《公共管理引论》doc版.doc

公共管理引论: 方法与案例Case Readings on Public Management Dr. Xing Qiangguo 1. The Function of Government1-82. The Constitutional Framework 8-123. Strategic Planning12-144. Policy Evaluation15-205. Governmental Organizations20-286. The Art of Leadership28-337. Public Budget Types33-378. E-Government37-419. Art, Science or Craft41-4710. Privatization Revisited47-5011. The Role of Leadership50-55 西南财经大学SWUFESeptember 1, 2004Case Reading 1 The Functions of Governmentby Paul A. Samuelson and William D. NordhausWe are beginning to give a picture of how government directs and interacts with the economy. What are the appropriate economic goals for government action in a modern society? Lets examine the four major functions:1. Improving economic efficiency2. Improving the distribution of income3. Stabilizing the economy through macroeconomic policies4. Conducting international economic policyImproving Economic EfficiencyA central economic purpose of government is to assist in the socially desirable allocation of resources. This is the microeconomic side of government policy; it concentrates on what and how economic life. Microeconomic policies differ among countries according to customs and political philosophies. Some countries emphasize a hands-off laissez-faire approach, leaving most decisions to the market. Other countries lean toward heavy government regulation, or even ownership of businesses, in which productions are made by government planners.The United States is fundamentally a market economy. On every microeconomic issue, most people presume that the market will solve economic problem at hand. But sometimes there is good reason for government to override the allocation decisions of market supply and demand. The Limits of the Invisible HandChapter 15 explained how the invisible hand of perfect competition would lead to an efficient allocation of resources. But this invisible hand result holds only under very limited conditions. All goods must be produced efficiently by perfectly competitive firms. All goods must be private goods like loaves of bread, the total of which can be put up into separate slices of consumption for different individuals, so that the more I consume put of the total, the less you consume. There can be no externalities like air pollution. Consumers and firms must be fully informed about the prices and characteristics of the goods they buy and sell.If all these idealized conditions were met, the invisible hand could provide perfectly efficient production and distribution of national output, and there would be no need for government intervention to promote efficiency.Ye even in this case, if there were to be a division of labor among people and regions, and if a price mechanism were to work, government would have an important role. Courts and police forces would be needed to ensure the fulfillment of contracts, non-fraudulent and nonviolent behavior, freedom from theft and external aggression, and the legislated rights of property.Inescapable InterdependenciesLaissez-faire minimal government intervention might be a good system if the idealized conditions listed above were truly present. In reality, each and every one of the idealized conditions enumerated above is violated to some extent in all human societies. Most production takes place in units too large for truly perfect competition. Unregulated factories do tend to pollute the air, water, and land. Often, contagious diseases break out and private markets have little incentive to develop effective public health programs. Consumers are sometimes poorly informed about the characteristics of the goods they buy. The market is not ideal. There are market failures. In other words, government often deploys its weapons to correct important market failures, of which the most important are the following:1. The breakdown the perfect competition. When monopolies or oligopolies collude to reduce rivalry or drive firms out of business, government may apply antitrust policies or regulations.2. Externalities and public goods. The unregulated market may produce too much air pollution and too little investment in public health or knowledge. As we will see in chapter 18, government may use its influence to control harmful externalities to fund programs in science and public health. Government can levy taxes on activities which impose external public costs (such as cigarette smoking), or it can subsidize activities which are socially beneficial (such as education or prenatal health care)3. Imperfect information. Unregulated markets tend to provide too little information for consumers to make well-informed decisions. In an earlier era, hucksters hawked snake oil remedies that would just as easily kill you as cure you. This led to food and drug regulations that require pharmaceutical companies to provide extensive data on the safety and efficacy of new drugs before they can be sold. Because of inadequacy of information, the government requires companies to provide information on energy efficiency of appliances like refrigerators and water heaters. In addition, government may use its spending power to collect and provide needed information itself, as it does with automobile crash-and-safety data.Clearly, there is much on the agenda of possible allocation problems for government to handle.Improving the Distribution of IncomeEven when the invisible hand works and is marvelously efficient, it may at the same time produce a very unequal distribution of income. Under laissez-faire, people end up rich or poor depending on their inherited wealth, on their talents and efforts, on their luck in finding oil or owning land in the right