Thesis (doctoral)--Universität Zürich.

Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 1989. / Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Columbia University, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 446-475).

Selling state-owned enterprises to the private sector has become a popular policy for governments all around the world. Chapter 1 provides an historical perspective on privatization, and it describes the objectives and the privatization techniques that have been adopted by many governments since the late 70s. The chapter then focuses on two important issues in the privatization debate, the underpricing of shares and the effect of ownership on performance. It reviews the most significant theoretical and empirical contributions to the analysis of these two issues, and it introduces the questions addressed in the remaining chapters of this dissertation. In Chapter 2 I consider a government that first privatizes a company and then competes for votes against a political opponent. The government's objective is to choose the price of shares and the level of promotional effort to maximize its total net revenues. After the sale of the company to the public there is an election and the two parties announce what expropriation rate they would implement if they win the political competition. I show that in this context it is optimal for the party in power in the first period to actively promote the sale and to underprice the stock with respect to its true value, in order to increase the size of the shareholders' interest group that will vote for the party announcing a low expropriation rate. In Chapter 3 I estimate the long-term impact of the British privatization program of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, on the government's finances. For a large sample of British companies that were privatized in the years 1979 to 1994, regression analysis shows no effect of change in ownership on company's gross profitability. This information is then combined with estimates of all relevant costs (implicit and explicit) and revenues for each sale, to assess the long-term effect of the privatization policies on the government's net worth. The results show that "Selling the State" generated considerable losses for the British Government. / Ph. D.

The very important instrument of public policy is a public budgets system, which is one of the most significant parts of the budgetary scale. Public budget performs an allocation, redistribution and stabilization function and as an account balance it balances ordinary and capital incomes and outlays. Public budget consists of state budget and municipal authorities budget. Nowadays most of European public budgets are deficient. Fiscal deficit is a result of a short-term imbalance. In the Czech Republic the public budgets have been deficient since 1996, when the balance of public incomes and outlays was -11,5 milliard CZK. After the admission of the Czech Republic to the European Union the public deficit within convergence criteria has been still declining under the norm of 3 % GDP. In order to public budgets deficit reducing the public finances reform is in progress in the Czech Republic. Its integral part is a fiscal reform with objective to transfer a tax load from direct taxes to indirect taxes and actively stimulate tax revenues of public budgets.

Die vorliegende KIS Analyse untersucht die These \"Die Doppik erschwert den Haushaltsausgleich und senkt damit die kommunalen Investitionen\". Disese kann auf der Grundlage folgender Ausführungen nicht pauschal bestätigt werden. In Kapitel 2 wird die These zunächst in einen breiteren Kontext gestellt und festgestellt, dass der Haushaltsausgleich nicht der alleinige Wirkungsmechanismus ist, über welchen die Doppik Einfluss auf kommunale Investitionen nimmt. Hierbei wird insbesondere auf die Adressatenvielfalt der kommunalen Rechnungslegung und spezifische öffentliche Haushaltsziele eingegangen. Die Argumentation gründet auf einen Exkurs zu den Möglichkeiten kommunaler Bilanzpolitik im Rahmen der Vermögensbewertung bei Erstellung einer Eröffnungsbilanz. In Kapitel 3 werden verschiedene Finanzierungsformen der Infrastrukturbeschaffung im kameralen und doppischen Haushalt miteinander verglichen. Es zeigt sich, dass gleiche Sachverhalte in den jeweiligen Systemen unterschiedliche Haushaltsbelastungen zur Folge haben. Dies ist beispielsweise der Fall, wenn im Rahmen einer Fremdfinanzierung Tilgungs- und Nutzungsdauer auseinderfallen, oder es sich um eine Finanzierung aus vorhandenen Barwerten handelt. Bei einer umfassenden zeitlichen Betrachtung gleichen sich die Unterschiede jedoch zumeist aus. Schließlich wird das Problem aus Sicht der Ausgangsbedingungen der sächsischen Kommunen betrachtet. Unter der Annahme aussagekräftiger Daten zeigt sich, dass die im Rahmen der Doppik haushaltswirksamen Abschreibungsbelastungen die nicht mehr haushaltsrelevanten Tilgungszahlungen für die Mehrzahl der Kommunen überschreiten. Für die sächsischen Kommunen, die im Landesvergleich gering verschuldet sind, lässt sich somit durchaus eine Erschwerung des Haushaltsausgleichs begründen, sofern dieser doppisch zu erbringen ist. Derzeit gelten in Sachsen jedoch Übergangsregelungen, sodass der Haushalt nicht zwingend doppisch auszugleichen ist.

