performance in the achievement of federally defined values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]