Aims: The main aims of this research are to provide more empirical evidences for theory of property rights and public choice theory and to test these theories in a new environment i.e. banking sector of Pakistan. This research compares performance of public and private banks in Pakistan on the basis of four performance measures, profitability, liquidity, solvency and efficiency. It also studies the effect of politics on public banks. Method: Mainly quantitative approach is utilized in this thesis to compare performance of public and private banks in Pakistan in terms of profitability, liquidity, solvency and efficiency. Ratio analysis is used for this purpose. Qualitative analysis is based on qualitative study of empirical findings of quantitative analysis with respect to elections and observing lending behavior of public and private banks along with study of net interest margin during election years. Major Findings: The theory of property rights and public choice literature support private ownership for superior performance as compared to public ownership. From empirical findings, very weak support is found for both theories. Out of twelve ratios used in ratio analysis, ten ratios support public ownership for superior performance as compared to private ownership and only two ratios quote that private ownership is superior in performance than public ownership. From empirical findings it can be concluded that performance of public banks is superior to private banks in Pakistan in terms of profitability, liquidity, solvency and efficiency. Similarly, out of twelve ratios, only six ratios provided evidence of effect of elections on performance of public ownership which is a weak support for public choice theory. Moreover, lending behavior of public and private banks along with study of net interest margin has totally ruled out the presence of political influence on public banks. It can be concluded from these empirical findings that either political influence on public banks is minimized or political influence is affecting both sectors of banks in Pakistan. As banking sector in Pakistan is highly competitive now due to introduction of financial reforms in Pakistan, it can be concluded that theory of property rights and public choice theory do not work well in competitive markets especially Pakistan. It can also be concluded from empirical findings that privatization is not the only solution to poor performance of public ownership. The introduction of competition can substantially improve performance of public ownership. / mobile: +92-333-8102302

Over the last two decades the public sector has been the target of significant change driven primarily by advocates of public choice theory who argue that the public sector is too large and inefficient. Changes, grouped under the banner of New Public Management, have therefore been aimed at achieving greater financial accountability through the adoption of private sector management techniques and the opening up to competition of monopolistic government supplied services. Recent reappraisals of these changes have suggested that they have failed to adequately address issues of social justice. It has therefore been proposed that public sector organisations now need to consider more egalitarian methods of service delivery through greater public consultation and involvement in decision making processes. Studies over the last 20 years in the public sector have tended to concentrate on change aimed at achieving New Public Management outcomes. This study adds to theory of culture and culture change in public sector organisations through exploring a change purposefully enacted to enable an organisation to meet both economic rationalist and egalitarian objectives. The primary aim of this thesis is to explore a planned process of cultural change within a technically oriented, public sector organisation to determine the processes used to undertake such change, the resulting outcomes and why these outcomes occur. A case study was used to investigate these areas. The study was longitudinal and used a combination of methods including focus groups, interviews, non-participant observation and document analysis. Historical data was first obtained to form a base from which to examine the process of planned change over a two year period. This method allowed consideration of the impact of contextual changes on the planned process that resulted in some unintended consequences in regard to how change was being driven. The findings conclude that models of planned change that include mechanisms through which diversity is encouraged may provide arenas through which conflict can act as a positive dynamic for change. The outcome of the planned change evidences how a purposefully created hybrid organisational form may be capable of addressing the sometimes conflicting goals of economic rationalism and citizenship participation.

Through a case study methodology this research explores the decision-making process regarding financing services provided by the Canadian federal government to individual citizens. From a transparency and accountability perspective, for those services that benefit individuals versus society as whole, it is important to understand why some services are provided through general taxation while others are financed through user fees. The study utilizes public choice theory as developed in The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy which is the initial attempt to illustrate how the tools of economics may be applied to political institutions using a rational choice approach with an emphasis on rules about how choices are made. Rather than focusing on ‘what’ government spends funds on, the study focuses on ‘how’ government generates funds by examining three major actors: government, citizen-voters and pressure groups. This study furthers scientific knowledge as there has been prior research on distinguishing between public versus private goods, and deciding on how to publicly fund such goods, but there has been limited research undertaken on the actual decision-making process in financing public goods and services. From an academic perspective, this study is the first time that The Calculus of Consent: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Democracy model has been adapted and applied to the Canadian federal government. The study concludes that it depends on what elected officials decide to do to appeal to citizen-voters in order to win votes: appear fiscally prudent thus charge user fees; advance its political agenda with decisions to sometimes charge user fees or other times not; or limit costs to private sector organizations by deciding to not charge user fees. While elected officials make the decisions whether or not to charge user fees, it is the bureaucracy that implements these decisions.

