An important component of the New Public Management, which has spread through many countries in the world, is the emergence of hybrid governance, a structure which has replaced traditional hierarchical governance in many parts of the public sector. Hybrid governance lies between hierarchical governance and market governance, yet beyond this there is a relative lack of information on how hybrid governance works in detail. This thesis uses principal agent theory to examine the structure and form of hybrid governance. In particular, the analysis presented allows the construction of a three-dimensional governance model to explore the issue of how hybrid governance works in the context of incentives, a relatively neglected area of the public management literature. Applying the theory developed in its first half to the rapid change of higher education in China, this thesis demonstrates how hybrid governance can be analysed through an incentive approach which focuses on reducing state authority, enhancing academic power and creating market rewards. The research findings show that the Chinese government has employed these three incentive methods to motivate universities and their staff towards improved performance, and that hybrid governance has replaced traditional hierarchical governance in Chinese higher education, however the effect of changing governance structure is not significant. A reducing, but still high degree of centralised state control has restricted the incentives produced from market rewards and university academics, and the imbalance of the three incentive forces in hybrid governance impairs the further improvement of the efficiency of public service provision. The main contributions of this thesis, therefore, are to give a better understanding of the nature of hybrid governance, and to expose the limit of Chinese higher education reforms.

The focus of this PhD is on the way in which policy makers and practitioners ‘plan’ ‘community’ in the realisation of urban policies, particularly in housing and regeneration. The research underpinning this PhD took place against a policy backdrop of measures to increase the supply of (affordable) housing, to reduce social exclusion and to promote urban renaissance and sustainable communities. The common theme through all of the outputs has been focused on ‘community’ both as a entity which exists but which is difficult to define, and as an instrument of policy. The critical review presented here is in two distinct halves. The first half considers how community has been defined by policy makers and used as a tool in delivering better urban environments. As such it outlines how community has been commodified within policy, how through this commodification it is utilised through its active engagement in decision making, how it is physically planned via new housing developments and ultimately engages with questions as to whether community is lost through these moves. The second half of the review engages with discussions around mutualism. Drawing on research focused around co-operative and mutual housing it outlines how community exists organically and how this might be better understood if community is to be more successfully harnessed in urban and social policy. The review concludes by outlining areas for further research in taking this agenda forward.

This thesis presents three chapters on the macroeconomic effects of fiscal contractionary policies in emerging economies and UK in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis using dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models. The first chapter assesses the dynamic effects of fiscal contractionary adjustments on the exchange rate movements in emerging economies to establish which movements are associated with expansionary fiscal contractionary episodes. The results show that exchange rate depreciations are more likely to support fiscal consolidations in emerging economies. The second chapter draws on the Leeper, Plante and Traum (2010) framework to analyse the effects of austerity measures on public debt and the economy in the UK when households are heterogeneous. The findings show that austerity measures reduce government debt-to-GDP but initially contract the economy. Reduction in government consumption results in the largest government debt-to- GDP reduction while transfers shocks are better suited for expansionary fiscal contractionary episodes. The third chapter investigates the effects of the interactions between fiscal contractionary and unconventional monetary policies on the movement of long term interest rates in the UK. The findings show that, spending based fiscal contractionary and unconventional monetary policies reduce the long term interest rates and spur economic expansion.

In Belarus, the only post-Soviet country in the Eastern European region with unreformed pension system, the fact of the largest cohort approaching the official age of retirement not only sees an increasing burden on the system of state pension provision, but also brings considerable change to state-society relations. Qualitative study of these relations explores understanding of retirement through interviews with Belarusians approaching pension age. Lefebvre's theoretical framework is used to present the findings. Through the years of socio-economic transition the retiring generation of Belarusians have preserved a “socialist” understanding of pensions - of it being a state’s responsibility and a deserved reward for the years of service. Yet in contemporary Belarus the average pension’s monetary value does not correspond to people’s expectations and hence, as a way of dealing with perceived injustice, the majority of Belarusians plan to work in retirement in order to provide a decent living for themselves and their families, thus undermining the essence of pension as a period of discontinued work. The research’s conclusions suggest that analysing pensions as a social contract for retirement is very important for finding an appropriate approach to changes in pension provision and communicating the direction of proposed pension reform.