Si la définition de la contrainte budgétaire publique ne semble pas l’objet de controverse, ce qui constitue l’objet de recherche de cette thèse est la vitesse à laquelle les États décident de respecter cette contrainte. L’hypothèse est que la vitesse d’ajustement est déterminante dans l’évaluation globale de la politique budgétaire comme instrument contracyclique. Plus précisément, on cherche à répondre à trois questions : (i) historiquement, à quelle vitesse les États ont-ils résorbé leurs déséquilibres budgétaires ? (ii) quels sont les effets des différentes relances budgétaires selon la vitesse des ajustements et leur composition ? (iii) en quoi la durée d’une politique monétaire accommodante influence-t-elle les résultats précédents ? Le chapitre 1 montre que la critique des tests économétriques de soutenabilité n’est pas insurmontable. On cherche à caractériser le degré de persistance des déséquilibres budgétaires selon une approche fractionnaire, qui permet de classer les pays selon les fonctions de réaction de leurs autorités budgétaires. Le chapitre 2 propose d’évaluer, à l’aide d’un modèle d’équilibre général, les effets des ajustements après une relance. Quel que soit l’instrument budgétaire privilégié pour la relance, une accélération de l’ajustement entraîne un effet négatif sur la production à moyen terme. Le chapitre 3 évalue le policy mix en fonction du timing des ajustements budgétaires après la relance, par rapport à la durée de la période de taux d’intérêt nuls. Un régime instable de consolidation excessive apparaît lorsque la volonté d’ajustement budgétaire est très forte, quel que soit le comportement de la banque centrale à l’égard de l’inflation. / There is no controversy on the definition of public budget constraint. However, there is much debate on the speed of fiscal adjustment through which governments decide to satisfy their budget constraint : this is the topic of this PhD thesis. The main assumption is that the speed of adjustment is critical in the comprehensive assessment of the fiscal policy. More specifically, I answer to the following three questions: (i) historically, how fast was the resorption of governments’ fiscal imbalances? (ii) What are the effects of different fiscal stimulus given the speed and the composition of the adjustment? (iii) How the length of an accommodative monetary policy affects the answers of the above questions? The first chapter shows that the weaknesses of econometric tests of sustainability can be overcome. I characterize the degree of persistence in fiscal imbalances by using fractional econometrics. This methodology allows to classify countries according to the reaction functions of their fiscal authorities. The chapter two assesses, through a general equilibrium model, the effects of adjustments after an expansive fiscal policy. I show that, whatever the preferred instrument for fiscal stimulus, an acceleration in the speed of adjustment has a negative effect on production in the medium term. Given that the nominal interest rate reached its lower bound, the chapter three assesses, in this context, a policy mix based on the timing of adjustments after the fiscal stimulus. An unstable regime of excessive consolidation occurs when the fiscal adjustment is strong regardless of the behavior of the central bank towards inflation.