The diploma thesis analyzes, whether became in the case of the development of real GDP, inflation and unemployment in the Czech Republic and the USA to systematic influence these macroeconomic indicators of the ruling parties and their political orientation. The work is focused on the period from the beginning of the 1990's of 20th century to the present, with an emphasis on the pre-crisis and crisis periods of the current economic crisis. Tested are two fundamental theoretical concepts. The first one is a model of opportunistic theories of the business cycle, then the second one, the model of the ideological theory of the economic cycle. The work also analyzes whether there was in these two states deliberate influencing of government expenditure in electoral periods in order to increase the chances of government politicians for re-election. The work also explores the similarities and differences of the pre-crisis and crisis periods of the current economic crisis to the great depression of the 1930's of 20th century.

This diploma thesis deals with analysis of revenues and expenditures of state budget in the Czech Republic and investigate whether in the Czech Republic since its formation apply traditional theories and opinions regarding state revenues and expenditures or there is already almost no differences between the traditional right- and left-wing policy and populist politics that is not based on ideological grounds plays the primary role. In the theoretical part there is presented the basic theory in the area of ideology as the basis for following analysis of Czech political scene and Public choice theory as the basis for an economic analysis of political decision-making. Subsequently, this section also explains the basic theoretical knowledge of the state budget and understanding budgetary policy from the perspective of two most important ideologies, right- and left-wing. In the analytical part certain data about revenues and expenditures of the state budget variables are analyzed using a two-tailed Wilcoxon test which tests the equality of the medians of the selection group. Diploma thesis confirmed that the erasure of differences between right- and left-wing in budgetary policy in the Czech Republic are insignificant and since its formation still hold traditional views and theories about state revenues and expenditures.

Submitted by Neusa Fagundes (neusa.fagundes@unioeste.br) on 2018-07-10T14:22:14Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Juliano_Baldissera2018.pdf: 2385878 bytes, checksum: 44d1b3b2b1e92cd3c467b94b0ef748fc (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-07-10T14:22:14Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Juliano_Baldissera2018.pdf: 2385878 bytes, checksum: 44d1b3b2b1e92cd3c467b94b0ef748fc (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-03-20 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Transparency is a challenge for the current and future reform of public administration. Transparency increases resource allocation efficiency, reduces problems between principal and agent, and discourages rent-seeking activities. Considering the theoretical assumptions of the Theory of Public Choice, man is a utility maximizer, selfish and rational, which would explain his actions against public management. This research aims to analyze the influence of socioeconomic, financial-budgetary and political factors on the index of active transparency and passive transparency of Brazilian municipalities. To do so, this research is a quantitative study, in which 3,550 Brazilian municipalities were selected, in which socioeconomic, financial-budgetary and political information were obtained. We used the multivariate analysis technique, more specifically the multiple linear regression method using the ordinary least squares (OLS) method, with cross-section data. The results show that population size captures the complexity of public administration and government, which justifies the fact that in these municipalities they are more likely to adopt e-government activities, so they are more transparent. The positive variation in municipal per capita income and education levels positively impacts the variation in the level of transparency. Brazilian geographical regions add different socioeconomic characteristics, which justifies being shown as a determinant of the level of transparency. Financial condition and municipal debt are associated with financial credibility and the government's ability to meet its payment commitments, so public managers are encouraged to disclose information as a mechanism to allow their actions to be monitored. Intergovernmental transfers have been shown to exert a negative influence on public transparency, since in Brazil, there are many resources that are transferred without a pre-defined condition or expense, causing flypaper effect. Policymakers engage in meaningful investment projects, and use transparency so that citizens can visualize this type of information. Political competition increases the care of the manager, so the same must justify and give more transparency of their actions. The right-wing political ideology and party coalition with the governor demonstrate that these aspects influence the level of transparency, which suggests that political and ideological stability and alignment justify the actions of public managers. Finally, managers in the first electoral mandate exert a negative influence on the level of transparency, since they are less experienced and do not want to show in this direction to show their inefficiencies. / A transparência se mostra como um desafio para a reforma atual e futura da administração pública. A transparência aumenta a eficiência na alocação de recursos, reduz problemas entre o principal e o agente e desencoraja atividades de rent-seeking. Considerando os pressupostos teóricos da Teoria da Escolha Pública, o homem é um maximizador de utilidade, egoísta e racional, o que explicaria suas ações frente à gestão pública. Essa pesquisa tem como objetivo analisar a influência dos fatores socioeconômicos, financeiros-orçamentários e políticos no índice de transparência ativa e de transparência passiva dos municípios brasileiros. Para tanto, essa pesquisa trata-se de um estudo quantitativo, em que foram selecionados 3.550 municípios brasileiros, sendo obtidas informações socioeconômicas, financeiras-orçamentárias e políticas. Utilizou-se da técnica de análise multivariada, mais especificamente o método de regressão linear múltipla por meio do método dos mínimos quadrados ordinários (MQO), com dados de seção transversal (cross-section). Os resultados demonstram que o tamanho populacional capta a complexidade da administração pública e do governo, o que justifica o fato de que, nesses municípios, esses são mais propensos a adotarem atividades do governo eletrônico, por isso se mostram mais transparentes. A variação positiva nos níveis de renda per capita municipal e de educação impacta positivamente a variação no nível de transparência. As regiões geográficas brasileiras agregam diferentes características socioeconômicas, o que justifica se mostrarem como um determinante do nível de transparência. A condição financeira e a dívida municipal estão associadas à credibilidade financeira e à capacidade do governo de atender a seus compromissos de pagamento, por isso os gestores públicos são encorajados a divulgarem informações como um mecanismo para permitir que suas ações sejam monitoradas. As transferências intergovernamentais demonstraram exercer influência negativa sobre a transparência pública, uma vez que, no Brasil, existem muitos recursos que são transferidos sem uma condição ou gasto pré-definido, ocasionando o flypaper effect. Os policymakers se envolvem em projetos de investimento significativos e utilizam a transparência para que os cidadãos possam visualizar esse tipo de informação. A competição política aumenta o cuidado do gestor, por isso esse precisa justificar e dar mais transparência de suas ações. A ideologia política de direita e a coligação partidária com o governador demonstram que esses aspectos influenciam o nível de transparência, o que sugere que a estabilidade e o alinhamento político e ideológico justifiquem as ações dos gestores públicos. Por fim, gestores no primeiro mandato eleitoral exercem influência negativa sobre o nível de transparência, uma vez que se mostram menos experientes e não querem transparecer nesse sentido para mostrarem as suas ineficiências.

