A multiregional planning and forecasting model with special regard to the public sector

Despite the magnitude of the public sector and its rapid growth most multiregional economic models are lacking public sector content. The present paper aims at incorporating some of the roles of the public sector in the regional development. It is done within the framework of a multiregional optimization model for the allocation of private and public investment, production, employment (and population) over economic sectors and regions. By choosing appropriate objective functions, the model may be used for either planning or forecasting purposes. In the model the focus is on the public sector as a service and provision body and as a provider of public infrastructure. Its role as an agent for transfer payments is not stressed. The capacities of the model are illustrated by means of an example concerning Swedish regional development 1977–1983.     

An econometric study of the decisions of a town planning authority: complementary & substitute uses of industrial activities in Hong Kong

This is a contribution to the research on the interface between urban economics and urban planning at the micro level on the one hand and economic development at the macro level on the other hand by a study of the relationship between the performance of the development application mechanism and economic development. This study is conducted in the light that neither urban economics nor urban planning research has utilized useful development control information that can help better understand the spatial and linkage aspects of the industrial sector in economic development. A probit study of a relatively large population of statistics (with 1728 observations) concerning planning applications for uses in lands under industrial zoning in Hong Kong is conducted in terms of 5 refutable hypotheses about the role of the planning authority in respect of land uses that are neutral to, complementary to and substitutes of industrial uses in a local context where major structural changes are occurring in the economy. The hypotheses are derived from standard price theory. The test discovers that, consistent with the theory of substitute goods, that the probabilities of mixed industrial/office and pure office uses in industrial zones being approved were dependent on the rise and fall of the manufacturing sector (measured in terms of labor share). However, those for ancillary office use, a use that theoretically should be complementary to industrial activities, were independent of the state of the manufacturing sector. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Planning and performance in public organizations An empirical analysis

The impact of planning on organizational performance in the public sector has been widely debated but has never previously been tested empirically. We develop a statistical model of planning effects that contains five explanatory variables: the extent of organizational analysis, the extent of environmental scanning, the number of precise performance targets, the existence of formal action plans for service improvement and the attitudes of staff involved in the planning process. This model is applied to data obtained from seventy services in Welsh local government. The statistical evidence shows that organizational performance is positively related to favourable attitudes towards planning processes, but negatively related to the number of targets that are set. On balance, the results are consistent with a small positive effect of planning on the performance of public organizations.     

Economic Sector Stabilization

Using a dynamic competitive disequilibrium model this paper determined that centrally directed sector resource stabilization or planning probably could not shorten the time for a developed economy to reach equilibrium. This is due to the disaggregation of data available centrally, an old concern. Therefore, the old issues of freedom and corruption under planning appear moot.     

Concordat or contract

The New Labour Government in England is seeking to promote public/private partnerships in health and social care as a key component of its political project. This article reports the findings from the first phase of an ongoing qualitative research study exploring the relationship between a private sector company and their public sector partners at four study sites. These findings indicate that organizations within the NHS do not view the development of public/private partnerships as a priority and furthermore currently have a limited ability to engage in strategic planning with the private sector. The findings are explored in the broader context of the evolution of ‘managed competition’ in health care systems and the role of partnership in that process.     

我国电力系统规划发展战略和安全运行

随着全球经济的不断发展,电网大规模互联成为电力系统发展的必然趋势,电力工业是国民经济的重要部门,其发展应当与国家的经济建设相协调。因为电力工业投资规模巨大,所以合理地进行电力系统规划可以获得很大的经济效益和社会效益。电力网络已经发展成为世界上最复杂的人造网络之一。引导好电力系统的规划工作,才能避免风险,构建电力系统的可持续发展机制,本文对电力系统的规划进行了研究分析。     

COMPOUNDING FINANCIAL REPRESSION WITH RIGID URBAN REGULATIONS: Lessons of the Korean Housing Market*

This paper explores the interactions between financial and urban policies, and their joint impact on the performance of the housing sector during the course of economic development. The central hypothesis is that extended periods of financial repression and the scarcity of mortgage lending have generated significant distortions in the output of the Korean housing sector. In addition, combined with very restrictive urban planning and land use regulations, this financial situation may have led to under-investment in the urban sector of Korea during much of the past two decades.     

