The possibilities for good governance depends on institutional structures and the economic resources available for ensuring governance. In some cases centralised governance structures are inefficient. In other cases, decentralised structures turn out to be inadequate. In India decentralisation of power to village level has not improved the efficiency of rural development. Decentralisation of po...

This paper review empirical studies examining the economic effects of laws governing the formation, financing and organisation of business firms with the aim of putting the UK experience in a comparative perspective. The literature identifies two models of legal support for manufacturing which imply different directions for policy: on the one hand, the Silicon Valley model of venture capital fu...

As river basin authorities and national governments develop policies to achieve sustainable development outcomes, conflicting signals between existing policies are undermining cross-thematic integrative modes of policy planning. This raises fundamental questions over how coherent portfolios of policy interventions across vital themes can best be advanced and managed. Taking the Lake Chad Basin ...

Addressing privacy issues and concerns are important for organisations when interacting with online customers, and customers are increasingly demanding better transparency about how their personal information could be collected and used. Many organisations are informing users about their privacy practices through an online privacy notice, policy or statement. These privacy notices should reflec...

An important contribution of economics to public policy rests on the precept that price signals should force producers of externalities to internalize the welfare of other economic agents. Pigou (1920)’s celebrated insight on the taxation of externalities provided an intellectual foundation for a variety of policies from pollution taxes/permits to experience rating. Pigovian taxation’s policy a...

Many transition policies, based on neoclassical economics, failed in Eastern Europe, Former Soviet Union, and China. The paper argues that the failure is due to the viability assumption of the neoclassical economics. The neoclassical economics implicitly assumes a firm to be able to earn a socially acceptable profit in an open, competitive market if the firm has a normal management. However, ma...

The widespread use of Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) is beginning to create problems derived from the governance of said structures. To date there is not a single effective solution to solve all existing challenges to govern this type of infrastructure. This paper describes the problems encountered when designing a SOA governance solution in a real e-Government scenario. More specifically...

Science diplomacy links the two policy domains of foreign affairs and science policy. Competitive thinking and the ways in which this affects global challenges are now putting the globalisation trends in science, technology and innovation under pressure. Rising populism adds to the growth of de-globalisation politics. In an increasingly knowledge driven world this leads to changes in the roles ...

Adaptive governance is a concept of growing interest in the environmental policy and management literature (e.g., see Brunner and Steelman et al. 2005; Olsson et al. 2006; Scholz and Stiftel 2005). In general, adaptive governance refers to institutional change processes that are responsive to emerging problems or knowledge surrounding complex ecological systems. While some studies have provided...

Transnational governance schemes (TGSs) are interorganizational networks of public and/or private actors that jointly regulate global public policy issues, such as the prevention of human rights violations and the protection of ecosystems. Considering that TGSs mainly address issues of public concern, the general public represents a major source of legitimacy in transnational governance. We the...