Public-private partnerships in emergency management are widely encouraged in the academic literature, yet the government of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI) tends to view collaboration from the private sector as an impediment to good policy. This occurs in spite of the island nation's geography that makes it susceptible to natural and human caused disasters. The purpose of this correlational study was to use public choice theory to explore, from the perspective of potential private sector collaborators, whether sufficient support exists in the private sector to support the USVI government in emergency management efforts. A modified version of the Mulhearn Sustainability and Community Collaboration Survey was distributed to business owners (n = 156). These data were used to determine whether a statistically significant relationship between USVI preparedness and collaborative governance exists. The results of the linear regression were significant, (p < .001) and suggest private sector company owners believe that collaborative governance can increase USVI preparedness. The recommendation is that the USVI government and the Virgin Islands Territorial Emergency Management Agency involve the private sector in the planning, operations, and logistics of emergency management to prepare for any emergency such as natural disaster or terrorist action. The positive social change implication is based on the recommendation to the USVI government that the private sector be more involved in the planning, operations, and logistics of emergency management, thereby potentially improving emergency response in the event of a catastrophic event.

In this thesis I look at economic statecraft and try to examine why sanctions continue when they are failing, and why countries continue to use them despite debatable claims for success. For example, Hufbauer et. al.'s 2009 analysis shows sanctions only work 34% of the time, Pape (1997) estimates only 5%. Despite this economic statecraft is having a resurgence under the name "geoeconomics". This thesis builds off Kaempfer and Lowenberg's 1988 "Public Choice" theory of international economic sanctions. It hypothesises that in certain cases the domestic interests will be the primary goal of sanctions and therefore should be the primary focus of judging the success or failure of sanctions. Russia's 2014 food import ban is analysed to show that, despite failure to achieve any international goals, it is being successful at achieving the domestic goal of supporting Russian agriculture. The implications being that all current quantitative analysis of economic sanctions have potentially incorrectly measured sanctions as failures by not measuring them against the actual goals of the policies. Further research into this area to establish just how often sanctions are used primarily for domestic reasons, but even sanctions where domestic goals are only of secondary importance, their existence still needs to be...

Local governments do not operate in a vacuum. Instead, they are part of a complex “polycentric” system of governments where politically autonomous and self-ruled cities compete with one another over taxable wealth. Missing from the scholarship on metropolitan governance is an understanding of the factors driving competition among local governments. The purpose of this dissertation is to fill this gap by examining how interjurisdictional competition over economic development impacts a city’s choice of strategies for attracting business and residential investment and how those strategies affect revenue collection. First, this dissertation examines whether cities, knowing the economic development strategies of their neighboring cities, pursue similar types of businesses? Or do cities strategically target different types of businesses as a way to avoid the negative consequences of competition? Second, this dissertation explores what impact the decision to pursue similar or dissimilar businesses has on the revenue collection of local governments. Using spatial data analysis to analyze a sample of 2,299 cities, this dissertation finds general support for both theoretical frameworks presented. Overall, the findings from both analyses provide unique insights into metropolitan governance and interjurisdictional competition.

Anthony Downs public choice theory proposes that every rational person would try to meet their own desires in preference to those of others, and that such rational persons would attempt to obtain these desires in the most efficient manner possible. This thesis submits that the application of this theory would mean that public servants and politicians would perform acts of corruption and maladministration in order to efficiently meet their desires. As such action is unavoidable, political parties must appear to meet the public demand for accountability systems, but must not make these systems viable lest they expose the corruption and maladministration that would threaten the government’s chance or re-election. The thesis demonstrates this hypothesis through a study of the history of the public sector in Queensland. It shows that all governments have displayed a commitment for accountability whilst simultaneously ensuring the systems would not be able to interfere with government control or expose its flaws.