EDUCATING AMARETCH: PRIVATE SCHOOLS FOR THE POOR AND THE NEW FRONTIER FOR INVESTORS

The accepted wisdom says that the poor need billions of dollars more in donor aid for state education. But this ignores the reality that poor parents are abandoning government schools to send their children to 'budget' private schools that charge very low fees, affordable to parents on minimum wages. Recent research shows that private schools for the poor are superior to government schools – teachers are more committed, the provision of inputs better and educational outcomes better – even after controlling for background variables. All this is accomplished for a fraction of the per-pupil teacher cost of government schools. The development community could therefore assist the poor by extending access to private schools through targeted vouchers. There are also opportunities for investors to contribute through microfinance-type loans, dedicated education investment funds and joint ventures with educational entrepreneurs, including the development of brands of budget private schools to help solve the information problem facing poor parents.     

Service Quality,Administrative Process,and Citizens’ Evaluation of Local Government in the US

Abstract

It is often assumed that citizens evaluate government based on service quality or outcomes (such as safe neighbourhoods or good schools), but aspects of administrative process (such as fairness and respect) are also important. Using data from two US surveys, this study examines how service quality and administrative process influence citizens’ evaluations of government. Results indicate that service quality matters most to ratings of the community; in contrast, administrative process is the dominant driver of trust; and both quality and process have large effects on judgements about government’s overall job performance. Implications for public management research and practice are discussed.     

完善民办教育立法的建议

民办教育在我国教育事业中有着举足轻重的地位,《民办教育促进法》的颁布,带来了民办教育的快速发展。因民办学校自身问题和教育体制方面的问题,挫伤了投资人投资办学的积极性,影响了民办教育的发展。对此必须在实践中不断完善民办教育立法,规定界定营利性民办学校与非营利性民办学校的条件,制定不同的税收政策;完善民办学校法人财产权的立法,确保民办学校法人财产不受非法侵害;细化民办学校投资人获得合理回报的立法,鼓励投资人投资办学的积极性;细化民办学校联合办学的立法,优化教育资源的使用效率。     

中国制度环境下私募股权投资现状与趋势

本文通过历史研究方法,对中国私募股权投资市场的发展历史、现状以及特点进行分析,并运用规范性分析研究未来私募股权投资整体行业的发展趋势,提出了私募股权投资在政策法规、行业发展和产品创新等方面的建议.私募股权投资在面临行业和法律政策调整的背景下,可以加强与政府合作,从募、投、管、退各个环节提升服务质量以及产品和业务的创新,进而实现行业可持续发展.     

The Alternative of Private Regulation: The London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market as a Model

Most people assume that markets require a strong set of government rules and regulations to eliminate problems associated with transparency and fraud. Commonly overlooked is the fact that stock exchanges did, and to a large extent still do, provide a set of private rules and regulations. One modern stock exchange that relies heavily on private rather than government regulation is the London Stock Exchange's Alternative Investment Market (AIM). Founded in 1995, AIM is an exchange regulated market in which private regulators, called Nominated Advisors or Nomads, oversee individual firms and decide whether they can list their shares. This system of private regulation reduces regulatory barriers and has attracted many new firms. But rather than being ‘a race to the bottom’ in which anything goes, the private regulators work to put their stamp of approval only on firms that warrant trading. The market has attracted a lot of investment, and the survival rate of IPOs is in line with that of other more regulated markets.     

Altruism and economic behavior: II--private charity and public policy

A bstract . The relative advantages of private charitable organizations as against government agencies in achieving efficient redistribution of income and supply of services are examined. Central to this discussion is the elasticity of private giving to tax concessions and the propoition of donor dollars being absorbed in overhead. Recent estimates of these magnitudes are summarized. Of parallel concern is to what extent can reliance on altruism by sellers of goods and services serve as a substitute for government regulations to enforce standards, prices or product disclosures. Finally, the ways in which government can use and encourage private charitable impulse to maximize social welfare are examined; of particular interest here is the literature surrounding Richard Titmuss' work on blood donorsbip which raises the issue of whether or not extension of markets reduces, rather than extends, individual choice. The growing technological complexities of society, it is concluded, render the altruistic virtues of trust and consideration increasingly valuable—if increasingly rare.     