Quando se trata do presidencialismo existente no Brasil, nas funcionalidades das partes envolvidas no processo orçamentário do governo federal até então independentes entre si, como bem explana a Teoria da Separação dos Poderes, são observáveis diversas falhas, em decorrência da discricionariedade atribuída ao Executivo na realização de despesas não obrigatórias e do interesse do Legislativo na política clientelista em poder executar emendas que beneficiem suas principais bases eleitorais. A hipótese é de que, diante da necessidade de aprovação de projetos para aumento de governabilidade determinado volume de emendas é executado e verbas despendidas, o que caracteriza a barganha entre os poderes Executivo e Legislativo, fenômeno dessa pesquisa. Sustentado pela teoria econômica da agência e da Formação de Coalizões, o objetivo aqui foi verificar a ocorrência desse fenômeno de barganha nos anos de 2000 a 2017 e, na existência desse, caracterizar os parlamentares que mais se beneficiaram dessa relação. Por meio de dados do governo federal, para se chegar a esse objetivo foram usadas técnicas econométricas de análise em dois estágios de dados em painéis não balanceados, que caracterizaram inicialmente as emendas parlamentares e posteriormente seus autores correlacionados aos seus respectivos comportamentos em votações no Congresso Nacional, assim como os aportes na execução de suas emendas pelo poder Executivo. Os testes estatísticos aqui aplicados corroboraram para a validação da hipótese da existência da barganha entre Executivo e Legislativo, observado no âmbito desse trabalho pela maior liberação de recursos aos parlamentares que mais apoiaram propostas executivas, podendo caracterizar assim os mais beneficiados dessa relação / When it comes to the existing presidentialism in Brazil, in the functionalities of the parties involved in the budget process of the federal government hitherto independent of each other, as well as the Theory of the Separation of Powers explains, several failures, as a result of the discretion attributed to the Executive in the execution of non-compulsory expenses and the interest of the Legislature in the pork-barrel policy in being able to execute amendments that benefit its main electoral bases. The hypothesis is that, given the need for approval of projects to increase governability, a certain volume of amendments is executed and money spent, which characterizes the bargain between the Executive and Legislative branches, phenomenon of this research. Underpinned by the Economic Theory of Agency and Formation of Coalitions, the objective here was to verify the occurrence of this phenomenon of bargaining in the years 2000 to 2017 and, in its existence, to characterize the parliamentarians who have most benefited from this relationship. By means of federal government data, econometric analysis techniques were used in two stages of data in unbalanced panels, which initially characterized the parliamentary amendments and later their authors correlated to their respective behaviors in voting in the National Congress, as well as the contributions in the execution of its amendments by the Executive branch. The statistical tests applied here corroborated the validation of the hypothesis of the existence of the Executive and Legislative bargain, observed in the scope of this work by the greater liberation of resources to the parliamentarians who most supported executive proposals, thus being able to characterize the most benefited of this relationship

A representação é uma forma de participação política que pode ativar uma variedade de formas de controle e de supervisão por parte dos cidadãos. Em vez de um esquema de delegação, a representação é um processo político que conecta sociedade e instituições. Na democracia representativa o povo soberano delega poder ao representante, mas tem também o poder negativo de destituí-lo. Para que esse poder negativo possa ser exercido o governante deve prestar contas ao povo, o qual, após debate público, reconduzirá ou não o governante ao poder. Para que essa responsabilização ocorra, é fundamental a existência da transparência. Em federações descentralizadas, a transparência não depende apenas das ações do governo central, visto que os entes subnacionais ganham autonomia política, administrativa e financeira e, por isso, a descentralização é vista como uma segunda condição essencial para a consolidação da democracia. No Brasil, a regulação dos conteúdos informacionais das peças que compõem o ciclo orçamentário tem sido definido por legislações provenientes do ente central, o que, em tese, levaria a uma transparência orçamentária parecida entre os entes subnacionais brasileiros. No entanto, não é isso que ocorre na prática, sobretudo quando olhamos para os indicadores de transparência divulgados no Brasil. Se os índices não apontam para uma normalidade entre os números, quais os fatores determinam a transparência do ciclo orçamentário nos estados subnacionais brasileiros? Essa pergunta