For more than three decades healthcare decentralization has been promoted in developing countries as a way of improving the financing and delivery of public healthcare. Decision autonomy under healthcare decentralization would determine the role and scope of responsibility of local authorities. Jalal Mohammed, Nicola North, and Toni Ashton analyze decision autonomy within decentralized services...

We study dynamic selection of governments under different political institutions, with a special focus on institutional "flexibility" . A government consists of a subset of the individuals in the society. The competence level of the government in office determines collective utilities (e.g., by determining the amount and quality of public goods), and each individual derives additional utility f...

‘Trust in government has been identified as one of the most important foundations upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of political systems are built. Trust is essential for social cohesion and well-being as it affects governments’ ability to govern and enables them to act without having to resort to coercion. Consequently, it is an efficient means of lowering transaction costs in any s...

Intr oduction Generic medicines are a key instrument for governments to sustain their healthcare systems and control pharmaceutical expenditures. This contribution of generic medicines to the sustainability of European healthcare systems has been recognised by the High Level Pharmaceutical Forums, ‘Generic medicines provide an opportunity to obtain similar treatments at lower costs for patients...

Energy plays a critical role in all societies, and governments have a long tradition of intervention and participation in the energy sector even in more market-oriented economies. But in recent decades, the need for and extent of government intervention has been challenged. A growing number of governments and international agencies now agree with liberalisation advocates that reducing public in...

Business representatives and union leaders in highly industrialised countries often accuse the governments of lessdeveloped countries of practising social dumping in the sense of deliberately neglecting work-place safety legislation, codetermination rights and other fringe benefits which define the quality of workplaces. This paper refutes this view by modelling the transition path of a less-de...

Large-scale venues for exhibitions and events are important public infrastructure. Developing venues have captured much of governments' attention due to the potential benefits the industry would bring to the community. However, venue development requires considerable capital and operating costs, unique standards of design and complicated operational issues. Public–Private Partnerships were intr...

Applications for e-Government should be developed based on user-centered design. In the late 1990s, one-stop-service by governments became popular. In Japan, the e-Government service was promoted by priority policy programs since 2001. However, there have not been sufficient achievements. Many ministries in the central government developed Web applications with a lack of usability. On the other...