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This study aims to investigate the use of discretionary spending, especially by incumbents, to win the election and whether incumbents can take more advantage of such spending than the new local government heads. This study also examines the political monitoring effect in suppressing discretionary spending. By using panel regression on 225 local governments during 2013–2016, the results indicate that political motive positively affects discretionary spending proportion ahead of the election. Following the public choice theory that although local government heads act on the interests of voters, their primary motivation is personal interest. Incumbent’s victory does not affect total discretionary spending and the financial assistance expenditure/transfer but has a significant positive effect on grant and social assistance spending. It generally supports Corruption Eradication Commission’s allegations of “returning the favor” is carried out by elected heads in one year following the election. But, it shows that incumbents are more able to utilize grants and social assistance spending than the new local government heads. Political monitoring from the opposition party has proven to have a direct negative effect on discretionary spending proportion. Tracking of the one year after the election should be done to prevent misuse of discretionary spending for incumbent political interests. The results of this study are expected to provide input to regulators to develop more comprehensive regulation, for example, strict sanctions for violations related to accountability for the use of such funds to limit the opportunistic behavior of the local government heads.

The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of local government spending on local government financial performance. Furthermore, this study also investigates the moderating role of re-election on the relationship between local government spending and the financial performance for all local government and dynastic local government. The hypotheses are analyzed using multiple regression with fixed effect using two groups of samples: all local governments and dynastic local governments from 2010 to 2015. The result shows that local government spending positively affects local government financial performance, but in dynastic local government, spending has negative effect on financial performance. Moreover, this study proves that re-election strengthens the positive effect of local government spending on local government financial performance in all sample and weaken the negative effect of spending on financial performance in dynastic local government. The finding of this study is very useful for the central government in terms of policy formulation and mechanisms to limit the practice of political dynasty.

In the spirit of ‘Europe of the Regions’, local authorities are responsible for responding to the main interests, needs and preferences of the country’s citizens. Regional and local administrative authorities provide citizens with the necessary public goods, which reflect the trend towards ‘glocalisation’ in public administration at the European level, more significantly in the states in which the political system recently became democratic. With this background, the effectiveness of local self-government depends not only on local authorities’ decision-making freedom but also on (financial) support for it through decentralisation, and the member states of the European Union (EU) employ different strategies to achieve the same goal, with varying degrees of success. Within this context, our chapter offers a comparative analysis of the administrative, financial and local self-government decentralisation in member states, which include the southern and eastern regions on the outer edges of the EU. The general goal of our study is to identify the main trends in the present administrations and their challenges, as well as best practices that can offer lessons to other member states which are reforming their administration through decentralisation. In addition to the identified challenges, solutions and best practices, our study reveals a tendency towards consolidation at the level of regional government not only in the terms of legal responsibility but also of administrative budgets, thus generating an assumption of improvement in the general quality of governance in the member states.

In recent years, the World Bank has channeled up to one-sixth of its lending and advisory support to reform of central governments. A recent evaluation tried to understand what was working, what needs to be improved, and what needs to be added or discontinued. The evaluation looked at four key central government tasks: public financial management and procurement (PFMP) reform, administration and civil service reform (ACS), tax administration reform, and combating corruption. This chapter looks at the first of these tasks.

The advice provided by the World Bank on improving public financial management and procurement is influenced by debates on theory and practice in developed and developing countries. This chapter touches on some of the highlights of these debates, drawing from indicative literature mainly since 1990 from scholars and practitioners. The second part of the chapter discusses examples of Bank support for reform of budget planning and execution, financial management, and procurement, looking at the Bank's diagnostic work, design, and implementation of project support. It also assesses evidence of outcomes and attribution, and ends with questions for further research.

In the domestic credit market creditor and debtor rights are clearly defined. In contrast, sovereign debt repayment is largely contingent on the debtor government’s willingness to repay as enforcement of contracts at the international level is limited. In this chapter we explore different sources of sovereign debt crises as opportunistic and myopic behavior by debtor nations, over-consumption of imported goods, credit temptation by lenders eager to allocate savings surpluses, and unexpected consequences of initially seen appropriate policies. We explore how these factors have played out in the Euro-debt crisis and outline a framework for creditor responsibility to complement debtor self-restraint.

Laboratories or “labs” outside science and technology have become increasingly popular in recent years. Their proliferation raises questions about what they have in common and the extent to which “lab” as a metaphor is still pertinent. We develop six criteria to assess these types of labs: (1) theoretical foundations; (2) experimentation; (3) collaboration; (4) boundaries; (5) governance; and (6) temporality. We identify a number of paradoxes in the operation of labs and explore their implications for research and practice.

This paper examines associations of mass media and information and communications technologies (ICTs) with inequality and poverty. It has been found that newspaper circulation has a robust negative association with inequality. Radios and TVs also have a negative association with poverty. ICT expenditures (as a percentage of GDP) have a negative association with poverty. An ICT index is constructed which also has a negative association with poverty. An instrumental variable analysis confirms the robust negative association between newspaper circulation and inequality.

Norway is a small nation state on the northernmost coastline of Western Europe, integrated in the Western world economy. For centuries Norway's integration in the world economy had been based on exports of raw materials such as fish and timber, as well as shipping services. In the early 20th century, furnace-based metals (made possible by cheap hydropower) were added to this export basket. Just as the world economy entered an increasingly unstable phase in 1970s, another natural resource was discovered in Norway: petroleum – that is, oil and natural gas from the North Sea. This chapter analyses the challenges and possibilities inherent in the Norwegian strategy of developing an oil economy in a world economic situation influenced by new and stronger forms of international integration through the four decades between 1970 and 2010.