Balance of Payment, Wage Indexation and Growth: the Role of CESPE in Italian Policy-Making in the 1970s

Modern society is witnessing a data revolution which necessarily entails changes to the overall behavior of citizens, governments and companies. This is a big challenge and an opportunity for National Statistics Offices (NSOs). Especially after the outbreak of COVID-19, when the public debate about the number of mortalities and tested and infected persons escalated, trusted data is required more than ever. Which data can modern society trust? Are modern societies being subjected to opinion rather than fact? This paper introduces a new statistical tool to facilitate policy-making based on trusted statistics. Using economic indicators to illustrate implementation, the new statistical tool is shown to be a flexible instrument for analysis, monitoring and evaluation of the economic situation in the Republic of Serbia. By taking a role in public policy management, the tool can be used to transform the NSO’s role in the statistical system into an active participant in public debate in contrast to the previous traditional, usually passive role of collecting, processing and publishing data. The tool supports the integration of statistics into public policies and connects the knowledge and expertise of official statisticians on one side with political decision makers on the other.

Download Full-text

Can Mandated Political Representation Increase Policy Influence for Disadvantaged Minorities? Theory and Evidence from India

The American Economic Review ◽

10.1257/000282803769206232 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 93 (4) ◽

pp. 1132-1151 ◽

Cited By ~ 259

Author(s):

Rohini Pande

Keyword(s):

Policy Making ◽

Political Representation ◽

Representative Democracy ◽

Indian States ◽

Basic Premise ◽

Policy Influence ◽

Disadvantaged Groups ◽

Institutional Features

A basic premise of representative democracy is that all those subject to policy should have a voice in its making. However, policies enacted by electorally accountable governments often fail to reflect the interests of disadvantaged minorities. This paper exploits the institutional features of political reservation, as practiced in Indian states, to examine the role of mandated political representation in providing disadvantaged groups influence over policy-making. I find that political reservation has increased transfers to groups which benefit from the mandate. This finding also suggests that complete policy commitment may be absent in democracies, as is found in this case.

Download Full-text

Agricultural Policy Networks of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland

Political Studies ◽

10.1111/j.1467-9248.1995.tb01725.x ◽

1995 ◽

Vol 43 (4) ◽

pp. 664-682 ◽

Cited By ~ 14

Author(s):

Neil Collins

Keyword(s):

Northern Ireland ◽

Agricultural Policy ◽

Policy Making ◽

Analytical Framework ◽

Policy Networks ◽

Republic Of Ireland ◽

European Literature ◽

The Republic

This paper provides an analytical framework within which to understand the contrasting way farmers' interests are aggregated and articulated in Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The analysis draws on the dominant European literature on state-farmer relations which emphasizes the role of policy networks and explores whether the concepts of pluralism or corporatism best characterize policy making in the two states.

Download Full-text

Legislators, Bureaucrats, and Canadian Democracy: The Long and the Short of It

Canadian Journal of Political Science ◽

10.1017/s0008423900041792 ◽

1977 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 615-624 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Lee Sigelman ◽

William G. Vanderbok

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Policy Making ◽

Civil Service ◽

Political Process ◽

Substantial Proportion ◽

The Political ◽

Annual Average ◽

Canadian Politics ◽

Strategic Role

The bureaucratization of the political process that characterizes twentieth century politics in many countries has not bypassed Canada—as evidenced by skyrocketing rates of government employment and expenditure and, even more dramatically, by the ever-expanding policy-making power of Canadian bureaucracy. One observer sees the civil service as occupying an increasingly strategic role in Canadian politics, a condition thatreflects in part the expanding role of modern government into highly technical areas, which tends to augment the discretion of permanent officials because legislators are obliged to delegate to them the administration of complex affairs, including the responsibility for drafting and adjudicating great amounts of sub-legislation required to “fill in the details” of the necessarily broad, organic statutes passed by Parliament. Some indication of the scale of such discretion is found in the fact that, during the period 1963–8, an annual average of 4,130 Orders-in-Council were passed in Ottawa, a substantial proportion of which provided for delegating authority to prescribe rules and regulations to ministers and their permanent advisers. By contrast, the number of laws passed annually by Canadian federal parliaments is rarely over one hundred.

Download Full-text

U.S. TREND INFLATION REINTERPRETED: THE ROLE OF FISCAL POLICIES AND TIME-VARYING NOMINAL RIGIDITIES

Macroeconomic Dynamics ◽

10.1017/s1365100513000837 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 19 (6) ◽

pp. 1294-1308 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nicola Acocella ◽

Giovanni Di Bartolomeo ◽

Patrizio Tirelli

Keyword(s):

Strong Impact ◽

Fiscal Policies ◽

Time Varying ◽

Nominal Rigidities ◽

Distortionary Taxation ◽

Trend Inflation ◽

Wage Indexation ◽

Joint Evolution

This paper offers a reinterpretation of the Fed's time-varying implicit inflation target, based on two considerations. The first is that the need to alleviate the burden of distortionary taxation may justify the choice of a positive inflation rate. The second is based on compelling evidence that the degree of price and wage indexation falls with trend inflation. In fact, we find that a proper characterization of the joint evolution of fiscal variables and nominal rigidities has a strong impact on the Ramsey optimal policies, implying optimal inflation dynamics that are consistent with the observed evolution of U.S. trend inflation. By contrast, tax policies have been too lax, especially at the time of the controversial Bush tax cuts.

Download Full-text