Is the German system of corporate governance converging towards the Anglo-American model?

This paper analyses whether the German corporate governance is converging towards Anglo-American practices. We summarise the extant empirical evidence on the various governance mechanisms that economic theory suggests ensure efficiency and describe recent legal developments. We find no clear signs of convergence in form, i.e. the main distinctive features of the German system have remained largely unaltered. However, changes occurred over the last decade (specially in the legal framework) suggest a certain convergence in function, i.e. some governance mechanisms have effectively incorporated aims and/or goals generally associated with the Anglo-American model.

政府基金政策对WEEE回收处理的引导作用及效果分析

为了规范废弃电器电子产品（WEEE）的回收处理，2012年开始政府通过向生产企业征收基金、同时给予回收处理企业定额补贴的措施引导回收行业的有序开展，但现行基金政策在实施过程中面临着资金缺口的挑战，因此有必要探讨更加创新的激励约束机制。本文主要分析现行基金政策、资金平衡政策、以及基金减免政策对生产企业和回收处理企业的影响，通过比较企业利润、消费者剩余、环境收益、社会福利和政府资金投入等指标，综合评估三类政策的效果。研究结果表明，现行基金政策下生产企业缺少动力在生态设计、绿色生产等方面付诸环保努力，因此限制了废弃产品资源化的效率和效益。相对于现行基金政策，资金平衡政策的优势和劣势均较为突出，优势在于避免了政府财政负担，但劣势在于对生产企业的冲击过大，导致消费者剩余和社会福利下降。比较而言，基金减免政策在向生产企业征收处理基金的同时，还将根据废弃产品的处理数量给予生产企业相应的减免额度，这种压力与动力并举的措施能够更好地调动生产企业履行环境责任的积极性，激励生产企业与回收处理企业的共同努力。从评估指标来看，基金减免政策在提升WEEE的回收处理数量，改善回收处理企业的盈利状况，以及提高环境收益，降低政府开支方面具有显著的优越性。     

Emergent Management Strategies in a Public Agency: A Case Study of Alternative Fuel Vehicles

The ability of public organizations to invest in emerging technologies is dependent upon the degree to which they can effectively manage the risks of being a lead-user in a political environment. However, little is known about the dimensions and implications of the different forms of risk faced by innovative public organizations as well as the strategies employed to manage them. This paper addresses these issues by studying how one public agency implements a program of replacing its transportation fleet with alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs).

Government Governance (GG) and Inter-Ministerial Policy Coordination (IMPC) in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia

This paper focuses on the function of Inter-ministerial Policy Coordination (IMPC) and its critical role in governance. Following a definitional section, the authors give an overview of public sector governance in Eastern and Central Europe and Central Asia and discuss the application of governance principles to Inter-Ministerial Policy Coordination in these regions. They conclude with specific examples from the Republic of Macedonia and Central Asia.

Using Economic Freedom Indexes as Policy Indicators: An Intercontinental Example

We use time-series cross-section analysis to provide empirical validation for the existence of a specific American ethos and a specific European ethos with respect to economic policy. In our innovation, economic policy is proxied by “economic freedom” from the Fraser Institute database and constitutional “political institutions” are proxied by variables from the Database of Political Institutions (from the World Bank). Our results suggest that, once we control for political and institutional differences, the United States and Europe still pursue different economic policies.

Breaking the Vicious Cycle: Public Involvement in the Immigration Plan for the Nanji Islands, China

A centralized political context such as China provides a harsh environment for public involvement program that intends to share decision-making power with the public, however, there are still learning opportunities that can survive and prepare the public for a meaningful participation in the future. This article illustrates this point by designing a public involvement program that is implementable and educational in Nanji Islands, China. The public involvement program is designed to solve conflicts and tension regarding to an immigration plan between the public and local government and organized by a third party. It includes information sharing, public representatives election, and negotiation meeting between public representatives and governmental officials. The six-dimension framework from Alterman’s classic work is employed to test its feasibility within the local context.

