A process (re)turn?: Path dependencies,institutions and performance management in Swedish central government

Recent central government reforms have signalled a transition away from output-based governance and control to a more citizen-orientated and outcome-focused performance management ethos. Prior research suggests that this may give rise to institutional inconsistencies related to conflicting performance management logics. In this paper, we argue that rather than resulting in growing pre-occupation with outcomes and effectiveness, the emerging reform agenda may somewhat paradoxically reinforce managerial concerns with the operating processes underpinning public service delivery. Drawing on policy studies and management accounting research informed by new institutional sociology, we theorise these developments by invoking the notion of path dependency. We provide an empirical illustration based on field work in Swedish central government and adopt a multi-level approach in examining the evolution of performance management practices. While evidence of strongly constraining path dependencies is found at the overall policy level a case study in the Swedish Tax Agency shows that these may also embody an element of flexibility such that the meaning of inconsistent performance management logics is re-constructed over time. This illustrates how individual government agencies may link outcomes to operating process concerns and manage implementation problems related to conflicting and uncoordinated reform initiatives.     

交易费用、政府边界与财政体制改革

将新制度经济学中的交易费用理论引入政府供给公共产品的分析，给出了政府供给公共产品的边界的理论模型。我国政府在供给公共产品过程中发生的交易费用：决策费用、实施费用和监督费用过高，制约了我国政府供给公共产品的效率。制度的一项重要功能是降低交易成本，改革财政分权体制是降低政府供给公共产品发生的交易费用的有效途径。     

Book Reviews

References to ‘customers’ have become commonplace in the policy discourses within UK government and other public sector bodies. It is a working assumption of UK public sector management that the concept of the ‘customer’ can be applied to any public sector service agency or department; and this paper analyses how the UK government's revenue department, formerly titled the Inland Revenue (IR), re-characterised firstly taxpayers and latterly tax claimants as ‘customers’, rather than ‘users’, of IR services. This paper identifies some problems, dilemmas and ambiguities associated with this reconceptualisation in the context of an organisation that is predominantly a regulating department. Far from being merely a reclassification of the taxpayer as customer, the emerging discourse and associated practices of the IR were in part embedded in organisational change, including the merger with HM Customs and Excise to form the present-day HMRC. Thus this case analysis illustrates the limits of consumerism as a strategic tool of a government revenue department and raises wider questions for public management.     

中国公立医院改革历程的公共政策评估

20世纪60年代,中国曾被看作世界上拥有最全面医疗保障的国家。但随着社会主义市场经济的深入,劳保医疗制度、公费医疗制度为主的医疗保障体系逐渐瓦解,政府逐渐减少了在医疗卫生方面的投入,公立医院由原来的政府主导逐渐转变为"自负盈亏",造成公立医疗机构公益性的逐渐缺失。本文以公共政策分析理论和方法为分析视角,对新中国成立以来中国公立医院改革的主要政策及其改革历程进行梳理、总结,对涉及的主要公共政策的演变趋势和实施效果进行了综合性评估,以期对新医改进程中的问题提供借鉴。     

Local government amalgamation policy: A highway maintenance evaluation

Evaluating the effects of a change in public policy setting is a critical element in the chain of accountability. Factors such as effectiveness and efficiency in government operations are often difficult to measure. In this study of efficiency outcomes, we follow events before and after significant structural change arising from local authority amalgamation. The study focuses on highway maintenance and uses Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) to evaluate whether greater efficiency was achieved. Results (confined to highway management activities) show no evidence that amalgamation was justified in terms of diseconomies arising from smallness (i.e. increasing returns to scale). While new governance practices introduced contemporaneously lifted the level of performance of local authorities in terms of higher technical efficiency, there is no evidence that the amalgamation policy contributed to this improvement. The policy impact evaluation methodology developed in this paper has potential for application to other local government service activities.     