place, and on their gender or the color of their skin. To some people, the distribution income arising from unregulated competition looks as arbitrary as the Darwinian distribution of food and plunder among animal in the jungle.In the poorest societies, there is little excess income to take from the better-off and provide to the unfortunate. But as societies become more affluent, they can devote more resources to providing services for poor people; this activityincome redistributionis the second major economic function of government. The welfare state of North America and Western Europe now devote a significant share of their revenues to maintaining minimum standards of health, nutrition, and income.Income redistribution is usually accomplished through taxation and spending policies. Though regulation sometimes plays a role as well. Most advanced countries now rule that children shall not go hungry because of the economic circumstances of their parents; that the poor shall not die because of insufficient money for needed medical care; that the young shall receive free public education; and that the old shall be able to live out their years with a minimum level of income. In the United States, these government activities are provided primarily by transfer programs, such as food stamps, Medicaid, and social security.But attitudes about redistribution evolve as well. With rising tax burdens and government budget deficits, along with the rising costs of income-support programs, taxpayers increasingly resist redistributive programs and progressive taxation. Sweden, which take the welfare state to its extreme and collects 70 percent of national income as taxes, is today struggling to trim spending while maintaining the most important redistributive programs.Stabilizing Economy Through Macroeconomic PoliciesEarly capitalism was prone to financial panics and bouts of inflation and depression, and the traumatic memory of the Great Depression of the 1930s is still vivid among older Americans. Today government has the responsibility of preventing such calamitous business depressions by the proper use of monetary and fiscal policy, as well as close regulation of the financial system, in addition, government tries to smooth out the ups and downs of the business cycle, in order to avoid either large-scale unemployment at the bottom of the cycle or raging inflation at the top of the cycle. More recently, government has become concerned with finding economic policies which boost long-term economic growth. These questions are considered at length in the branch of economics called macroeconomics.Conducting International Economic PolicyIn recent years, international trade and finance have become far more important to the United States than they were in the past. Government now plays a critical role representing the interests of the nation on the international stage and negotiating beneficial agreements with other countries on a wide range of issues. We can group the international issues of economic policy into four main areas.1. Reducing trade barriers. An important part of economic policy involves harmonizing laws and reducing trade barriers so as to encourage fruitful international specialization and division of labor. In recent years, nations have negotiated a series of agreements to lower tariffs and other trade barriers on agriculture products, manufactured goods, and services (recall from Chapter 15 how competitive free trade puts countries on the world utility-possibility frontier).Such an agreements are often contentious. They sometimes harm certain groups, as when removing textile tariffs reducing employment in that county. In addition, international agreements may require giving up national sovereignty as the price of rising incomes. Suppose that one countrys laws protect intellectual property rights, such as patents and copyrights. While another countrys laws allow free copying of books, videos, and software. Whose laws shall prevail? 2. Conducting assistant programs. Rich nations have numerous programs designed to improve the lot of the poor in other countries. These involve direct international aid, disaster and technical assistance, the establishment of institutions like the World Bank to give low-interest-rate loans to poor countries, and concessionary terms on exports to poor nations. 3. Coordinating macroeconomic policies. Nations have found that their increased economic interdependence means that macroeconomic policies must be coordinated to combat inflation and unemployment. Exchange rates (which are the relative prices of the currencies of different nations) do not manage themselves; establishing a smoothly functioning exchange-rate system is a prerequisite for efficient international trade. Nations have seen that fiscal and monetary policies of other nations can affect domestic economic conditions. When the United States raised interest rate to fight inflation in 1979, the tight money led to a world recession and an international debt crisis in the 1980s. Particularly in tightly integrated regions, like Western Europe, countries work to coordinate their fiscal, monetary, and exchange-rate policies, or even adopt a common currency, so that inflation or unemployment in one country does not spill over to hurt the entire area.4. Protecting the global environment. The most recent facet of international economic policy is to work with other nations to protect the global environment in cases where several countries contribute to or are affected by spillovers. The most active areas historically have been protecting fisheries and water quality in rivers. More recently, as scientists have