Using the various moments of ideological change in the law and development movement as an analytical framework, this thesis examines the indifference to corruption in international development in the period preceding the 1990s, and the attributes, challenges and prospects of the current global anticorruption agenda in sub- Saharan Africa. With Nigeria as a case study, the research finds that the approach to corruption has been overwhelmingly influenced by the respective predominant global development ideology during each moment, whilst ignoring local experiences and efforts to address corruption. Hence, despite the heightened attention to the issue in the last couple of decades, anticorruption reforms have failed to enhance pre-existing efforts to deal with corruption in countries. The thesis concludes that the currently evolving paradigm of a rights-based approach to anticorruption demonstrates a promising response to some of the shortcomings of this approach to corruption over the years. However, the nature of its conception and proposals for its implementation reaffirms the entrenched nature of these shortcomings and their inherence in the overall strategy of law and development reforms in countries in sub-Saharan Africa.

This thesis explores the potential of novel mechanisms towards the reduction of issuers' ex ante uncertainty in the process of going public: i) the recruitment of directors with exceptional academic backgrounds and ii) obtaining credit ratings. Given the information scarcity in the private domain, IPO firms can use these strategies to provide investors with solid, readily identifiable benchmarks to assess their standing. Notwithstanding whether these informational cues are associated with positive or negative prospects, they cause a significant portion of uncertainty in valuation to subside. Ultimately, this should act to constrain the phenomenon of IPO underpricing causing firms to claim a larger portion of the surplus value created on the issue day. First, we examine whether CEO educational and professional attainments are associated with short-run IPOs performance. We find that returns are negatively associated with Ivy-League education, the existence of at least one University degree and the total number of qualifications. After controlling for endogeneity and self-selection bias, the results show that at the graduate level of education the Master of Arts, the MBA, the Juris and Medical Doctor titles exhibit negative relation with the money left on the table. The same is true for any professional qualification. It is also reported that only in the case of the PhD title the Nobel Elite group of Universities outperforms the rest of the sample. Second, we examine the effect of multiple credit ratings on IPO performance. The evidence comes from the U.S. and shows that the acquisition of credit ratings constitutes a valid investment decision for the issuing firm as it leaves less money on the table. Both individual as well as any combination of ratings from the three largest agencies associates with lower underpricing. This effect exacerbates with higher grade levels which are also found to decrease initial returns. Additionally, rated IPOs systematically experience negative filing price revisions. The results offer new insight to the facilitation of the going public process. Finally, we contribute to the large literature associating IPOs with earnings management. In this respect, we explore a special niche, i.e. politically connected firms. A priori, these issuers can be expected to refrain from discretionary accruals manipulation to avoid causing discontent to their contacts. Alternatively, the case may be that the powerful acquaintances fuel managers with overconfidence which permeates the financial statements. Assembling a hand-collected database on firms' political donations, we come up with strong support for the latter conjecture. In particular lobbying activity and candidate campaign financing are both shown to be among the important determinants of aggressiveness in reporting. Our findings tie in with a growing body of literature showing businesses actively involved in politics to be prone to abuses and professional misconduct.