疫后建设的财政责任

疫情期间全国经济停摆,财政减收增支,疫后国家将要开展全国公共卫生领域的重大体系化建设,需要大量的财政资金投入,财政必将面临巨大的责任负担和工作压力。在减收增支的压力面前,如何增加财政供给保证中央的公共卫生领域建设任务要求?可行的办法是在支出上挖掘潜力要财力,既要保证中央任务的落实,又要把好钢用在刀刃上,减少财政资金的跑冒滴漏,行之有效的便是落实中央十九大提出的全面推行财政绩效管理要求,向财政管理和行政管理体制联动改革要财力。在公共卫生领域建设具体项目上落实"凡事预则立不预则废""言必信,行必果""做老实人,说老实话,办老实事"的绩效管理要求,建立绩效管理制度体系,打造出责任政府和效能政府。     

完善我国政府预算监督体系的政策建议

本文以政府公共财政受托责任为理论依据,首先对近年来我国政府预算监督取得的成就及存在的问题进行了客观评价,在借鉴国际政府预算监督实践经验的基础上,对进一步完善我国的政府预算监督,提高政府执政理财能力提出了政策建议.     

公共价值创造与政府会计改革研究

新公共管理理论自提出以来,对削减成本、提高效率等起到了重要的作用,但是难以反映政府提供公共服务的其他价值内涵。公共价值管理模式解决了新公共管理理论过于强调技术理性的缺陷,对政府活动、政策制定和服务提供产生重大的影响,政府会计作为信息收集、价值判断和管理矫正的重要工具,其改革应以公共价值为导向,充分发挥其在公共价值创造中的重要作用。     

Firm type variation in the cost of risk management

This paper explores how the cost of risk management varies with firm characteristics, offering the first comparison between private, public, and family-owned firms. It exploits a natural experiment in highway procurement, which features diverse firms with common exposure to commodity risk. The Kansas government began to insure highway paving firms against oil price risk in 2006. The analysis compares Kansas to Iowa, which has an otherwise similar highway procurement system but never introduced such a policy. Using data from 1998 to 2012, I show that the policy reduced average bid sensitivity to oil price volatility. Private firms with high credit risk and low industry diversification exhibit the most risk pass-through, while public firms exhibit no pass-through. Family-owned firms do not have a higher than average cost of risk. Financial constraints and distress costs appear to best explain the cost of risk management, rather than risk aversion, information, or agency problems.     

政务微信视角下的政府信任及其提升路径

伴随互联网技术和新媒体的迅猛发展,政务微信已成为政务信息公开透明、多元主体互动参与、公共服务效率改进的新利器.然而,当前政务微信功能定位模糊、运营管理不规范、信息回应不及时等问题影响了政府信任的生成.今后,应明确政务微信的功能定位,改进公共服务效率和效益,改革政务微信管理体制,提升政府信息发布权威性,及时回应公众诉求等...     

论保障公立医院公益性的主要条件

导致公立医院偏离公益性、出现市场化"逐利行为"的原因是多样的,办院理念的失误、管理体制和运行机制不合理、法律缺位、医德医风和医疗环境问题都是促使公立医院偏离公益性的原因。因此,在我国新时期的医疗体制改革过程中,实现国家卫生经费的大量投入是保证公立医院公益性的一项重要条件,但不是决定性条件,更不是唯一条件,要真正发挥出公立医院的公益性,必须从多方面、多角度、多环节入手,调整公立医院的办院理念、完善管理机制和运行机制、健全法律规范、倡导道德风尚、净化医疗环境,才能真正保障公立医院公益性的实现。     

灾后重建公共政策的制定

政府在灾后重建过程中的公共政策制定方面容易存在偏离群众真实需求,上下级政府间权力关系不合理,缺乏长效的沟通反馈机制以及政策缺乏公平性等问题,要针对性地解决这些问题,需要探寻在灾后重建公共政策制定中遵循建立以群众需求为导向、厘清与优化政府间权力关系、建立长效沟通反馈机制以及发挥政策制定在监督保障政策执行公平性方面作用的理性路径,以保证灾后重建过程中社会的稳定以及群众生活生产的正常进行,从而提升政府公共危机治理能力,积累合法性与公信力.     

