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Do budget institutions play a role in explaining why government effectiveness is higher in some advanced countries than in others?

Employing an original panel data set that covers four years (1991, 2003, 2007 and 2012), we find that budget centralization is associated with lower government effectiveness in OECD countries after accounting for a list of control variables, such as gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, government expenditure and country- and year-fixed effects.

We show that less-centralized countries display significantly better performance in health and infrastructure and a similar effectiveness in tax collections. The negative relationship between budget centralization and government effectiveness seems to manifest, especially at the execution stage of the budgeting process, but it is not significant at the formulation and legislation stages. These results survive a list of sensitivity tests.

Our paper finds that centralization is associated with lower effectiveness in field areas like health and education. However, it has been previously shown that centralization improves fiscal responsibility. Thus, our findings point out to the need of achieving the right balance between fiscal responsibility and government effectiveness.

Results suggest that when governments at the national level are aiming at achieving effectiveness in field areas like health and education, they shall avoid excessive centralization at the execution stage of the budget.

Effectiveness in the provision of public health, and education can be enhanced by giving more power to the field ministries at the execution stage of the budget preparation.

While decentralized budget power was proved at the local government level, this paper belongs to the small group of contributions that deal with this issue at the central government level.

Following Hovland’s persuasion theory, this paper aims to develop a conceptual model and analyzes characteristics of online political deliberation behavior from three aspects (i.e. information, situation and manager). Based on the whole interactive process of online political deliberation, this paper aims to reveal the key points that affect the response effect of the government from the persuasive perspective of online political consultation.

Based on more than 40,000 netizens’ posts and government responses from 2011 to the first half of 2019 of the Chinese political platform, this paper used the text analysis and machine learning methods to extract measurement variables of online political deliberation characteristics and the econometrics analysis method to conduct empirical research.

The results showed that the textual information, political environment and identity of the political objects affect the effectiveness of government response. Furthermore, for different position categories of political officials, the length of political texts, topic categories and emotional tendencies have different effects on the response effectiveness. Additionally, the effect of political time on the effectiveness of response differs.

The findings will help ascertain the characteristics of online political deliberation behavior that affect how effective government response is and provide a theoretical basis for why the public should express their political concerns.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the determinants and convergence of government effectiveness in African and Asian countries.

The study utilizes data from 100 countries in Africa and Asia from 2002 to 2018. The panel-corrected standard error regression is used for the regression analysis, while both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence among the countries are tested.

Both beta-convergence and sigma-convergence exist among African and Asian countries. Asia performs better than Africa across all indicators except for press freedom, and voice and accountability. Corruption perception index, government size, voice and accountability, regulatory quality and economic wealth have a significant positive effect on government effectiveness. Press freedom negatively impacts on government effectiveness, suggesting that freedom is necessary but not sufficient if there are political actors whose actions undermine freedom. Similarly, the political constraint index, as reflected by checks and balances are necessary but not sufficient to enhance government effectiveness, especially in Asia.

The results reveal that for press freedom and political checks and balances to enhance government effectiveness, there is a need for a different and holistic approach. The results are relevant for policymakers, public sector practitioners and academics.

This study utilizes a new dataset and is premier in exploring the convergence of government effectiveness among African and Asian countries.

Based on data collected over a 15 year period (2000–2015) for 89 countries selected across nine geopolitical regions of the world, the purpose of this paper is to explore the role of economic development and the Hofstede index of national cultures in influencing level of government effectiveness and ICT diffusion; as well as the impact of ICT diffusion on government effectiveness. The level of economic development and a country’s ranking on the E-government index were found significant in explaining ICT diffusion and level of government effectiveness, respectively. But the findings also indicate that only the cultural factors such as Indulgence and long-term orientation (LTO) were quite significant in explaining level of government of effectiveness and ICT diffusion, respectively. The findings conclude that while some cultural factors may provide partial explanations for a country’s level of government effectiveness or ICT diffusion, but for other cultural elements, the path of influence is still unclear and at best debatable. Hence, in light of the growing emphasis placed on it in the literature, the effect of culture is limited and may have been overstated. ICT diffusion, while a necessary tool for administrative efficiency, is only but one piece of a larger puzzle and should be developed in consideration of and in the context of a broader framework of economic development, institutional design and behavioral practices.