guiou a elaboração deste trabalho, o qual foi realizado por meio de uma pesquisa descritiva. Inicialmente, foi elaborado, com base nas recomendações internacionais (FMI, OCDE e OBP), um indicador de transparência orçamentária para o ciclo orçamentário brasileiro. De posse dessas informações, foram realizadas entrevistas com os dois estados classificados como mais similares e os dois classificados como mais dissimilares. Essa classificação ocorreu por meio da técnica estatística de Multimentional Scaling (MDS) não métrico, uma vez que as variáveis eram binárias. As entrevistas foram realizadas com servidores da área de planejamento e/ou controle dos estados subnacionais e com conselheiros dos tribunais de contas. Os resultados indicam que no contexto subnacional brasileiro, fatores fiscais e políticos contribuem para a melhoria da transparência. Os fatores fiscais foram confirmados parcialmente nas entrevistas, dado que apenas Déficit e Dívida foram apontados pelos respondentes, enquanto as variáveis receita corrente e superávit não foram citadas. As variáveis políticas (competição do governador e partido político) não foram indicadas como determinantes da transparência no Brasil. Para os entrevistados essas variáveis não fazem diferença no ambiente institucional brasileiro devido às características do processo eleitoral e da forma de governo, que ocorre por meio de coalizões entre partidos sem alinhamento ideológico e com bases definidas localmente. Além disso, outras determinantes foram destacas pelos entrevistados, as quais ainda não haviam sido identificadas na literatura internacional, como: influência das agências avaliadoras e de rating, crises institucionais e financeiras, vontade política e inovação governamental, enforcement das legislações, pressão da imprensa, decisões colegiadas, influência das instituições de controle, coordenação de ações e burocracia especializada. Esses resultados apontam que quanto mais mecanismos institucionais existirem para pressionar os governos a agirem sob o brilho da luz, mais democrática e menos desigual poderá vir a ser a sociedade. / The representation is a form of political participation that can activate a variety of control forms and oversight by citizens. Instead of a scheme of delegation, representation is a political process that connects society and institutions. In representative democracy the sovereign people delegate power to the representative, but they also have the negative power to remove it. In order for this negative power can be exercised the ruler must report to the people which, after public debate, will conduct or not the ruler to power again. In order that accountability occur, it is essential the existence of transparency. In decentralized federations, transparency depends not only on the actions of the central government, since sub national entities gain political, administrative and financial autonomy in these models and, therefore, decentralization is seen as a second essential condition for the consolidation of democracy. In Brazil, the regulation of the informational content of the pieces that make up the budget cycle has been defined by legislation from the central one, which, in theory, would lead to a similar budget transparency among Brazilian sub national entities. However, this is not what happens in practice, especially when we look at the indicators of transparency disclosed in Brazil. If the scores do not show normality between the numbers, what factors determine the transparency of the budget cycle in Brazilian sub national states? This question guided the preparation of this work, which was accomplished through a descriptive research. Initially it was developed, based on international recommendations (IMF, OECD and OBP), an indicator of budget transparency for the Brazilian budget cycle. With this information, we performed interviews with the two states classified as more similar and the two rated as more dissimilar. This classification was made through statistical technique of nom metric Multimentional scaling (MDS), once the variables were binary (presence or absence). Interviews were conducted with the area of planning and / or control of sub national states and counselors of courts of account. The results indicate that in the Brazilian sub national context, as pointed out by the international literature, fiscal and political factors contribute to improving transparency. The tax factors were partially confirmed in interviews since only deficit and debt were cited by respondents. The variables current revenue and surplus were not even mentioned. Political variables (governor competition and political party) were not included as determinants of transparency in Brazil. Respondents said that these variables make no difference in the Brazilian institutional environment due to the characteristics of the electoral process and the form of government, which occurs through coalitions between parties without ideological alignment and bases locally defined. In addition, other determinants were highlighted by the respondents, which didn\'t have yet been identified in the international literature, as influence of rating agencies, institutional and financial crises, political will and government innovation, law enforcement, media pressure, collective decisions, control agencies influence, coordination of actions and specialized bureaucracy. These results indicate that the more institutional mechanisms exist to pressure governments to act under the shining of light more democratic and less unequal could become society

