The role of township-owned enterprises in the rapid growth of the Chinese economy during reform is widely acknowledged. Beginning in the mid-1990s, however, these firms began to be privatized. Perhaps the most striking feature of this process is that it has not occurred uniformly across townships. This raises the simple question: When and why do government leaders privatize? Drawing on a unique...

in recent decades, theorists proposed the role of domestic components such as interior active groups, policies and macroeconomic indicators on determination of protection policies. in the context of recent studies, this study has investigated the effect of business cycle fluctuations on import protection for selected developing countries in 1995-2011 by using dynamic panel data method. furtherm...

• While we must better defend our societies against cyberterrorism and Internet-savvy terrorists, we should also consider the costs of applying counterterrorism measures to the Internet. Such measures can hand authoritarian governments and agencies with little public accountability tools with which to violate privacy, curtail the free flow of information, and restrict freedom of expression, thu...

Obesity on the rise “Consumption of free sugars, including products like sugary drinks, is a major factor in the global increase of people suffering from obesity and diabetes,” says Dr Douglas Bettcher, Director of WHO’s Department for the Prevention of NCDs. “If governments tax products like sugary drinks, they can reduce suffering and save lives. They can also cut healthcare costs and increas...

Our IO approach links optimal effective corporation tax rates to the nature of sunk costs within industries. Theory predicts that optimal effective corporation tax rates will be negatively related to industry specific sunk cost, and hence industry concentration. Governments should tax industries with monopolistic power softly. Evidence suggests that this Schumpeterian (1942) principle of corpor...

Whilst many governments are placing restrictions on antibiotic use [4], this is too little, too late. The current situation has made the quest for new antibiotics and antibiotic alternatives a matter of great importance. Given the development costs, the complexity in finding new drug targets, and the timescales involved, the prospect of antibiotic alternatives remains low; therefore, greater pr...

In order to maintain universal access to medically effective care for all, costs must be contained at both the system-wide and micro levels. The managed competition model offers a framework within which increased efficiency could be pursued without sacrificing the goal of universal access and without impairing health outcomes and social cohesion. It would do this by removing structural impedime...

General mapping, and particularly cadastral mapping, is a highly expensive activity and many governments are no longer willing to continue covering the even increasing costs of surveys. As far as Portugal is concerned – our ultimate field of interest – ongoing 2D property cadastre surveys have revealed to be rather complex, laborious and expensive given Portugal’s territory tissue with a few mi...

In this note we analyze whether a federal transfer system can be designed to increase welfare when state governments create political budget cycles. The results show how the federal government can counteract the welfare costs of these cycles, without hindering politicians from signaling their type, by announcing a transfer scheme to subsidize expenditures that voters do not consider when voting...

This article provides estimates of health care expenditures by businesses, households, and governments for 1987-2003. Sponsors that finance public and private health insurance programs and other payers face increasing challenges as health care cost rise. Their capacity to support rising costs was particularly strained during the recent economic recession, with the Federal Government's burden me...