Closing the Canadian Input–Output Model: Homogeneous vs Non-homogeneous Household Sector Specifications

This paper addresses, on both theoretical and empirical fronts, the task of endogenizing the household sector in a rectangular input–output (IO) model. The formulation of Miyazawa (1976) for square models is extended to the development of an impact matrix for rectangular models. This allows for the numerous household revenue sources to be built into the model. A closed model with non-homogeneous households is developed where individuals are modelled individually and by industry. The perform ance of the non-homogeneous household sector model is compared with a model that has a homogeneous household sector. The model with the non-homogeneous household sector is more sensitive to changes in wages and salaries than to changes in final demand.     

从"离散"走向"综合"--以商业和旅游为动力的历史地段更新机制分析

在市场经济条件下,发展特色商业经营和文化旅游正日渐成为历史地段更新与保护工作的动力.然而当前商业和旅游的各自发展对历史地段保护造成了"离散"效应:商业旅游部门以经济指标的增长为导向进行更新规划,使许多历史地段面临着被商业化、功利化和肤浅引用的危险,深厚的历史内涵正日益消弭;而规划管理部门对历史文化的保护仍然受到计划因素制约,缺乏对其动态利用和与社会经济发展接轨的预想;指出规划管理应从"离散"走向"综合"--政府部门应当采用一种新型的发展规划模式,并对相关的组织模式和配套政策进行改革,以更好地协调经济发展与历史文化保护之间的潜在冲突,实现对历史文化的可持续利用.     

A model of the economy based on an interpolated growth matrix

This paper deals with direct and indirect growth rates of sectors and with the interpolated growth matrix of the economy. Its purpose is to determine the model based on the interpolated growth matrix which enables a new approach in the planning of the growth of the economy. The formulation of such a model is useful for the expression of specific structural problems as well as for the extrapolation of system elements into the future. It is characterized by the use of lower and upper projections of growth and mutual relations of sector growths as a basis for programming future sector changes. In contrast to methods in which the direct growth rates of sectors are given, in this case such trends are determined as endogenous variables. At the same time, we use a large amount of data by means of the indirect growth rates in order to describe more completely the dependences among the sectors.     

Simulating mining policies in developing countries: The case of Colombia

Mining represents an important economic sector in almost all countries, especially the developing ones. The planning in this area is complex due to the interaction between different aspects like economic factors, environmental and social issues, and government regulation. A tool for policy analysis is needed to understand and test the effects of new and existing policies and avoid unanticipated side effects. The article develops a generic model for analyzing the mining sector of a country and demonstrates how it can be calibrated to test a set of alternative scenarios for the future of mining in Colombia.     

Two-level national-regional planning and mathematical programming decomposition applied to spatial price equilibrium models2

This paper is concerned with computation strategies related with the quantitative analysis of only a sector of a global economy (e.g. agriculture or energy). Under a ceteris paribus condition on the environment of the sector, and within the hypothetical context of the neoclassical economic theory, it is well known a type of partial equilibrium model that can be cast mathematically into an optimization framework. We attempt here to a typical specification which considers spatially separated markets, that has been called spatial price equilibrium model and that has contained within it many classical transportation problems (one for each commodity). The model is specially suitable for mathematical programming decomposition, resulting regional sybsystems whose coupling variables are the transportation flows. We explore here this structure, discussing two decomposition algorithms with economic interpretations that suggest decentralized procedures for planning. The first—of the price coordination type—is a variant of the Dantzig-Wolfe's principle which is expected to have a low number of cycles of information flow between the master level and the sub-problems (at each cycle it is calculated a series of regional production-consumption responses to alternative prices generated by transhipment problems at the central planning level). The second algorithm specializes the Geoffrion's projection/feasible directions technique, so interpreting the problem solution within the context of a net-output target coordination.     

