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This paper aims to identify important factors in green public procurement (GPP) implementation and then to clarify how these factors affect GPP implementation.

The authors applied the Delphi method first and then conducted a focused and constrained multiple case study at 18 government procurement centers across China.

The authors identified four clusters of factors for successful GPP implementation: more clear, consistent and operational policy goals; a nation-wide green procurement campaign to enhance social capital and cultural resources; promoting staff’s ethics, professionalism, capacity and knowledge; and establishing checks and balances among organizations involved in the whole purchasing process.

GPP can significantly improve environmental protection and sustainable development.

Based on key insights from systems theory and agency theory, the authors emphasize that GPP implementation must take down its own functional silos and adopt a process approach across organizational tiers to synchronize human resource based and inter-organizational capabilities into a unified whole through information sharing, communications and collaboration.

This paper examines how voters' initiatives used in 24 states affect state budget balance. The author first uses a qualitative approach to investigate the extent to which ballot initiatives are used and identifies the initiatives that have had significant impacts on state revenues and expenditures. The review shows that the impact of initiatives differs from a state to state. The heavy initiative user states have experienced substantial impact on their budgets. Second, as their impact on state budget is particularly significant during economic downturn, a linear regression analysis is performed to examine the relationship between the use of initiatives and state budget balance measured in terms of the state budget gap as percentage of FY 2010 general fund. The regression analysis shows that the number of expenditure-induced initiatives have a statistically significant effect on state budget gap, while revenue-restrained measures (e.g. number of tax-limiting measures and the use of super majority or popular vote to approve tax increase) only marginally affect the FY 2010 budget gap.

The use of public procurement as a vehicle for implementing various socioeconomic preference policies has a long history. This article reviews the current state of affairs of procurement preference programs with regard to U.S. state and local governments and analyzes their impact on both the recipients and on the public procurement process. Opportunities for further research are noted, and the authors conclude that the ability to navigate the difficult waters of socioeconomic preferences should be a core competency of state and local public procurement officials.

Public agencies have started to shift away from the traditional lowest responsive and responsible bid to other approaches in purchasing certain items and services. These alternative approaches emphasize the quality of the products and the qualifications of the vendors. The purpose of this article is to explore the use qualifications-based selection (QBS) and other non-traditional source selection methods in public procurement processes. An online survey was sent out to 1665 members of the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing, and a mail survey sent a random sample to 300 American Public Works Association members. The survey results show that while the traditional lowest responsive and responsible bidding is still the dominant selection method when all procurement is considered, QBS and other non-traditional methods have gained wide acceptance and use in public agencies, especially for the purchase of professional services and information technology.

Public risk management is a relatively new but important element of public management and public budgeting. As research in this area is limited, this study attempts to advance knowledge on two specific elements of public risk management based on a survey sent to the Public Risk Management Association (PRIMA) members in 2002. 1) How do public entities use various risk funding techniques (e.g., purchasing insurance, self-insurance, and intergovernmental risk pools)? 2) Have public entities implemented integrated risk management in their risk management practices? The survey found evidence that integrated risk management is emerging in public risk management practice. As this is an exploratory study, the author also identifies a series of questions for future research.

This paper uses the Missouri Fiscal Year (FY) 2004 budget as a case study to illustrate two aspects of the recent state budgetary problems: its structural budget deficits and the politics involved in balancing a budget. The paper also highlights the dilemma that government faces in meeting constant public demand for services while revenue sources are restrained.

This article discusses interstate fiscal disparities in the context of welfare reform. It presents the trend of interstate fiscal disparities during 1970-1996 and highlights the need to study how the welfare reform of 1996 affects interstate variances in welfare support.

This article addresses some of the critical issues with respect to public procurement of information technology (IT). The article provides results from surveys of state public information managers and technology vendors who provide services to government to determine if IT procurements have improved in the ten years since the Kelman study on public procurements and suggests opportunities to improve public IT procurements.

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.