raised concerns about ozone depletion, deforestation, global warming, and species extinction, nations have begun to consider ways to protect our global resources. Clearly, international environment problems can be resolved only through the cooperation of many nations.Even the staunchest conservatives agree that government has a major role to play in representing the national interest in the anarchy of nations. Comprehension Questions1. Laissez-fair policy would most prefer which of the following government management style? _.a. minimum intervention of government in market economyb. minimum market function and minimum intervention of governmentc. maximum market function and heavy intervention of governmentd. heavy government regulation in free market economy 2. Market economy, generally speaking, would solve most _ problems in the United States.a. macroeconomicb. microeconomicc. supplyd. demand3. The mechanism, or the function, of market economy sometimes is referred as _.a. externalityb. internalityc. invisible handd. regulation4. If the idealized conditions _, the function of market economy could ensure perfect efficiency.a. offb. unrealc. goned. provided5. Which of the following statements is untrue?_a. Even the idealized conditions were met, government is still has some functions in a market economy.b. Only when the idealized conditions for a market economy are inadequate can there are some businesses for the government.c. Governments function in a market economy is to correct market failures.d. There are no market economies being free of market failures. 6. Which of the following is not a market failure? _a. inefficiency of governmentb. externalitiesc. market failures in public affairs d. consumers are poorly informed7. Even all the idealized conditions for a market economy were met, there would still be some _ in income distribution.a. inequalitiesb. equalitiesc. competitionsd. exploitations 8. As nations become _, they gradually have the ability to help socioeconomic problems in other nations.a. poorerb. richerc. generousd. wiser 9. Government activities to help variety of weak groups in the United States via _.a. humanitarian programsb. Medicaid programsc. social security systemd. transfer programs10. Which of the following statements is true? _a. Income redistribution is welcome by different interest groups in developed nations.b. Income redistribution is resisted by all interest groups in developed nations.c. Income redistribution is out of date in modern societies, especially in industrial nations.d. Income redistribution is contentious because of the increase of tax burdens and government expenditures. 11. Early capitalism was apt to financial panics, at least partly because of lacking in _.a. industry planningb. government planningc. government regulationd. industrial self-adjustment12. Which of the following is not a function of government in international economy?_a. representing the interests of a nationb. reducing trade tariff and non-tariff trade barriersc. coordinating macroeconomic polices among nationsd. negotiating trade agreements for state-owned enterprises Reference BooksPaul A. Samuelson and William D. Nordhaus: Economics, Sixteenth Edition, AcGraw-Hill, 机械工业出版社，2001年。Case Reading 2 The Constitutional FrameworkDeclaration of IndependenceAt age 33, Jefferson was already known, in the words of John Adams of Massachusetts, as a man with a “peculiar felicity of expression,” and the task of writing the declaration fell to him. Jefferson completed his draft in about two weeks. Sitting in the second floor parlor of the house of Jacob Graff, Jefferson composed some of the most enduring words in the English language. His draft, edited somewhat by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, was submitted on June 28. For two days Congress debated Jeffersons draft, making changes and deletions that Jefferson found painful. However, what emerged has withstood the test of time:We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and pursuit of HappinessThat to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and institute new Government, laying its foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.The Continental Congress approved the Declaration on July 4 and ordered that it be “authenticated and printed.” Although the fact is sometimes overlooked, Jefferson and his colleagues produced and signed a treasonable document. They were literally pledging their lives. Dr. Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, one of the signers, asked John Adams many years later: “ Do you collect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the house when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the president of Congress to subscribe what was believed by many at that time to be our own death warrants?”The solemnity of the moment was breached only once. It is said that Benjamin Harrison of Virginia, whom Adams once described as “ an indolent and luxurious heavy gentleman of no use in Congress or committee,” turned to Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts, a skinny, worried-looking colleague, and cackled: “I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing. From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.” The ConstitutionThe Constitution, Chief Justice Marshall said in 1819, was “intended to endure for ages to come. And consequently to be adapted to the various crises of human affairs.” This opinion embodied the principle of loose or flexible construction of the constitutionthe concept that the constitution must be flexibly to meet changing conditions.The constitution was not perfect, but it represented a practic