Turning data into donations: A predictive model for individual giving

This paper describes a predictive model developed by the Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) for the evaluation of donor management strategies. The high cost of acquiring new donors means that effective donor management is essential throughout the charity sector. Early RNID analysis of donor behaviour used conventional sector approaches. This led to the development of a predictive model that uses a statistically determined segmentation system for current donors with responses of the donor base described by a Markov model. The model is used primarily to evaluate the expected rate of return of possible campaign strategies, but there are many other ways in which the approach is of value, both to the RNID and to the charity sector as a whole.     

Resource allocation in the nationalized energy sector of the United Kingdom

Resource allocation in the energy sector of the United Kingdom is a difficult area to plan, because demand and supply projections need to embrace both the large private sector oil industry and the public sector fuel industries. In addition, relationships between the latter are complex as they involve both competition and co-ordination. One approach to the problem has been to find common ground in the concept of marginal cost pricing, but there are practical difficulties in application. Government has encouraged the use of analytical techniques, such as corporate planning, by the fuel industries as a means of co-ordination in areas where market mechanisms may no longer always be effective.     

Planning in a public utility

This paper examines the pricing and allocation of electrical energy in the United States. Development planning for electrical energy is a continuous and sequential process involving mobilization and efficient use of resources over time and over space. Combining the temporal and spatial aspects of the problem, the concept of net social payoff is used as a basis for deducing the conditions of spatial and intertemporal equilibrium. The most important conclusion is that misallocation of electrical energy exists among consuming sectors. Because the price of electrical energy is too low for the industrial sector, the industrial sector is consuming a greater quantity than is optimal. Moreover, a better resource allocation would obtain if electrical energy development and operation were carried out by utilities on a national basis.     

Government planning, with and without the cooperation of industry

Conclusions In the last section it was argued that the government should regularly prepare a medium-term plan of the development of the whole economy. This plan should, in its outward aspect, bear considerable resemblance to the National Plan: it should be both comprehensive and detailed. Such a plan would serve as a framework for coordinating all government policy decisions having a medium-term impact — that is not only public expenditure, investment (and pricing) in the nationalised industries, but also taxation and transfer payments. This would meet four criticisms of the present planning procedures: firstly, that the formal procedures for assessing tax and transfer policies are virtually confined to the short-term issues, so that the longer-term implications tend to be neglected; secondly, that public expenditure decisions are taken in the context of arbitrary and unrealistic assumptions about future tax rates; thirdly, that micro-economic considerations are considered only in a partial equilibrium framework; fourthly, that the forecasting activities of the nationalised industries and other public bodies are insufficiently coordinated.This would be planning by the government, for the government, an extension of present procedures. The final plan would embody public sector decisions and incorporate forecasts of private sector behaviour. The private sector would not however be directly involved.It was further argued that as a general rule, these plans (which would at the same time be forecasts) should be published. The information contained is not only necessary for public participation in policy choice, but useful for decision-making in the private sector. Moreover, since information is a collective good, there is a strong case for extending this forecasting service somewhat beyond those items justified solely by their importance in public sector decision-making.If this type of planning is adopted, then, apart from the impact of these published forecasts, influence on the private sector is confined to traditional controls, mostly fiscal and monetary. In Section II we considered the possibility of involving the private sector more directly in the planning process, as indeed was done in drawing up the ill-fated National Plan. We found the role of a cooperative medium-term plan (drawn up by government and industry in partnership) to be distinctly limited.Firstly, among those decisions which are relevant to the focus year, only those that are just about to be taken are of strategic importance, and these are small in number; the tâtonnement process should be confined to these decisions — this at least represents a considerable simplification. There are, besides these, two groups of decision: Those aleady taken (these should be even smaller in number and relatively simple to ascertain) and those not to be taken for some time. As far as this last group is concerned, and the bulk of decisions will be in this group, there is little to be gained from an approach to decision-makers; plans do not exist and forecasts may be obtained from experts whose advice is at once informed and disinterested. Such forecasts may be expected to be conditional on the decisions evolved in the tâtonnement process; thus provision must be made for the mutual interaction of decisions and forecasts.Secondly, there is the problem, to which we have frequently referred, of conflicting objectives. Can those enterprises which are to be involved in the tâtonnement process be persuaded to pursue the national interest or at least to obey some minimal rules of the game? It is important in this context to notice that the firms involved will be ones with long gestation lags, and these will be, almost exclusively, large corporations. It is precisely these firms that may most easily be persuaded to pursue the national interest.The character of such firms should also be borne in mind in considering the impact of planning on competition. The kind of competition characteristic of large firms operating in oligopolistic industries is certainly very different from competition in more fragmented industries. It manifests itself not in prices (as of course traditional theory assumes) but in escalating sales campaigns, which might well be condemned as wasteful or worse, and product differentiation. Some might think this kind of competition not worth preserving. But those who think this might well go one step further and suggest that such enterprises should be nationalised on the grounds that it is only thus that the full advantages of cooperation can be secured.It would seem indeed that cooperative planning is an uneasy half-way house, a curiously British compromise (strange that it should have originated in France!). Such a compromise might have been valuable in as far as cooperative planning did not generate the same emotional hostility as nationalisation. Indeed the planning movement united both the major parties. But whatever advantages cooperative planning may once have had in this respect have been dissipated by the mishandling of the National Plan. It would, however, be much more tragic if this unfortunate episode were to inhibit the development of the kind of mechanism for government planning discussed in the second half of this paper.     