No Brasil, pesquisas sobre a situação nutricional apontam para a redução da prevalência de desnutrição no país, mas se observa o aumento da prevalência de sobrepeso e de obesidade. Apesar do diagnóstico nutricional positivo, alguns problemas estruturais permanecem, como a elevada concentração de renda, os altos níveis de analfabetismo funcional, a discriminação social e racial e a prevalência de Insegurança Alimentar e Nutricional (INSAN). Está em curso um processo de legitimação e de exigibilidade do Direito Humano a Alimentação Adequada, no Brasil. A própria constituição federal e a Lei Orgânica de SAN (LOSAN), sancionada em 2006, integram um conjunto de regras de ordenamento jurídico do país que, em tese, garantiria uma alimentação saudável e adequada a todos os brasileiros, em consonância com as Diretrizes Voluntárias da FAO e com os tratados internacionais de direitos humanos, aos quais o Brasil é signatário. O objetivo geral do presente estudo é analisar a Política de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional (PNSAN) em construção no Brasil, discutindo o seu arranjo institucional e a alocação de recursos. A metodologia da pesquisa foi baseada na análise de dados secundários, de documentos oficiais, e na legislação pertinente envolvendo o período de 2003 ao final do ano de 2008. A análise teve como suporte teórico os ensinamentos da Economia Institucional e de Finanças Públicas. Entre os principais resultados destaca-se a conclusão de que a Política de Segurança Alimentar e Nutricional brasileira está constituída. Com as Leis que a embasam tornou-se uma política de Estado e não mais de um Governo, entretanto, um dos tripés de sua “institucionalidade”, a Câmara Interministerial criada em 2007, peça-chave no processo de articulação da PNSAN, por sua natureza intersetorial, é, sem dúvida, o órgão mais precário do SISAN. Apesar dessa falha institucional, a política tem recebido apoio econômico substantivo, contudo os recursos estão concentrados em um único programa, importante, mas não estruturante. Programas que garantam o emprego e a produção, passando por qualificação, educação e assistência técnica são inequivocamente essenciais para a garantia do Direito Humano a Alimentação Adequada a todos os brasileiros e portanto deveriam receber maiores quantidades de recursos orçamentários. / In Brazil, research on the nutritional situation shows the reduction of the prevalence of malnutrition in the country, but reveals the increased prevalence of overweight and obesity. Although the positive nutritional diagnosis, structural problems remain, such as high income concentration, high levels of functional illiteracy, social and racial discrimination and the prevalence of Food and Nutrition Insecurity. There is an ongoing process of legitimation and enforceability of the Human Right to Adequate Food in Brazil. The federal constitution and the Food and Nutritional Security Law, published in 2006, incorporate a set of rules that, in theory, ensure a healthy and adequate diet to all Brazilians, in line with the FAO Voluntary Guidelines and the international human rights treaties to which Brazil is signatory. The general objective of this study is to analyze the Food and Nutritional Security Policy under construction in Brazil, discussing its institutional arrangement and allocation of resources. The methodology of the research was based on the analysis of secondary data, from official documents, and legislation involving the period of 2003 to 2008. The theoretical analysis was based on the teachings of Institutional Economics and Public Finance. Among the main results there is a conclusion that the Brazilian Food and Nutritional Security Policy is established, with Laws that makes it as a State Policy rather than a government. However, one of the tripods of its \"institutions\", the \"Câmara terministerial\" established in 2007, a key element in the articulation of this Policy, is without doubt the most precarious element of the Food and Nutritional Policy system. Despite this institutional failure, the policy has received substantial economic support, however the resources are concentrated in a single program, an important one, but not structural. Programs made to ensure employment and production, through skills, education and technical assistance are clearly essential to ensure the human right to adequate food to all Brazilians and therefore should receive higher amounts of budgetary resources.