Afghanistan’s reconstruction is an immense challenge – for the people and government of Afghanistan and no less so for the world community. More than two decades of war and displacement have had destructive and corrosive effects throughout the country and in all aspects of life. Moreover, conflict and institutional erosion have gone on for so long that they have become entrenched, giving rise t...

• Significant growth in demand for education, meaning scale of educational institutions. • Increased funding from non-government sources with an increased expectation of relevance and utility. • Changing government and community expectations regarding the nature and role of tertiary education institutions raising expectations of relevance and efficiency. • Increased commercial activity of tradi...

The quality of service in the public sector has been a popular issue over the past two decades. All over the world, many governments and international organizations have set up some awards to evaluate the service performance of the public sector and encourage public organizations to devote themselves to improving their service quality. In Australia, the annual National Awards were established i...

This paper explores how government preferences affect the choices of capital tax rates in the presence of tax competition. We develop a model in which governments, differentiating in their preferences for economic development and regional equality, compete for mobile capital over corporation taxes. The key prediction of the model, borne out in data from OECD countries over the years 1990-2007, ...

China’s local government debt (LGD) has recently become the focus of economic policy debates. However, information about LGD and its impact on economic growth in the Chinese economy is scarce. This paper attempts to present an empirical investigation of the impact of China’s LGD on economic growth. It is probably the first of its kind to focus on China and thus contributes to the general litera...

Regional governments in general, and metropolitan governments in particular, are under threat almost everywhere. Despite an apparent increase in the level of awareness of and the need for region-wide co-operation, revenue sharing and direct political accountability within metropolitan regions, the few formal metropolitan governments that do exist to meet these needs are in retreat. This paper r...

This paper uses an institutional approach to investigate the relationship between the regional institutional environment and regional new firm formation. The importance of perceived attitudes regarding private enterprises, local taxes, political majority, the size of the government sector and perceived rules and bureaucracy on new firm formation in 286 Swedish municipalities are investigated. T...

In 1957 came the first major Industrial and Technological Musuem at Calcutta. The National Council of Science Museums was set up by the government of Indian in 1978 and in the short span of 12 years they have established a chain of 14 science museums all over India, with many more under various stages of planning. These museums are at three levels National, Regional, and District. The National ...