This study examines how existing ICT diffusion and infrastructures among a set of 89 countries spread across nine world geopolitical zones has been able to improve their government effectiveness – as measured by their relative scores or rankings on the global “government effectiveness index” over a 15 year period (2000–2015); and also how specific cultural factors may influence the level of ICT diffusion. Drawing data from the United Nations e-Government knowledge database, the United Nations Development Program, the GlobalEconomy.com, as well as other socio-demographic sources, I examine key and associated indicators that influence information technology diffusion and its contributory effects on level of government effectiveness; as well as the impact of national cultures on ICT diffusion.

Overall, the finding from this analysis point to the fact that only two of the Hofstede national culture variables were significant (LTO and Indulgence). The other four national culture variables (Power Distance, Individualism, Masculinity/Femininity and Uncertainty Avoidance) were not. Indulgence has a negative effect on level of government effectiveness, while LTO has a positive effect on ICT diffusion. The other culture variables were not significant in any of the regression models, but they seem to congregate much closer to or around the mean.

This is the only work of its kind that has utilized the seven Hofstede indicators to test for the relationship between culture and technology over a long period of 15 years.

This study utilizes World Bank Governance Indicators to investigate government effectiveness in Asia, both regionally and across sub-regions. Several factors seem to influence the level of government effectiveness: accountability and voice, control of corruption, and wealth and income. The presence of a democratic form of government does not seem to be an important factor, but we note that more sensitive measures of democracy might produce more positive results. We then comment on the strengths and weaknesses of the dataset and offer some suggestions for future research.

The Colombian Government launched an e-government initiative in 2008 to facilitate communication among the government, citizens and organizations. Considering the high level of mistrust of citizens and businesses toward governmental institutions, the government must ensure the security of the information handled and provided by online users. Results to date have not been adequate in the usage of e-government systems. The purpose of this study is to evaluate whether the level of online security affects usage and impacts the cost-effectiveness and quality of the operations and, consequently, the operational effectiveness of organizations using e-government systems.

Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the antecedents and outcomes of operational effectiveness. To this end, 440 usable questionnaires were collected from managers and personnel from Colombian organizations using e-government systems.

According to the findings, there is a positive predictive relationship between online security and the dimensions of electronic government effectiveness. Furthermore, neither online security nor any of the dimensions of electronic government effectiveness affect the operational costs of organizations. Nonetheless, the quality of information has a positive effect on the quality of operations. As a result, through the quality of the information, online security has an indirect impact on the quality of operations.

The authors used a convenience sample, carefully selecting respondents based on their operations and practice knowledge and implementation of online security processes. Besides, compared to previous research conducted in developed nations, the sample size is relatively small. Because the survey is based on responses from official companies, it must also be taken into account that over 50% of Colombian labor is informal. Furthermore, Colombia is a nation with a high level of mistrust. When considering these factors, generalizability to all industrial sectors is questionable. Nevertheless, the findings of this study offer relevant information that indicates the need for more extended and comprehensive quantitative research.

Improvements in organizations that use e-government systems, based on the benefits that high-quality information brings to operational performance – cost and quality – will help them survive and become more sustainable and competitive. Furthermore, this study supports the assertion that aspects like online security are critical in promoting information and communication technology uptake and user acceptance in transition and rising economies like Colombia.

There is still a scarcity of information on assessing the effectiveness of electronic government systems and their impact on the quality and cost of operations in organizations that use them. Additionally, Colombia, as a country with low levels of trust between citizens, organizations and government, still lacks information about the impact of online security on the effectiveness of its operations.

The “resource curse phenomenon” has received a lot of attention from researchers; however, there has not been any sound explanation to back this phenomenon since the main reason why natural resource should restrain economic growth instead of boosting economic growth remains unanswered. This paper contributes to literature on “resource curse hypothesis” by examining the role of government effectiveness in influencing the impact of gas resource rent on economic growth.