Public Policy toward Employee Benefits in the United States,Canada and Taiwan:Lessons for European Integration

Abstract. Most governments intervene in the labor market to promote the provision of certain merit goods such as retirement income and health insurance. As economic integration has progressed within the European Community, questions have arisen concerning the harmonization of such benefits. Using case studies from three non-EC countries—the US., Canada, and Taiwan—the authors show that benefit structures and decisions reflect institutions which are difficult to change and whose patterns do not seem to reflect a simple economic determinism. The U.S. and Canada, two similar countries with integrated product markets, have adopted very different health insurance policies, but similar pension policies. Taiwan, despite its different stage of development, has a Canadian-style health insurance system and is currently grappling with how to arrange its pensions. A key outcome of the benefit-decision process is whether entitlements are external to the firm or contingent on maintaining a specific job attachment. An important factor in modifying benefit arrangements is the degree of social concertation present in national political systems. Benefits systems are best designed or reformed when institutions permit discussion of macro pressures. EC countries, now considering harmonization of economic institutions, have the opportunity to modernize their benefit arrangements. A related paper was presented to the Ninth World Congress of the International Industrial Relations Associations and its associated Study Group on Economic Policy and Social Concertation, Sydney, Australia, August 30-September 4, 1992.     

经济增长和环境质量相容性政策条件——环境技术进步方向视角下的政策偏向效应检验

现有文献关注政策规制的经济与环境绩效,却并未重视不同类型政策的技术偏向,以及技术偏态情境中经济增长和环境质量相容发展的政策条件。本文扩展Acemoglu等(2012)的环境技术进步方向模型,数理演绎不同性质政策的技术偏向,以及技术进步方向转变时经济增长和环境质量的动态演化过程,再结合我国经济数据进行政策效果评价。研究结果发现:(1)环境技术进步方向是技术研发效率和环境政策累积作用的结果,环境政策会通过影响不同类型技术创新激励的方式,改变环境技术进步方向。(2)异质性政策转变技术进步方向,影响经济增长和环境质量,其作用存在不同的着力点和偏向性。其中,研发补贴政策的清洁技术偏向和产出激励效果明显,而规制类政策的环境质量效应优于研发补贴,但其对经济增长的作用表现出非线性U型特征。(3)单一政策干预往往难以破除经济增长和环境质量的两难困境,而政策组合的效果明显优于单一政策,特别是在碳排放权交易试点地区实施研发补贴政策,以及在碳排放权交易试点地区同时实行环境税与研发补贴,效果明显优于实施单一政策。但最优的政策组合并非固定不变,而往往处于动态变化过程中。     

Citizen Support for Hospital Privatization: A Hierarchical Cross-National Analysis

The movement for a new public management (NPM) holds that citizens will put aside partisan and ideological differences to support more efficient service delivery. Focusing on hospital privatization, a multi-national sample is utilized to investigate this assertion. Generalized hierarchical linear modeling (GHLM) is employed as the method of statistical analysis. The findings with regard to privatizing hospitals reveal that citizens develop their policy position by reference to a combination of symbolic political variables, service demand, self-interest, information levels, and political efficacy. The results cast doubt on the assertion that partisan differences will be set aside as citizens consider privatization reforms.

Eco-efficiency and Integrated Product Policy: Lessons from Finland

Eco-efficiency refers to the use of our natural resources — economically, socially and ecologically — in the most efficient manner possible, while containing environmental damage. The main aim is to improve the ratio service produced by the product to harmful environmental impacts. Together with Integrated Product Policy (IPP) it shifts environmental protection from the reduction of production phase emissions and waste towards environmental impacts of products’ whole life cycle, effective use of natural resources and market orientation. IPP is more clearly an environmental policy strategy and program, where the role of the government and of various policy instruments is inevitably underlined. Finnish Environmental policy exemplifies how these new concepts have already been taken into account in strategies of sustainable development and why it is important not to apply them separately, but to find the means by which eco-efficiency thinking and the factor goals it includes can be considered when IPP is being developed.     

