Thesis--Basel. / Vita. Bibliography: p. 96-98.

Proefschrift--Amsterdam. / "Geradpleegde literatuur": p. [281]-286.

"First submitted as a doctoral dissertation to ... the University of Illinois ... June, 1940. An abstract. ..was printed in May of that same year (under title: Theoretical considerations of economic planning)" -Pref. / Bibliography: p. 179-188.

In the developing countries where development plans are effected through the budget, it is imperative that effective and efficient execution of plans require not only integration between planning and budgeting, an efficient budgeting system, but also that, since national goals are realized through fulfilment of planned targets in programs and projects, the budgeting system should have a built-in format which reflects such activities, and that they ought to be the basis for financial allocations. The essence of such effective integration, an efficient budgeting system and presentation of activities in the budget, lies in the fact that since planning is a continuous process which involves the constant re-examination of trends, tendencies, policies, in order to adapt and adjust government policies and to make plans flexible, it requires as its basis for rational decision-making and ultimate selection of courses of action, assemblage of facts, data thoroughly analysed to ensure that what has been planned is in fact achieved. The planning process, and even more so the plan execution process, thus needs a lot of active, positive support to be successfully maintained; an efficient management tool providing the necessary vehicles for evaluation of achievements of planned targets. Therefore it is hypothesized that the evaluation of a development plan's performance is of only partial validity if it is not based on a budgetary classification system, which along with reflecting the physical and financial targets in the plan is effectively integrated with it. Integration between a comprehensive plan and the budget involves first, annual programming of the goals and targets in the plan; second, assignment of responsibility of carrying out its component programs and projects; third, effective coordination and the closest of co-operation between the central planning agency, the ministry of finance and the operating agencies; making such an annual program the basis of budget presentation and allocation of financial resources to accomplish the targets; and fifthly integrating the physical and financial plans of the programs in the budget classification system to provide tools for progress reporting and evaluation. Using the Soviet planning experience to illustrate the processes involved, it is noted that although the processes are complex, yet the planning and budgeting systems are fully synchronized. Such effective co-ordination and integration are found to be wanting in many developing countries. The formulation of plans is divorced from plan implementation and there is no link anywhere in the budgeting system between planned targets and financial allocations. Planning is thus not only incomplete but also ineffective as the mechanism to give effect to planning decisions is not attuned to the requirements of development planning. It is demonstrated that owing to inadequate planning, or lack of flexibility in planning, absence or inadequacy of proper and efficient communication between planning and budgeting agencies, deficient budgetary techniques employed in the process of plan implementation and failure of the budgetary system to link financial resource allocations to the needs of physical targets, the system operating, leads one to conclude that an efficient budgeting management system to implement plans may be more important than the plans themselves. Therefore since evaluation and analysis of progress on projects and programs is critical to "planning for development" to enable selection from among alternative objectives, policies and programs and optimal allocation of limited resources, the attributes of program and performance budgeting that help in this process are analysed. It is demonstrated that it is an efficient management tool whose salient features can contribute to both effective plan implementation and execution and the whole planning process. It is pointed out that the technique links planning with budgeting and provides in its format planning goals in the form of programs and project targets linked to the requisite financial resources and also provides the necessary classification systems and tools to evaluate a plan's performance. The principles of program and performance budgeting provide the basis for the case study of Ghana's planning and budgeting systems. It is demonstrated that although some features of the technique are being utilized, there is not effective coordination and co-operation in the formulation and presentation of annual programs and the budget. Owing to this lack of coordination it is demonstrated that plan implementation and execution has been ineffective and that there is room for improvement. In conclusion, it is emphasized that in countries "planning for development" an efficient budget mechanism to effectuate the social, economic and physical development policies of governments is more important than the development plans. Thus it is noted that program budgeting is an efficient mechanism and the information it provides is very essential and useful to formulating, implementing and evaluating soundly conceived plans. As such it is a useful tool which a developing country, like Ghana, should adopt to buttress its development planning efforts. / Applied Science, Faculty of / Community and Regional Planning (SCARP), School of / Graduate

Until recently, proofs establishing the existence of gains from trade have used the assumption that the government can alter the distribution of income by a set of lump sum transfers , i.e ., the government has at its disposal a set of household specific transfer instruments. However, recent work has been devoted to situations where these transfer instruments are inadmissible. Dixit and Norman (1980: 79-80) demonstrate that a government that can alter all domestic commodity taxes can ensure that no individual is made worse of by moving from autarky to free trade. It turns out, however, that this Dixit and Norman proof of the gains from trade shows only that the autarky equilibrium can be replicated under free trade and not that positive gains will occur. One of the purposes of this thesis is to investigate the problem of the gains from trade when a variety of tax and transfer instruments are available. It is fruitful to regard the problem of the gains from trade as a policy reform question: can the government in the home country find a small (differential) perturbation in the country's initial international trade prohibitive tariffs which, accompanied with a suitable (differential) perturbation in the country's commodity tax structure, results in a strict Pareto improvement? In order to answer the question, a model for the production side of an economy is presented in Chapter 2. It is established that, under some very weak conditions, there are (differential) tariff perturbations that improve the country's initial net balance of trade. In Chapter 4, it is shown that these productivity gains can be distributed to the consumers in the economy in a strict Pareto improving way by suitably adjusting the country's initial commodity tax rates. The principal tool for establishing these results is a duality theorem: Motzkin's Theorem. Chapter 3 develops two approximative formulae for measuring the productivity gain accruing from a change of tariffs. Some examples of strict Pareto improving perturbations in commodity taxes and tariffs are given in Chapter 7. These include proportional and uniform reductions of tariffs as well as a change toward uniformity in the country's initial tariff structure. Next, the government is assumed to be able to adjust only the home country's initial vectors of tariffs and lump sum transfers but not the vector of commodity taxes. Conditions for strict Pareto improving tariff and transfer perturbations to exist are developed. In Chapter 9 it is shown that neither the existence of strict gains from trade under commodity taxation or under lump sum compensation necessarily implies the other. Examples of strict Pareto improving changes in tariffs, taxes and transfers are given in Chapter 10. These include proportional reductions of tariffs and/or taxes and movements toward uniformity in the tax rates for domestic and tradable commodities. The role of normality of commodities in consumption in policy recommendation results is also discussed. Chapter 11 develops sufficient conditions for a perturbation in the home country's tax structure, which causes international trade, to be strict Pareto improving. In Chapter 12 the goal of the government is to choose a policy that reduces the level of economic inequality associated with the initial observed equilibrium in the economy. It is shown that inequality reducing perturbations in commodity taxes and tariffs exist, if the preferences and initial commodity endowments of the consumers satisfy certain conditions. / Arts, Faculty of / Vancouver School of Economics / Graduate

Considering the specific experiences of Chile and Argentina, this study undertakes the analysis of economic liberalization policies from a "credibility constraint" perspective. Building on the assumption that, in a context interdependence, one of the essential conditions for economic development is the attraction of foreign capital, it suggests that confidence-seeking is a major concern constraining the rest of the government's activities. From these premises, the thesis addresses the socio-political consequences of this quest for credibility and provides an analysis of these criteria's compatibility with democratic and authoritarian rule. In this endeavor, the project relies on a comparative observation of four case studies to establish that notwithstanding regime type, the success of economic liberalization depends primarily on the satisfaction of the socio-political requirements for credibility. The results are clear: both types of regimes are in a position to fulfill these requirements although this may have considerable consequences on the economic well-being of substantial sections of the population.

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