Does state preschool crowd-out private provision? The impact of universal preschool on the childcare sector in Oklahoma and Georgia

Universal preschool policies introduced in Georgia and Oklahoma offer an opportunity to investigate the impact of government intervention on provision of childcare. Since Georgia used a voucher-like program and Oklahoma utilized its existing public schools, the two states offer a case study of how government provision compares to government subsidization alone. Using a synthetic control group difference-in-difference estimation framework, we examine the effects of universal preschool on childcare providers. In both states there is an increase in the number of formal childcare centers. With the voucher-like program in Georgia, the overall increase in care is partly driven by an increase in the supply of formal childcare in the private sector and partly driven by new publicly-provided preschools. However, there is substantial crowd-out of private consumption of preschool. In Oklahoma, where universal preschool is publicly provided, the increase in the number of childcare providers occurred only in the public sector. The expansion of publicly-provided care seems to be driven largely by movement of employees from private centers to public settings. As such, this case-study comparison suggests that government subsidization through funding was more effective at expanding preschool than government provision.     

The interaction between public and private governments: An empirical analysis

Private governments, found in planned developments and condominiums, are increasingly common methods of delivering local services to residents. This paper provides the first empirical study of their impact on local public finance. A novel data set of homeowners' associations allows construction of a panel of private governments in California. Panel methods test whether public expenditures respond to private government prevalence. Estimates indicate that local governments lower spending moderately in response to private government activity, consistent with strategic substitution. The paper then examines various mechanisms to explain this downloading and shows that the substitutability between public and private providers is key to which services are downloaded. Evidence also suggests that the economies of scale in service production in small cities temper the offloading of public services to private governments.     

浅谈安康地区民办幼儿园发展存在的问题与解决策略

安康地区民办幼儿园的发展有效地解决了当地学前教育投入严重不足的问题,拓宽了幼教投资渠道,缓解了政府财政支出的压力,增加了幼儿接受教育的机会,为当地学前教育事业的发展带来了生机与活力。必须加大民办学前教育的财政投入,贯彻落实民办幼儿教师劳动和社会保障的相关法规,才能促进安康民办学前教育健康、可持续的发展。     

Service diversification and service quality differences in the third-party administration of US organic regulations

This paper makes the case that ‘competitive third-party regulatory arrangements’ draw attention to the service provision aspect of regulatory administration. Using multiple methods, the study examines service diversification and service quality differences exhibited by third-party administrators of US organic food regulations. By examining how the service emphases of third-party regulatory administrators differ by organizational form, the study documents that the inclusion of nonprofit and private third-party regulatory administrators may expand the services that are offered and performed alongside regulatory program functions. The implications of the findings for regulatory administration, and the field of public management generally, are discussed.     

Sofa: A simulation program for predicting and evaluating the policy effects of grants-in-aid

This paper motivates and describes a computer simulation program to predict the general equilibrium effects of grants-in-aid to local governments on the tax and spending decisions of these governments. The SOFA (Simulation of Fiscal Assistance) program explicitly incorporates the effects of family relocation (the “Tiebout” adjustment process) and the availability of competitive private market providers (e.g. private schools, hospitals, recreation facilities) on the levels and distribution of local public services. SOFA can simulate the effects of the four main forms of grants-in-aid: (1) lump-sum transfers, (2) matching aid, (3) base equalizing aid, and (4) tax relief aid. In addition to the individual city predictions on taxes and spending SOFA provides the following summary statistics: (1) mean level of spending, (2) coefficient of variation of spending, (3) values for a utilitarian, Rawlsian, and egalitarian objective functions, (4) the central government tax rate needed to finance aid, and (5) the percent of families in the region who prefer the private provision of the “public” service. A copy of the program and a program users manual containing a detailed derivation of the model as well as user's instructions are available from the authors upon request.     

