Navigating Through the Spatial and Institutional Contradictions of Public Audit Oversight

Abstract

This study revisits the actions of the French audit regulator (H3C) and the French profession over the 2003–2013 period in response to the regulatory transformations that occurred both in the national and transnational space. Our analysis highlights how these actors have navigated through the spatial and institutional contradictions that characterize public audit oversight in order to manage variable and opposing interests from one space to another. In particular, we show how conflicting national and transnational conceptions of professionalism and commercialism have developed to support different regulatory agendas. Our analysis of the spatial dynamics of public audit oversight allows us to propose a much less confrontational representation of the relationships between public audit regulators and the audit profession. We maintain that more attention should be paid to the spatial variants of commercialism and professionalism to better understand the development of audit regulation.     

社会心理服务驱动下信访“分类治理”的理路——以河南省西平县为例

学界对于信访分类治理的研究大多基于因“人”分类或因“事”分类展开,形成了信访分类治理研究的基本范式。然而,社会心理服务嵌入信访治理体系,为信访分类治理提供了新的视野:因“心”分类,即按照信访人“心理诉求——利益诉求”的两分原则,将信访人分为利益型、心理型、耦合型和无意识型四种。本文以西平县信访治理实践为个案,提炼出由“心”而治的信访分类治理模型,并对该模型的治理理路进行了分析。研究发现:地方政府对信访频次、情绪和事件的三维叠加形成了信访分类治理的参照维度,而地方政府对治理技术的灵活性运用则构成了信访分类治理的动态实践。本文为信访分类治理过程中信访人的心理诉求与利益诉求间的关系提供经验事实,并为社会心理服务驱动下的信访分类治理理路提供分析框架。然而,受限于研究区域和案例数量,本文提炼出来的由“心”而治的信访分类治理模式还有待进一步验证和完善。     

Parties,divided government,and infrastructure expenditures: Evidence from U.S. states

This paper examines the impact of parties and divided government on infrastructure expenditures for transportation, education, and social services in U.S. states. As infrastructure expenditures are considered a bi-partisan priority, we hypothesize that divided governments expand infrastructure spending compared to governments under true Democratic or Republican control. We test this hypothesis using U.S. state-level data over the period 1970 to 2008 and find that divided governments indeed increase expenditures for these budget categories. Specifically, divided governments spend more on transportation than unified Democratic governments, and more on education and social services than unified Republican governments. The effect is most pronounced for the core infrastructure of transportation and even stronger when only looking at capital outlays instead of total expenditures.     

Reelection,growth and public debt

In this work we examine how economic growth affects public debt when interacted with reelection prospects. Reelection considerations shorten political time horizons and give rise to political myopia that exacerbates debt accumulation. That laxer institutional reelection restrictions (e.g., no term limits) mitigate this effect due to electoral accountability is well known. Incorporating growth, we find that this mitigation can be reversed because less myopic, and more accountable, incumbents put more emphasis on smoothing the effects of growth across generations. We test these predictions using an annual-based panel of U.S. states over the period 1963–2010. Our identification strategy rests on constitutionally-entrenched differences in gubernatorial term limits that provide plausibly exogenous variation in reelection prospects, and aggregate national TFP shocks that are exogenous to individual states. Our estimates indicate that when reelection is possible a one standard deviation positive income shock induces, within the same year, a relative increase of approximately $40 in real per capita public debt.     

Policy tolerance of economic crime? An empirical analysis of the effect of counterfeiting on Italian trade

Some governments seem ambivalent towards economic crime because, on the one hand, there are adverse effects on competition and legal businesses; on the other hand, there are benefits through (shadow) employment and income in less-developed areas, as well as benefits through relations of political clientage. We focus on counterfeiting and its economic effects on trade in Italy during the economic crisis. Using a newly built regional dataset and a dynamic panel model, we find evidence of the dual impact of counterfeiting. The production (and exchange) of fake goods depresses the legal market that relies on intellectual property rights but supports shadow-economic activities for the benefit of illegal workers, criminal organisations, and political clientele. We show that the negative effects outweigh the positive effects.     

