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This paper aims to examine the effects of domestic structure forces on “sub-national” foreign policy (SFP); an analytical concept provides a suitable operational framework for research on international activities of sub-national entities or regions.

The paper is carried out on the basis of a theoretical framework proposed by the author. First, the dependent variable is defined. Then, domestic structure is broken down into four variables, including legal grounds, the level of autonomy, the type of intergovernmental relations and institutionalization. A comparative method is used to examine the validity of the theoretical framework.

The paper finds out that domestic structural forces influence level and form of SFP with some regularity. The influence of these forces on SFP can be explained, as they recur and have such consistent effects that they create patterns and regularities in SFP. Such regularities can be detected through systematic analysis.

The topic of SFP is relatively controversial because of academic debate over international agency of substate actors. However, it is a worthwhile subject of research, as it has the potential to revolutionize research in foreign policy analysis. Moreover, the phenomenon of SFP is in need of theorizing and comparison as the literature on SFP is still in its infancy.

The purpose of this paper is to contribute to the literature by introducing a novel index that measures ease of doing business (EDB) at the sub-national level. The authors provide a comprehensive assessment of both de jure and de facto business conditions in 21 sub-national economies of India, with the help of a holistic framework that encompasses indicators capturing Attractiveness to Investors, Business Friendliness and Competitive Policies (ABC), the three broad environments that constitute the EDB–ABC index.

The authors’ index EDB–ABC index is constructed using 81 indicators. The index values reported are standardized scores and the framework is applied to 21 Indian sub-national economies. The bottom-up approach takes into account the various operational issues that firms face at the ground level, with the emphasis being on de facto issues. A unique feature of the index is its emphasis on collecting extensive survey data at the sub-national level, given that several constraints that businesses face lie under the purview of the sub-national governments. It also combines publicly available macroeconomic data through formal statistical publications.

The findings suggest a positive association between the proposed EDB–ABC index and competitiveness of as well as investments into Indian sub-national economies. In terms of explanatory power, the authors find that indicators capturing attractiveness to investors and business friendliness which are representative of de facto implementation issues at the sub-national matter more than de jure competitive policies. It is also striking that the results are in stark contrast to the existing doing business studies highlighting the importance of the comprehensiveness of the index.

Easing the impediments to doing business is a pre-requisite to enhance both domestic as well as foreign investments. Existing indicators on doing business provide an incomplete picture about the prevailing business conditions as the basis for such rankings are de jure regulations and not de facto. The authors depart from this tradition by dealing with both de jure and de facto business conditions using a combination of primary and secondary data at the sub-national level in India.

Refining and updating Harvey’s theorisation of the shift from managerialism to entrepreneurialism, this chapter charts the changing business of entrepreneurial governance through an examination of English economic development practice. Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), sub-national entrepreneurial governance entities, provide the empirical lens to understand the contemporary role of private interests in the pursuit of public goals in securing innovative approaches to economic development.

Comparative analysis of the strategic priorities, ways of working and interventions of LEPs operating across Greater Birmingham and the North East of England is undertaken against the backdrop of a competitive environment where the mantra is ‘the market knows best’.

The key finding is that while some policy outcomes are prosaic, albeit across contextually distinct entrepreneurial governance places, more innovative policy approaches are emerging.

The chapter shows that there remains value in business involvement in urban governance in its present mode. A more permissive, entrepreneurial mode of governance with the liberation of private enterprise may be leading to imaginative as well as boosterist ways of securing sustainable growth.

The chapter suggests some options for policy-makers and a series of challenges for decision-makers.

Research dealing with earnings management in the public-sector context is expanding. This paper aims to review the existing literature to understand how research is developing and points out gaps deserving further investigation.

This study uses the structured literature methodology to investigate the state-of-the-art and future directions of the literature on earnings management in the public sector. In total, 78 articles were explored.

The critical analysis of the literature shows that different but related streams of literature are emerging, focused on both a macro- and a micro-level perspective (mainly local governments and state-owned enterprises).

This study is the first that offers a comprehensive review of the literature on the emerging topic of earnings management in the public-sector context. The structured literature review enables the identification of future directions for the literature in this field.

This paper aims to determine whether local governments (LGs) use non-consolidated municipally owned companies (MOCs), excluded from public sector entities and, consequently, from sub-national debt to avoid fiscal debt limits. This paper contributes to the literature by analysing the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units.

This paper uses difference-in-differences and the system general method of moments model with the Blundell–Bond estimator for dynamic panel data analysis of MOCs owned by 866 Polish municipalities in 2010–2018.

This paper shows that the MOCs’ revenues support limited local public debt capacity by indebtedness restrictions imposed on municipalities in 2014. As a result, less indebted municipalities have higher off-budget revenues. The tightening of fiscal rules related to sub-sovereign indebtedness increased off-budget activities, but that effect is much stronger in rural and rural–urban municipalities than in urban municipalities and big cities.

This paper contributes to the literature by exploring the fiscal debt rule’s impact on the off-budget municipal activities in total and separate in different types of local government units. In this paper, the authors combine theories relating to private and public finance; this is a novel approach and one that is also necessary – as, in fact, the worlds of public and private actors intersect – as exemplified by the existence of MOC.

Purpose: The overall purpose of the chapter is to begin development of a frame of reference that encompasses all gender constructs. This chapter focuses on gender constructs in relatively small-scale, sub-national ethnicities. These peoples represent a major focus of strain in the processes of national development and consolidation. The emphasis here is on the cultural (in this case gender oriented) variations that are preserved by their persistence.

Methodology/approach: The chapter is primarily a review of ethnographic literature, focusing on selected case studies that illustrate both the gender variations that exist and some of those that have already been lost.

Findings: The varieties of gender constructs that exist make it clear that the current binary social science paradigm for organizing our knowledge of gender is inadequate.

Value: This chapter is a reminder that rampant globalization threatens the survival of a variety of ethnic patterns and in reducing them to nameless, faceless cogs in a consumer-driven structure, cultural evolutionary potential for adapting to unforeseen conditions is lost.

Limitations: The data cited do not represent a systematic sample of existing variations. They have been chosen to illustrate the range of data existing outside the commonly accepted patterns.

Drawing on network and fiscal federalism theories, we investigated central government patronage and donor aid as antecedents of budget performance in local government (LG). A mixed methods design with data collected from 18 LGs, two ministries, and four donor agencies in Uganda was employed. Results revealed that both central government patronage and donor aid predict budget performance. Moreover, autonomy does not mediate the interactions as initially hypothesized. Implications for theory and practice are discussed and future research direction is provided.

Ultimately the diversity of social, political and economic interests in the enlarged European Union will lead to an increasing application of techniques of differentiated integration and co‐ordination between member states. At the same time, the administrative relations within the western European states will also be revised. This entails processes of territorial and functional decentralization and of decentralization of activities to the market. What will emerge is a still unknown, strongly differentiated administrative structure within and between the European nation‐states. Such a structure appears to provide considerable room for innovation and initiatives, but it also raises the question of whether or not the new situation can be reconciled with the requirements of the familiar social constitutional state.