What Future for Green Infrastructure Planning? Evaluating the Changing Environment for Green Infrastructure Planning Following the Revocation of Regional Planning Policy in England

ABSTRACT

The revocation of the regional tier of planning by the UK Coalition Government in 2010 removed the established framework of strategic planning in England. Using a case study of green infrastructure (GI), this paper examines whether revocation has negatively impacted the development of environmental, and specifically GI policies and practice. It questions if changing government policy narratives have hindered advocacy and subsequently the delivery of GI and the extent to which it has been able to position itself as a mainstream approach in planning. Using the development of the RSS in England, and the North-East and East of England sub-regional GI strategies (areas of significant policy development), as case studies, the paper presents an ex-ante evaluation prior to revocation of the evolution of GI policy at a regional scale, alongside an ex-post assessment (2011–2015) of its continued growth within sub-regional policies. The paper concludes that whilst RSSs provided a promotional forum, that revocation has not negatively impacted upon GI development, as its advocates have facilitated a supportive policy-implementation environment which has led to the development of more integrated approaches in planning praxis.     

Vehicle Procurement Policy for Humanitarian Development Programs

This article aims to identify optimal vehicle procurement policies for organizations engaged in humanitarian development programs and to derive general insights on the characteristics of these policies. Toward that end, we follow an inductive approach. First, we study the operations of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in three representative countries: Sudan, Afghanistan, and Ethiopia. Using a linear programming (LP) model primed with field data provided by the ICRC, we calculate the optimal vehicle fleet size and compare it with the policies actually implemented. Second, drawing from results of the LP model, we develop a stylized quadratic control model and use it to characterize the general structure of the optimal policy under different demand scenarios and operational constraints. After demonstrating that the results of the control model are consistent with those of the LP model in the specific context analyzed, we discuss the optimal policies and the applicability of the former as a practical tool for strategic asset planning.     

Time Consistency of Fiscal and Monetary Policy: A Solution

This paper demonstrates how time consistency of the Ramsey policy—the optimal fiscal and monetary policy under commitment—can be achieved. Each government should leave its successor with a unique maturity structure for nominal and indexed debt, such that the marginal benefit of a surprise inflation exactly balances the marginal cost. Unlike in earlier papers on the topic, the result holds for quite general Ramsey policies, including time‐varying polices with positive inflation and positive nominal interest rates. We compare our results with those in Persson, Persson, and Svensson (1987), Calvo and Obstfeld (1990), and Alvarez, Kehoe, and Neumeyer (2004).     

考虑地区间环保投入策略互动的高质量发展研究

在考虑地区环保投入具有策略互动特征的基础上,模型分析了禀赋和财政能力差异对地方政府政策目标的影响,并讨论了平衡地区资源禀赋的生态转移支付政策对地区间环保联合产出水平的影响。研究结果表明：地区间环保投入策略互动特征的引入,使得环保联合产出最大化对应于适度的地方政府资源禀赋差异程度,差异程度过大或者过于平均,都不利于激发地方政府活力,为高质量的经济持续发展提供稳定条件。此外,专项转移支付政策相比于总量转移支付政策,能够更有效地激励地方政府在生态环境方面投入努力;而减少专项转移支付在实践中的信息对称要求,建立市场化运作资金池的横向转移支付制度安排是进一步加大地区环保投入水平的可行政策。从协调地区经济发展差异、确保环保投入发挥成效,测度地区生态外溢效应、优化专项转移支付政策,建立市场化运作资金池、提升横向转移支付占比等方面,提出提升我国环保投入资金使用效率的对策建议。     

