Journal of Public Affairs最新文献

The need of translating increasing outlays into better outcomes on various public programmes has attracted the attention of researchers worldwide to focus more on the quality of public spending, often assessed in terms of its efficiency. The present article is a contribution to the existing literature on the subject in that it assesses the efficiency of government expenditure of Indian states for two most basic social services—elementary education and nutrition during 2014–2015 and 2018–2019 using data envelopment analysis and Malmquist productivity index techniques, in both input-oriented as well as output-oriented settings under variable returns to scale assumption; it constructs the average performance index for children at elementary education and malnutrition index for women and children to utilise them as output indicators; and it adopts a robust bootstrap truncated regression procedure to avoid various econometric issues while estimating the impact of selected environmental factors on bias-corrected inefficiency scores. The major findings of this article seem to suggest that, while states should be provided greater flexibility in their fiscal operations, they have to complement their fiscal autonomy with good governance to improve the efficiency of their spending on basic social services. Towards this end, states like Bihar, Jharkhand and those belonging to North-Eastern and Himalayan regions need special attention with a different set of development policies.

The present study aims to explore the perceived role of the government during this pandemic situation. The study, through the perception of general masses examine the government's role during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is believed that this is the first empirical study conducted on this issue. The study was conducted on general masses in the northern part of India. The data was collected from two states, namely, Punjab and Himachal Pradesh having different geographical and cultural base. It confirms preventive and supportive role of the government during this pandemic. The study provides a validated scale for future research on the issue under investigation. The results of this study obtained through newly validated scale can be generalised for evaluating the real performance of the government during this pandemic. Further, the government can also assess its role played at the time of this pandemic.

This study empirically addresses the relevance of public transparency in promoting sustainable development in Sub-Saharan Africa. Using the generalized method of moments techniques in order to account for concerns of endogeneity and simultaneity, the study utilizes a panel of forty-eight (48) countries in Sub-Saharan African countries for the period 2000-2019. We then establish the subsequent findings. Public transparency maintains overall positive net effects on both the human development index (i.e., social sustainability); adjusted net national income growth (i.e., economic sustainability), and renewal energy consumption (i.e., environmental sustainability). Overall, we establish that public transparency enhances sustainable development. This study recommends that policymakers should ensure that public transparency processes are enhanced in order to achieve the post-2015 agenda.

Global crises have heightened policy uncertainties and efforts to address global climate change. Limited evidence exists in the literature on geopolitical risk's direct and indirect roles in addressing global emissions. In this study, we examine whether geopolitical risk could impede or facilitate efforts to attain a net-zero emissions target through energy transition using panel data for 42 countries from 1990 to 2020. Various econometric techniques were applied in this study to present robust findings and reliable conclusions. Estimates from the Driscoll-Kraay, Lewbel two-stage least squares and method of moment regression techniques consistently showed that countries' geopolitical risk directly increases emissions (total greenhouse gas, carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide). At the same time, energy transition, measured with renewable energy consumption, mitigates these emissions. In addition, evidence from the partial linear functional-coefficient model technique indicates that renewable energy consumption consistently mitigates emissions when geopolitical is minimal (at a minimum and mean level). However, the role of renewable energy consumption in reducing emissions becomes weaker when geopolitical risk is heightened—thus, when geopolitical risk reaches its maximum level. We recommend that efforts to sustain renewable energy transition and maintain geopolitical stability are vital for achieving net-zero emissions and climate change mitigation.

The study examines the possibility of having a very low rate of unemployment in Nigeria, if there is a reduced rate of corruption in the long-term. While using cointegration regressions and Vector Error Correction Mechanism (VECM) over the period 1996–2020, it is affirmed that corruption could increase unemployment rate in the long run. The two corruption indicators employed (control of corruption and corruption index) are found to have a substantial effect on unemployment rate. Further evidence confirms that corruption and unemployment are cyclically interdependent. Findings indeed stress that a high level of corruption is harmful to employment growth. On the other hand, in the absence of sufficient job opportunities, rent-seeking government officials would be more interested in collecting bribes from job seekers, which results in sustained unlawful practices among the public officials. Thus, adopting effective corruption-control measures is critical. It is therefore suggested that to effectively tackle corruption incidents, there should be incentives for citizens or public officials to report bribery and the process of reporting corruption incidents should be further simplified. Strengthening anti-corruption agencies and developing a sound legal framework that promotes a culture of lawfulness and impeccable practices in the public sector are central.

