A Quiet Revolution in State Lobbying: Government Growth and Interest Populations

What explains contemporary numbers of interest groups in America? To answer this question and help address conflicting narratives in research, I examine the rise of interest groups in the states. Assembling an original dataset based on archival and secondary sources, I find that relatively few groups lobbied legislators prior to the 1960s or 1970s. During those decades, numbers of interest groups began to grow rapidly. I find that increases in lawmaking activities present inconsistent effects on the political mobilization of groups but increases in spending are strongly correlated with mobilization. In additional tests, I find that the effects of spending on group numbers vary by state and are not discernible in most states. In general, a historic transformation of state governments helps to account for the growth of state lobbying. Interest groups have remained active in state capitols ever since.

The Effects of International Openness on the Public Sector Growth

Using Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) with panel corrected standard errors for OECD panel data this chapter, in contrast to Compensation hypothesis, finds a negative relationship between openness and the rate of public sector growth. In addition, this inverse relationship is found to be the strongest when electoral systems are more competitive. The empirical results presented here also suggests that openness constrains government growth more when the governments are run by either left-leaning parties or by left-leaning coalitions. This result holds for most measures of government spending and is robust to the inclusion of a wide range of controls. Unlike the existing empirical literature, which focuses on the ‘compensation effect' of openness on government growth, this study supports the ‘competition effect' of openness drawn from the literature on local public finance.

Effect of Government Policies on the Growth of Micro-Enterprises in Makurdi Metropolis, Benue State, Nigeria

This study examined the effect of government policies on the Growth of Micro-Enterprises in Makurdi Metropolis, Benue State, Nigeria. The study focused on owners of Micro-enterprises in Makurdi Metropolis, Benue State. The study specifically examined the effect of government taxation, licensing, training, and capital financing policies on the growth of micro-enterprises in Makurdi metropolis, Benue State. The survey design was adopted for the study and questionnaire was used for data collection. The population consists of 117 selected owners of micro-enterprises in Makurdi metropolis, Benue State, Nigeria and a census sampling was adopted for the study. Simple percentages, mean ad standard deviation were used for data presentation and analysis while regression analysis was used to test the hypotheses. Findings of the study revealed that taxation, licensing, training and capital financing all have a positive significant effect on the growth of micro-enterprises in Makurdi metropolis, Benue State. The study concludes that government policies significantly affect the growth of micro-enterprises in Makurdi metropolis, Benue State of Nigeria. Recommendations were made among others that the Benue State government should develop a system for tax payment so as to enhance efficiency in tax collection and payment. Keywords: Government, Growth, SMEs, Policies, Benue, Nigeria.

Model Blue Print Smart City Pemerintah Daerah Berbasis Four Stage Method (FSM) yang Sustainable

Public demands for better public services make City Government inevitably have to keep abreast of information technology (IT) promises high efficiency and better service. Some problems are planning the needs of both hardware, software and human resources are still done partially, as well as procurement, so that the grand design of IT needs to support smart city is very necessary. Data collection methods are quantitative and qualitative using observation, interviews, questionnaires and documentation studies. The results are compiled using the Four-stage e-government growth model method: (1) cataloging, (2) transactions, (3) vertical integration, and (4) horizontal integration. Comprehensive discussion on strategy and design, sustainable smart city planning with attention to several strengths and weaknesses are discussed with special emphasis placed on the extent to which the contribution of smart city sustainable development goals. Identification of challenges and opportunities using evaluation and comparison approaches with each other is in line with the smart city idea of sustainability. The gap in the sustainable smart city blueprint requires an integrated approach based on applied theoretical perspectives to harmonize existing problems and identification solutions for future practices in the field of planning and development of sustainable smart city blueprints. Blueprint smart city to operate properly requires the development and development of infrastructure all of which must be adapted to local environmental conditions, as well as the legal umbrella for sustainable management such as regulations and so forth