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Fiscal conditions and budget constraints in the United States have placed solutions to budget deficit problems at the center of the public policy debate. Preferences for deficit reduction strategies are likely to be heavily associated with particular ideologies and other demographic and economic variables. Therefore, since this study is a true randomized experiment, it provides strong evidence about the influence of question wording on deficit reduction preferences, and therefore the likelihood it is susceptible to manipulation. We find clear evidence that using the word ‘tax’ significantly and substantially influences respondents’ choices. This result is robust over two experimental trials about a year apart and whether or not control variables are included.

This article reports on a design for citizen identified performance measures for budgeting that seeks to overcome problems of validity and representativeness that typically exist in citizen involvement processes. This design selected participants using random sampling so that each resident had the same chance of being invited to be in one of the focus groups that worked to develop outcome measures for a set of town services. In order to assure that the resulting measures were helpful to residents at large, an additional phase of the process involved a large sample survey of town residents to validate the results. The results were a set of performance measures that were developed by a small group of citizens that the population at large found useful to them when thinking about local services.

In this article we explore two citizen-based approaches to solving the problem of selecting a desirable level of public goods for a jurisdiction. The first approach seeks to inform decision-makers about citizens’ preferences by observing the choices of citizens faced with the actual budget constraint facing the government and asking them to choose service levels within that constraint. The second approach gauges citizens’ willingness-to-pay for their share of the cost of a desired level of public expenditure. In an effort to foster discussion and research into new modes of citizen participation in resource allocation we pose a model that combines both the constraints of the jurisdiction with the tax share of the respondent into a survey methodology that will reveal the underlying demand for government services in ways that are useful for public managers.

The Chief Financial Officers Act and subsequent legislation require federal agencies to produce corporate-style financial statements. Arguments for financial statements drew on private sector analogies and suggested policy makers and managers would use the information to make better public policy and management decisions and improve accountability for financial management and program performance. Nearly all major government agencies have unqualified audit opinions and improvements in financial management are claimed. But benefits for policy making and management are not yet well understood. This paper examines the question by comparison with the private sector and by examining what agencies say about the uses and users of financial statement information. The emerging challenge in the evolution of federal financial reporting is to develop better government-specific analytical tools and other financial information for policy makers and managers.

This paper analyzes the impact of economic downturns on the revenue and expense sides of city financing for the period 2003 to 2009 using a convenience sample of the audited end of year financial reports for thirty midsized US cities. The analysis focuses on whether and how quickly and how extensively revenue and spending directions from past years are altered by recessions. A seven year series of Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR) data serves to explore whether citiesʼ revenues and spending, especially the traditional property tax and core functions such as public safety and infrastructure withstood the brief 2001 and the persistent 2007 recessions? The findings point to consumption (spending) over stability (revenue minus expense) for the recession of 2007, particularly in 2008 and 2009.

International migration is a global challenge affecting peoples and nations all over the world. In the advanced economies and welfare states of Western Europe, integrating migrants presents political, social as well as economic challenges. Over the past 50 years, Denmark has made a remarkable U-turn on the immigration question. Once the author of one of the most liberal immigration policies in Western Europe, Denmark presently has one of the strictest. This chapter addresses the causes behind the Danish policy U-turn, and how it has affected the social, economic and political integration of immigrants in Denmark. The chapter shows how Danish immigration politics have turned from low to high salience and have undergone radical changes resulting in a tightening of both internal and external immigration policies. It has become far more difficult to obtain residence and citizenship in Denmark. These measures have limited influx although international refugee crises are difficult to control at the borders. Moreover, Danish integration policies have focused increasingly on obligations and incentives, primarily by cutting benefits. The Danish case however shows that reduction of social benefits only has a marginal positive short-term effect on employment but with some negative side effects. When it comes to education, the Danish welfare state has been relatively successful in integrating immigrants and descendants in the educational system.

The social and environmental challenges facing our society, coupled with financial scandals and crises, have led to increased focus on and expectations for corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Ditlev-Simonsen, 2009; Knox, Maklan, & French, 2005; Midttun, 2007; Samuel & Ioanna, 2007). However, in order to meet this expectation, business students need education in the CSR field. The amount of attention to CSR in business education varies widely (Evans, Treviño, & Weaver, 2006) and the lack of a CSR curriculum in some countries has been severely criticised, with calls for more focus on the subject (Aronsen & Bue Olsen, 2009). In Norway, for example, propositions to the Parliament about CSR urge The Research Council for Norway to pursue and strengthen their programme for financing research in this field (Utenriksdepartementet, 2009). CSR addresses normative and ethical issues, and students’ self-awareness, attitudes and understandings of others are key elements (Banaji, Bazerman, & Chugh, 2003). CSR-related situations comprise a set of dilemmas with no absolute ‘right’ or ‘wrong’. In this sense CSR education is different from most of business school education format, and therefore requires different educational tools.

This chapter asks: How do Internet users react to COVID-19 conspiracy theories spread on social media? It presents the findings of a content analysis and critical discourse analysis of user comments collected from social media postings that advance COVID-19 conspiracy theories. A total of 2,847 comments made to seven social media postings whose authors support COVID-19 conspiracy theories were collected, coded and analysed.

The analysis shows the contested character of the communication of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the role of the friend/enemy scheme, verbal attacks, violent threats, satire and humour in such communication processes.