The study adopted the Cobb-Douglass production and incorporated gas resource rent, institutional quality (government effectiveness), inflation and exchange rate as additional variables that influences total output (gross domestic product). The author estimated the empirical form of the Cobb-Douglass production using autoregressive distributed lag model (ARDL) and Toda and Yamamoto (1995) as the main estimation strategies while other time series approaches were used as a robustness check.

The estimates from the ARDL short-run and the long-run dynamics suggest that the direct impact of gas resource rent on economic growth was positive but not statistically significant. At the same time, the interacting of gas resource rent and government effectiveness showed a positive and statistically significant effect of nearly 0.4123 and 0.8724 on economic growth in the long run and short run, respectively. The results from the Toda and Yamamoto (1995) also indicated that economic growth has a strong influence on gas resource rent while government effectiveness drives economic growth and not vice versa.

The findings from this study imply that government effectiveness plays a crucial role in averting the “resource curse phenomenon”. Hence, improving government effectiveness and efficiency through minimizing corruption among state institutions would be imperative in curbing the “resource curse phenomenon” in developing countries.

The influential role of government effectiveness on the relationship between gas resource rent on economic growth is examined.

Even though nowadays more women occupy leadership roles, they still are a minority. Because aspiration is a precursor of advancement, examining conditions fostering female leadership aspiration is important, particularly in the context of Saudi Arabia where moral relativism play a vital role. This paper aims to discuss these issues.

A cross-sectional survey design with 500 full-time employed women, working in Saudi Arabia Public University were selected using quantitative approach. PLS-SEM is used to analyse the predicted hypotheses.

The initial prediction was found that gender egalitarian is significant on women’s leadership effectiveness, and government support to the extent that is associated with women’s leadership effectiveness and tend to have stronger relationship. Also, the indirect effect of government support on the relationship between gender egalitarian on women leadership effectiveness was not significant.

Due to the selected survey approach, the data are correlational using quantitative method. Thus, mixed method is needed to confirm these findings.

Saudi Arabia Public Universities, policymakers and leaders of higher education institutions should focus on female leaders to improve their leadership effectiveness. Universities should formulate future strategies to empower women through the various stages of their career to become good leaders.

The present study is among the first if any that examines relationship between gender egalitarian and women leadership effectiveness with moderating role of government support in developing country of Saudi Arabia.

This study aims to investigate the association of perceived accountability, perceived responsiveness and perceived transparency, and public trust in local government. Additionally, mediation of the perceived effectiveness of e-governance was also tested between these relationships.

Using a quantitative cross-sectional field survey, primary data was collected at local administration levels from two cities in Indonesia. The final data set of 355 respondents was then analyzed using SmartPls3 and the measurement and structural models were tested.

Positive results were obtained for all the hypothesized links (direct and indirect relationships). The study’s findings revealed useful insights for policymakers and researchers regarding the public’s perception of good governance and their expectations from the government, which further lead toward trust in local governments.

The study concluded that good governance practices develop and enhance the public’s trust in the government, thus provided key policy directions.

This study contributes to the body of knowledge related to good governance elements and their impact on public trust in the local government via the underlying mechanism of perceived e-governance effectiveness in developing countries in general and particularly the Indonesian context. Moreover, it is a unique study in the good governance domain while considering three good governance elements into a single theoretical framework. Previous studies have explored these elements individually with public trust, so this combined framework advances the body of knowledge. This research’s findings also contributed toward validating good governance theory with e-governance effectiveness and public trust integration in a single comprehensive framework. This research also helped answer the questions arising from past literature about declining public trust trends in local governments.

A major part of maintaining a well-managed performance measurement system in local government is providing the infrastructure for performance management. The problem is that local officials often struggle with moving from adopting performance measures to actually using them for improving services and for making resource allocation decisions. This article responds to this struggle by presenting information on the relationships between efficiency and effectiveness measures across six local government service areas, with the goal of providing guidance on using performance measures to support strategic resource management. Our research suggests that stronger correlations exist between efficiency and effectiveness measures associated with local services that possess private good characteristics, concluding that performance measures associated with market-oriented services lend themselves more readily to making resource allocation decisions.