Comparative Risk and Policy Analysis in Environmental Health

There is increasing interest in the integration of quantitative risk analysis with benefit-cost and cost-effectiveness methods to evaluate environmental health policy making and perform comparative analyses. However, the combined use of these methods has revealed deficiencies in the available methods, and the lack of useful analytical frameworks currently constrains the utility of comparative risk and policy analyses. A principal issue in integrating risk and economic analysis is the lack of common performance metrics, particularly when conducting comparative analyses of regulations with disparate health endpoints (e.g., cancer and noncancer effects or risk-benefit analysis) and quantitative estimation of cumulative risk, whether from exposure to single agents with multiple health impacts or from exposure to mixtures. We propose a general quantitative framework and examine assumptions required for performing analyses of health risks and policies. We review existing and proposed risk and health-impact metrics for evaluating policies designed to protect public health from environmental exposures, and identify their strengths and weaknesses with respect to their use in a general comparative risk and policy analysis framework. Case studies are presented to demonstrate applications of this framework with risk-benefit and air pollution risk analyses. Through this analysis, we hope to generate discussions regarding the data requirements, analytical approaches, and assumptions required for general models to be used in comparative risk and policy analysis.     

From Bureaucratic Administration to Network Administration? An Empirical Study on E-Government Focus on Catalonia

This article aims to (1) analyse the extent to which there is a movement from a Weberian bureaucratic administration towards a new organisational model that we call network-administration and (2) consider whether the premises of New Public Management (NPM) theory are present in this process of transformation. The study centres on the analysis of the channels for citizen attention and the processes of technological innovation around these channels carried out by the Catalonian Government. Our initial conclusions indicate that while there is a change in Public Administration (PA), this change is incremental and has several nuances: a slight evolution towards network-administration is observed as currently existing alongside the traditional hierarchical and compartmentalised bureaucracy. In parallel, the private sector is increasingly involved in a relationship that tends to be more controlled by the public sector. We should add that there is also a new emphasis being placed on the relationship with the citizen as a service-user.

PRICE‐DEPENDENT INVENTORY MODELS WITH DISCOUNT OFFERS AT RANDOM TIMES*

We consider an inventory model with a supplier offering discounts to a reseller at random epochs. The offer is accepted when the inventory position is lower than a threshold level. We compare three different pricing policies in which demand is induced by the resellers price variation. Policy 1 is the EOQ policy without discount offers. Policy 2 is a uniform price, stock‐independent policy. Policy 3 is a stock level‐dependent, discriminated price policy. Assuming constant demand rates, expressions are obtained for the optimal order quantities, prices, and profits. The numerical experiments show that if it is better to accept a suppliers discount, then it benefits the reseller to transfer the discount to downstream customers.     

基于系统动力学的生态文明建设政策模拟与仿真研究

生态文明建设涉及生态环境保护、资源集约节约、环境治理改善等诸多问题，是一个复杂的动态过程。为探究不同政策对该过程的影响，本文从经济、人口、教育、科技、环境治理等要素出发，构建生态文明建设系统的动力学模型，设计3类共11种仿真情景，模拟不同政策及组合政策作用下中国生态文明的建设情况。结果表明：（1）延续当前发展模式中国生态文明建设水平将进一步提高，资源节约领域的进步最为显著；（2）单一政策情景下科技政策对于生态文明建设的整体推动作用最大，生育政策对于生态文明建设的促进作用优于基准情景，但弱于教育政策与环境治理政策的作用效果；（3）组合政策情景下，科技与环境治理政策组合对于生态保护领域的推动作用最大，教育与科技政策组合能够实现最高的资源利用效率，提高生态文明建设水平的政策组合选择还应结合环境治理领域长短期目标的实现进行，前一组合能够较快实现目标，而后一组合能够实现更稳定的进步；（4）科技政策在单一政策情景与组合政策情景中均成为重要的政策因子，印证了科技创新在生态文明建设中的重要作用。     

Health reform for small population areas

There has been criticism of the managed competition model in terms of its impact on rural areas. It is suggested that the approach simply won't work for providers in rural areas and that an adjustment will be necessary. The author, acknowledging the flaw, proposes changes that will make competition work better for all providers. This column is jointly edited by Kevin M. Fickenscher, MD, and David A. Kindig, MD, PhD, chair and member, respectively, of the College's Forum on National Health Policy. Dr. Fickenscher is participating in various advisory capacities on health care in the Clinton Administration, and Dr. Kindig is Senior Advisor to HHS Secretary Donna Shalala.