Value stream mapping implementation in the third sector

An analysis of the development of non-profit organizations highlights critical issues related to the efficiency and strategic capacity of many organizations. To do this, it is necessary to use management models that combine the effectiveness of social solidarity with acceptable levels of efficiency. This study focuses on the application of Value Stream Mapping (VSM) to reorganize the work placement service in one of Italy??s major third sector organizations. A telephone survey, administered to 184 diocesan counseling services, provided an exhaustive overview of the macro-environment and the work placement service features. The process re-engineering is dealt with by an interdisciplinary approach. Implementing the Allison and Kaye model provides an approach specific to non-profit organizations. Furthermore, the use of VSM in the strategic planning enriches the model itself and provides a practical and pragmatic approach typical of re-engineering that focuses on the organization??s objectives. VSM allows the identification of the critical points in the value flow chain, and the suggested actions support the development of the work placement service.     

金融发展对环境规制提升工业绿色全要素生产率的创新补偿效应

以金融发展为切入点,探讨环境规制对工业绿色全要素生产率的影响。研究结果显示,不同融资模式的金融发展对环境规制提升工业绿色全要素生产率均存在创新补偿效应,且股票市场的创新补偿效应最大,银行部门次之,民间金融最小。分区域的估计结果显示,东部地区银行部门不存在创新补偿效应,其余地区的估计结果与整体一致。进一步的门槛检验结果显示,银行部门和民间金融均存在单一门槛,且呈现正向边际效率递增的非线性规律。     

Economies of scale for a state system of public school districts

A review of the different variables, school district samples, regression techniques and a priori assumptions utilized in recent studies clearly indicates that no standard model or set of procedures have been developed for the problems of economies of scale within the educational sector. Based on these studies and a brief discussion of the limitations of economies of scale models as a tool in policy planning, we present a generalizable model that can easily be applied to statistics now available in state departments of education to derive valuable new information about the existing cost-size relationships and opportunity costs that exist in a state system of public school districts. A recent application of the model in Oregon that illustrates its generalizability is described. An example of how economies of scale information might be used in policy planning and proposed district consolidations is also outlined.     

Modeling conflict impact and postconflict reconstruction: The case of Yemen

Evidence-based planning for countries in the midst of conflict is often constrained by missing data and the lack of appropriate analytical tools. To overcome these constraints, we use a computable general equilibrium (CGE) model combined with systematic sensitivity analysis (SSA) to investigate the impact of conflict on Yemen’s economy and to analyze potential pathways for recovery after the conflict finally ends. Our results suggest that conflict-related disruptions in agriculture and mining sent devastating shockwaves throughout the economy, accounting for the lion’s share of the country’s economic losses and increase in poverty. Our results suggest that supporting agriculture should take the highest priority, as reconstruction of that sector, followed by the mining sector, has the largest positive impact on growth and poverty reduction. However, our estimates also suggest that the restoration of its prewar economic status quo is unlikely. In addition to serving as a direct input for Yemen’s reconstruction planning, our paper also demonstrates the usefulness of overarching models for conflict and postconflict economic assessments.