In 2005, India launched the National Health Mission (NHM) to achieve equity in access to primary and secondary healthcare, with special focus on maternal and child healthcare (MCH). Studies have shown that NHM has increased access to MCH services; however, the access is still low among low socioeconomic population groups. Since outreach among target population is crucial to improve access to MCH, we analyzed the level and the inter- and intra-state socioeconomic inequity in the outreach in two major NHM components: conditional cash-transfer program-JSY, and community health workers-ASHAs and ANMs. We used administrative records and nationally representative cross-sectional sample surveys in the early- and after the targeted full-implementation phases of NHM, and employed descriptive and multivariate methods. We found that the NHM had covered only less than one-half of the eligible women, with considerable inter-state variations. For instance, in the high-focus states in 2015–16, the receipt of JSY benefits, ASHAs services, and ANMs services among eligible women was 41.5%, 40.6%, and 48.8%, respectively, whereas the respective outreach among the bottom wealth quintile was 39.8%, 45.1%, and 44.4%. However, there was attenuation in inequity overtime, favoring the poor in the outreach of JSY benefits and ASHAs services. Furthermore, underscoring the importance of program outreach, we find that district with higher level of program outreach was associated with increased uptake of MCH services among target population. Our findings imply for implementing policy measures for wider program outreach so that the NHM could serve as pathway to attain universal health-care coverage for India.

This study explores the practices of stakeholder engagement (SE) in Malaysian Islamic banks. In 2017, Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) introduced the Value-Based Intermediation (VBI) framework, with the aim of promoting a more sustainable and responsible banking system in the country. Among others, the VBI framework requires Islamic banks to adopt a stakeholder-driven approach to their business operations, which involves understanding and responding to the needs and expectations of their stakeholders. Within this context, we apply a content analysis of the annual and sustainability reports of all stand-alone Islamic banks in Malaysia to document the changes in the banks' quality of SE after the introduction of the VBI. The content analysis is guided by a new index that we construct, termed as the Stakeholder Engagement Quality Index (SEQI), which covers four dimensions of SE process: the purpose, stakeholder mapping, scope and approach to the engagement. Our results indicate that the SE quality significantly increases overall and for the third (i.e., scope of SE) and fourth (i.e., SE approach) dimensions subsequent to the VBI. Additionally, in terms of bank types, we find that the SEQI score is higher for commercial Islamic banks than development Islamic banks in the post-VBI period. Despite such improvements, our study alerts policymakers that there are areas that need further attention. Among others, these include integrating SE into the banks' internal managerial functions and encouraging active stakeholder participation in the design and implementation of the engagement itself.

Eco-product innovation is a response to environmental legislation and social responsibility movements. Established agricultural manufacturers must figure out how to use green ideas and reputation to compete for business excellence. This study adopted a knowledge-based approach to examine corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage. This study also examined how eco-product innovation and reputation affect firms' competitive advantage. The proposed model was tested on 427 Nigerian agro-allied manufacturers using causal pathways and structural equation modeling. Business competition is directly and indirectly affected by corporate social responsibility, eco-product innovations, and firm reputation. Additionally, eco-product innovation partially mediated the nexus between corporate social responsibility and competitive advantage, while reputation moderated the influence of eco-product innovation. The findings suggest that manufacturers pursuing green initiatives should strive to participate in an eco-friendly competition and deal with policy pressures in order to meet environmental standards. Overall, this study adds the environment and business competition to the idea of innovation.

The overall development and sustained growth of any economy depend heavily on its infrastructure provisioning. Emerging economies are usually characterised by constrained public investments in infrastructure. Budgetary constraints of the governments are one of the major hurdles to these investments. Due to these reasons that governments of emerging economies continuously seek collaborations with the private sector for additional sources of funding infrastructure. Economies with solid institutional and governance frameworks are known to provide a conducive environment for enhanced private sector attraction in the sector. However, emerging economies face greater institutional and governance issues than developed economies, and they sometimes fall short of luring private investments in the infrastructure sector. The objective of this study is to empirically evaluate the role of institutional and governance aspects in private sector attraction in emerging economies. This study provides empirical evidence with a sample of 114 emerging economies over a period of 20 years. Various econometric estimates were developed to explore the interplay between public-private partnership investments and governance factors. The results of the study provide an evidence of a positive association between these factors and private investments in public-private partnership arrangements.

Since participatory budgeting (PB) has been advocated by both theorists and practitioners of public administration, its adoption has become a global phenomenon. As of 2017, all local governments in South Korea are legally mandated to operate a PB system as a policy for inviting citizen participation in local budget decision-making. Using an impact assessment tool completed by PB managers in local governments, this research tested two sets of independent variables—citizens' participatory capacity and the diversification of communication in the PB process—that could be associated with the dependent variables “citizens' trust in government (CTG)” and “government officials' trust in citizens (GTC).” The paper presents the three major findings on the common drivers behind CTG and GTC: (1) citizen participants' knowledge on budget and budgeting process; (2) local government's efforts in gathering citizens' inputs for PB; and (3) the mutual efforts to understand the needs and limitations of both citizens and the local government. The paper concludes by exploring the implications for the design and delivery of effective PB implementation.