新农村建设的财政金融支持政策研究

新农村建设的各项任务无不与财政金融支持关系紧密,需要大量的资金支持.目前,农村的财政金融支持政策存在着财政拨款投入总量不足、政策性银行业务范围太窄、商业性银行撤离农村、农村资金严重流出等问题,由于新农村建设具有公共产品的属性,应该建立政府主导的、多元化的农村财政金融支持体系以适应新农村的建设.     

Complexities of Productivity Policies in the Finnish Public Sector: Knowing How to Do More with Less?

This paper examines public sector productivity policies as complexities between what is ‘known’ in policy principles and what is ‘done’ in everyday policy practice. Such complexities are explored in two productivity policy cases within Finnish local government: municipal amalgamations, and the low‐threshold concept of healthcare service. Utilising quantitative and qualitative data from Finnish local government the paper demonstrates the tensions between productivity policy principles, interpretations for productivity improvement (‘knowing’) and final outcomes for actually applying (‘doing’) productivity policy. The paper argues in favour of a new understanding for the research and practice of public policy and management.     

MONITORING AND AUDITING VALUE FOR MONEY IN THE UK: THE SCOPE FOR QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS

This paper argues that there is considerable scope for the introduction of quantitative techniques into the planning and conduct of VFM audit in the UK. A new development in public sector corporate planning is described and criteria for desirable performance indicators are given. VFM assessment problems arising out of vague legislation are illustrated using farm income support policy. The paper concludes that the scope for the use of techniques from economics, management science and psychology will not be properly realised without extensive reform in management research and education.     

试论政府在信用制度建立中的作用

中国的市场经济是由计划经济转轨而来的，信用基础十分薄弱，因此要改善信用秩序，无论政府还是民间都必须经过一个转变传统思维方式和做法的痛苦过程。在市场经济还不够完善的情况下，政府对维护信用秩序所起的作用是不容忽视的。为此，必须实现政府的职能转换，给信用制度建设营造一个良好的政策环境。     

Responding Public Demand for Assurance of Genetically Modified Crops: Case from Japan

Genetically modified (GM) crops provide a classic example of risk characterised with uncertainty and ambiguity. This article analyses the risk management of GM crops in Japan as a case and investigates how the Japanese government has responded to the growing public demand for safety assurance of new agricultural and food varieties. It argues that, while the government realised the need to respond to public reluctance in consuming GM food by adopting more resilient and discursive management, it has faced a dilemma to incorporate the new type of approach into conventional risk assessment. This tension was reflected in the process and policy outputs of the consensus conference on GM crops, which was ambiguously placed in the risk management process. This article shows the dynamics of opting for policies to manage scientifically uncertain risks in particular socio‐political and institutional contexts. Such understanding can suggest ways towards enhanced policy debates.     

供求矛盾、信息决策与政府会计改革——兼评我国公共领域的信息悖论

在西方国家的政治市场中,会计信息被公众视为政府不同公共政策经济后果的货币化体现与替代变量。公众通过会计信息识别公共政策的差异,做出支持或反对执政当局的决定。政府披露会计信息,说明公共资源的使用过程(预算信息)与使用结果(形成的资产、负债与发生的成本),以便获得公众的支持,谋取再次当选。政治市场中的信息供求双方经过博弈,导致会计信息披露将受"准则"的约束而实现均衡。然而,我国公共领域会计信息披露并未实现上述均衡状态,反而呈现出供给过剩与短缺并存的现象。本文期望通过分析我国政治体制下的信息供求双方与信息产品的特殊性,解读上述现象形成的公共领域信息披露悖论,并对我国政府会计改革的实施策略提出建议。