Government size,composition of public spending and economic growth in Brazil

The performance of the fiscal policy is largely affected by the relationship between government size, composition of public spending and economic growth. We use a theoretical framework to find optimal relations among these variables and confront them with a panel data for the Brazilian states. Private capital and government spending are substitute inputs in production as the Brazilian states require provision of public spending to fill gaps in the underdeveloped private sector. Public investment and current government expenditures are combined in fixed ratios in the overall government spending due to strong rigidity of the public budget. The optimal share of public investment is considerably lower than current expenditures, as occurs in developing countries characterized by low economic dynamism. Finally, the average tax burden from the data is below the estimated optimal level, meaning that there is space for increasing tax rate without harming economic growth for some Brazilian states.     

Work motivation and public service motivation: disentangling varieties of motivation and job satisfaction

Research on motivation in the public sector has used public service motivation (PSM) and self-determination theory (SDT) interchangeably. This paper compares both theories, develops hypotheses pertaining to their assumptions, and empirically tests them in two public offices in Switzerland. We then explore their relationship with job satisfaction as an indicator of predictive validity. We find that SDT and PSM display conceptual differentiation and SDT has a strongest relationship to job satisfaction. However, moderation analysis suggests that employees with high levels of PSM have more stable job satisfaction compared to their low-PSM counterparts.     

Public Sector Organizations and Cocreation With Citizens: A Literature Review on Benefits,Drivers, and Barriers

ABSTRACT

Cocreation has captured the attention of public managers and policymakers and yet the literature focusing in the public sector is still relatively dispersed. In this literature review we present a contextualized analysis of the potential reasons that lead public sector organizations to cocreate with citizens and identify potential barriers that may hamper the adoption of cocreation in public settings. The analysis undertaken allowed us to conclude that the topic is increasingly capturing the interest of researchers, although the state of the literature is characterized by a reduced heterogeneity in research methods. We classified cocreation benefits in the public sector as innovation related, improved decision-making, and symbolic related, and we categorized the drivers for cocreation according to three broad categories: external, relation-specific and internal. Finally, we identified potential barriers of cocreation, including structural, organizational, and behavioral barriers.     

重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系运行机制研究

在突发事件应急管理过程中，科技研发支撑作用十分关键，亟需建立突发公共卫生事件科研应急体系长效运行机制。基于科技研发应急体系的复杂性、适应性特征，从主体属性和体系架构两个层面入手，分析重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系的复杂适应系统特征，运用复杂适应系统理论模型和动态闭环螺旋模型，研究重大突发公共卫生事件科技研发应急体系运行机制。研究发现，重大突发公共卫生事件背景下，科技研发应急体系具有复杂适应系统的7个基本特征，是典型的复杂适应系统；科技研发应急体系中，科研攻关专家组、诊疗医院、科技部门等科研主体具有各自内部模型，并通过6大标识进行聚集；科技研发应急体系存在事件—需求引导、主体协同、资源交互、成果转化机制。同时，新冠病毒肺炎疫情应对实践表明，疫情防控救治进程中科技研发应急体系存在并遵循上述运行机制。     

重大公共危机中科研协同团队识别研究——以诊断试剂为例

遴选合适的科研机构以整合成科研协同力量对于应对重大公共危机，尤其是对于防治和遏制新型冠状病毒肺炎等重大紧急疫情至关重要。首先，构建科研力量协同整合潜在对象识别理论模型，并在此基础上构建识别方法。以突发重大公共危机中的诊断试剂科研攻关为研究对象，以诊断试剂领域科研力量协同整合作为案例进行实证研究。最终识别出7个协同合作群组及29个关键核心机构，而且可将其整合为针对不同科研攻关需求的科研力量。结果还表明，在整合诊断试剂领域科研力量时，高校是与其它机构衔接的主要核心纽带，来自国家层面的科研院所及军队系统机构可以提供有力支持，而高新技术企业也是不可忽视的重要力量。