Restructuring the Australian State

Since the election of the Hawke Labor government in 1983 the Australian state has undergone a process of restructuring that has affected all levels of government We examine the key features of this process, including the restructuring of the public service, privatization and marketization, market liberalization and National Competition Policy We find that successive federal governments, both Labor and Coalition, have followed a model of change dominated by neo-liberal assumptions about the innate superiority of the private sector and the desirability of opening. Australian markets to the vagaries of a globalizing economic system Profitable public sector assets have been broken up and transferred to the private sector. While this process was marketed in terms of the efficiency benefits to be derived from vigorous competition, the privatized assets are already being reaggregated into what is likely to become an oligopolistic utilities market.     

Making Public Policy: The New Philanthropists and American Education

Power in K–12 education is rapidly moving from local school boards and government to extraordinarily wealthy private philanthropists. Building networks among nonprofits, government agencies, school districts, and others, private foundations such as the Gates, Broad, and Walton family foundations are fundamentally restructuring American K–12 education. The Common Core State Standards, teacher evaluation, and charter schools are a few of the initiatives these funders are backing. The massive influx of private money into education policy and its influence over public education raises questions around the proper role of philanthropy in a democracy. In a society with increasing wealth inequality, should the economic elite be able to gain further power to shape social institutions through giving? Are there or should there be any limits to this power? Examining specific trends and events in education philanthropy over the last 10 years, this article identifies key players in philanthropic education reform and argues that philanthropy in education is now playing a policy‐making role—without checks and balances—that is qualitatively and quantitatively different than before. I conclude with a cautionary note on the dangers of letting education policy become the domain of the economic elite.     

校行企三方合作共建就业实习基地——提高高职学生就业实习质量的创新举措

为提高高职学生就业实习质量,文章创新提出“校行企三方合作”共建就业实习基地的人才培养模式,采取建设专兼结合的教学团队、构建基于工作过程的课程体系、建设多功能生产性就业实习基地、开展就业实习教育及建立健全就业实习的法律法规等措施来提高学生的就业质量。     

PRIVATE EDUCATION AND 'EDUCATION FOR ALL'

Government schools cannot provide quality education for all. If the goal of education for all is to be achieved, the private sector must be encouraged and not squeezed out. Development agencies need to wake up to this because large-scale government education leads to failure on a large scale that can cause serious harm to the poor.     

Do charter schools crowd out private school enrollment? Evidence from Michigan

Charter schools have been one of the most important dimensions of recent school reform measures in the United States. Though there have been numerous studies on the effects of charter schools, these have mostly been confined to analyzing their effects on student achievement, student demographic composition, parental satisfaction, and the competitive effects on traditional public schools. This study departs from the existing literature by investigating the effect of charter schools on enrollment in private schools. To investigate this issue empirically, we focus on the state of Michigan where there was a significant spread of charter schools in the nineties. Using data on private school enrollment from biennial NCES private school surveys, and using a fixed effects as well as an instrumental variables strategy that exploits exogenous variation from Michigan charter law, we investigate the effect of charter school penetration on private school enrollment. We do not find any causal evidence that charter schools led to a decline in enrollment in the private schools. Further, we do not find evidence that enrollments in Catholic or other religious schools were affected differently from those in non-religious private schools. Our results are robust to a variety of sensitivity checks.     

政府采购后续服务探析

本文从政府采购遂行后续服务难点入手，重点从实际角度分析了实行政府采购后续服务应该注意的特点和方法，对采购后续服务有一定的借鉴作用。     

保险公司违规支付代理手续费探析

在办理个人住房抵押贷款保险中,保险公司违规支付高额代理手续费已成为保险业的普遍现象。文章基于对个人住房抵押贷款的审计实践,揭示了保险公司违规支付代理手续费的常见手法,并对其成因进行了深层次的分析,以此提出政策建议。     

Wages,Prices and Politics: Evidence from Norway

This paper studies the empirical relevance of the close ties between a central trade union and the social democratic political party using time series data for Norway. Using a structural wage-price model we estimate that changing from a bourgeois to a social democratic government reduces manufacturing wages in the long run by 2.3 percent. This result is consistent with a wage bargaining model augmented by political preferences of the union leaders. Private service wages are not directly affected by government type, but wage spillover effects imply that the long-run dampening effect in the private service sector is around 2 percent. The results also support the proposition of the Scandinavian model of inflation that the traded goods sector is the wage leader.