This thesis examines the influence of local and regional governments in investment growth and productivity in Mexico. A combination of quantitative and qualitative analysis is used with the aim of assessing their influence and tools. Mexican municipalities and states have gained major participation in policy making, investment fostering and infrastructure building. The decentralised resources to meet these goals have increased considerably; as a consequence, it becomes imperative to measure the actual effects of such resources as well as to identify the opportunity areas to develop. The first part of the empirical analysis, attempts to measure the influence of local governments’ expenditures on private investment growth, as well as to identify the most important investment drivers. Likewise, given the increasing foreign investments landing in Mexico, there is a potential regional competition between cities, this is also evaluated. A panel data analysis consistent with cross section dependence is carried out for 63 Metropolitan Areas (MA)/cities for the period 1993-2008. The econometric analysis shows that, municipal governments’ expenditures have had a substantial effect on private capital. In addition, competition strategies matters. More importantly, public infrastructure stock is revealed as a central determinant for investment, especially for manufacturing firms. The second empirical chapter evaluates whether municipal and state expenditures in economic policies have boosted productivity of firms. Firms and regional features are also included in the estimation models. Panel data analysis consistent to cross section dependence is used, for 63 MA/cities and 29 states. The results showed that the policies implemented in municipalities have had little or even negative effects over firms’ productivity. Meanwhile, the policies implemented by states have had larger influence on productivity increases. In order to dig deeper into the role of local and regional governments in economic policies, two case studies –Hermosillo and Mexicali- are presented in the last part. Empirical models cannot tell about the local processes, as the data used is only expenditures. The fieldwork undertaken helped to identify the most significant policies followed in each city, as well as the leadership and organisation of stakeholders. The main finding suggests that local participation and overcoming political cycle is essential for the long-term success; and easing doing business for firms, rather than incentives, is more effective to spur private investment.

Public debt managers have a certain range of borrowing instruments varying in their interest rate type, currency, maturity etc. at their disposal and have to find an appropriate combination of those while raising debt on behalf of the government. In selecting the combination of instruments to be issued, i.e. the borrowing strategy to be pursued for a certain period of time, debt managers need to consider several objectives that are conflicting by their nature, and the uncertainty associated with the outcomes of the decisions made. The objective of this thesis is to propose an approach to support the decision making process regarding sovereign debt issuance. We incorporate Multi-Criteria Decision Making (MCDM) tools using a multi-period stochastic programming model that takes into account sequential decisions concerned with debt issuance policies. The model is then applied for public debt management in Turkey.

In this thesis, sustainability of the Turkish domestic debt is analyzed within the &ldquo / sustainability indicators&rdquo / perspective. The fiscal targets of Maastricht Treaty (1992) are imposed on the Turkish fiscal policy and it is investigated whether these targets are the indicators for sustainability in the medium term. Uctum and Wickens&rsquo / (2000) methodology is followed in assessing the sustainability of the current fiscal policy and the efficiency of the Maastricht Treaty (1992) targets. Moreover, the vector auto regression (VAR) approach of Garcia and Rigobon (2004) is utilized in deriving the econometric model for the debt dynamics of Turkey. The results suggest that domestic debt of Turkey has been unsustainable within 1994-2008. Furthermore, the Maastricht Treaty (1992) fiscal targets are binding for Turkey and gaining more significance in the recent years.

The budget of the European Union has accomplished a significant role for European integration in the history of the Union. However, it has not resulted into anticipated developments compatible with the Union&rsquo / s institutional policy reform process in the last decades. The budget has emerged as a consequence of path dependent developments in its historical progress, which has dragged the European Union to a critical stage. It is rather challenging for the Union now to sustain the current structure of the budget, since it exposes some disadvantages to continue with this structure in an enlarging and deepening Union. In spite of various reform proposals, there is no appropriate theoretical ground for the budgetary politics of the European Union to be channelled through strengthening the link between the Union and European citizens. This thesis attempts to approach the existing problems associated with expenditures and revenues of the current budget from the social constructive policy perspective, in line with the major question of &ldquo / how the budget can be made more socially constructive by utilizing expenditures and revenues?&rdquo / The study has three major objectives. Firstly, it presents a historical evolution of the European Union budget in order to explore path dependent developments inherent to its historical progress. Secondly, it offers a critical analysis on the expenditure and revenue sides of the budget. Thirdly, it introduces a social constructivist policy approach on this subject as an alternative to the most prevalent approach of fiscal federalism.