This book examines the theory and practice of performance budgeting, which aims make government more effective by linking the funding of government agencies to the results they deliver. Combining thematic studies and case studies, it clearly presents the diverse range of contemporary performance budgeting models and examines their effectiveness.
Improving how our government works is urgent business for America. In this book experts from the RAND corporation provide practical ways for government to reorganize and restructure, enhance leadership, and create flexible, performance-driven agencies.
Countries vary systematically with respect to the incentives of politicians to provide broad public goods, and to reduce poverty. Even in developing countries that are democracies, politicians often have incentives to divert resources to political rents, and to private transfers that benefit a few citizens at the expense of many. These distortions can be traced to imperfections in political markets, that are greater in some countries than in others. The authors review the theory, and evidence on the impact of incomplete information of voters, the lack of credibility of political promises, and social polarization on political incentives. They argue that the effects of these imperfections are large, but that their implications are insufficiently integrated into the design of policy reforms aimed at improving the provision of public goods, and reducing poverty.
Meta-Analysis for Public Management and Policy is a groundbreaking book that introduces meta-analysis and includes proven techniques for research in public management and policy. The book provides statistical approaches to meta-analysis most useful for public policy and management and features five examples of original meta-analyses of important questions in public management and policy conducted by the author and his team. These original studies show step-by-step how to conduct a meta-analysis and contribute original research on ...
"Pay for performance" has become a buzzword for the 1990s, as U.S. organizations seek ways to boost employee productivity. The new emphasis on performance appraisal and merit pay calls for a thorough examination of their effectiveness. Pay for Performance is the best resource to date on the issues of whether these concepts work and how they can be applied most effectively in the workplace. This important book looks at performance appraisal and pay practices in the private sector and describes whetherâ€"and howâ€"private industry experience is relevant to federal pay reform. It focuses on the needs of the federal government, exploring how the federal pay system evolved; available evidence on federal employee attitudes toward their work, their pay, and their reputation with the public; and the complicating and pervasive factor of politics.
This second edition of the best-selling textbook on Work Motivation in Organizational Behavior provides an update of the critical analysis of the scientific literature on this topic, and provides a highly integrated treatment of leading theories, including their historical roots and progression over the years. A heavy emphasis is placed on the notion that behavior in the workplace is determined by a mix of factors, many of which are not treated in texts on work motivation (such as frustration and violence, power, love, and sex). Examples from current and recent media events are numerous, and intended to illustrate concepts and issues related to work motivation, emotion, attitudes, and behavior.
Bartik provides a clear and concise overview of how state and local governments employ economic development incentives in order to lure companies to set up shop—and provide new jobs—in needy local labor markets. He shows that many such incentive offers are wasteful and he provides guidance, based on decades of research, on how to improve these programs.
Combining insights from traditional thought and practice and from contemporary political analysis, Madison's Managers presents a constitutional theory of public administration in the United States. Anthony Michael Bertelli and Laurence E. Lynn Jr. contend that managerial responsibility in American government depends on official respect for the separation of powers and a commitment to judgment, balance, rationality, and accountability in managerial practice. The authors argue that public management—administration by unelected officials of public agencies and activities based on authority delegated to them by policymakers—derives from the principles of American constitutionalism, articulated most clearly by James Madison. Public management is, they argue, a constitutional institution necessary to successful governance under the separation of powers. To support their argument, Bertelli and Lynn combine two intellectual traditions often regarded as antagonistic: modern political economy, which regards public administration as controlled through bargaining among the separate powers and organized interests, and traditional public administration, which emphasizes the responsible implementation of policies established by legislatures and elected executives while respecting the procedural and substantive rights enforced by the courts. These literatures are mutually reinforcing, the authors argue, because both feature the role of constitutional principles in public management. Madison's Managers challenges public management scholars and professionals to recognize that the legitimacy and future of public administration depend on its constitutional foundations and their specific implications for managerial practice.
In recent years there have been increasing efforts to use accountability systems based on large-scale tests of students as a mechanism for improving student achievement. The federal No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is a prominent example of such an effort, but it is only the continuation of a steady trend toward greater test-based accountability in education that has been going on for decades. Over time, such accountability systems included ever-stronger incentives to motivate school administrators, teachers, and students to perform better. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education reviews and synthesizes relevant research from economics, psychology, education, and related fields about how incentives work in educational accountability systems. The book helps identify circumstances in which test-based incentives may have a positive or a negative impact on student learning and offers recommendations for how to improve current test-based accountability policies. The most important directions for further research are also highlighted. For the first time, research and theory on incentives from the fields of economics, psychology, and educational measurement have all been pulled together and synthesized. Incentives and Test-Based Accountability in Education will inform people about the motivation of educators and students and inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems. Education researchers, K-12 school administrators and teachers, as well as graduate students studying education policy and educational measurement will use this book to learn more about the motivation of educators and students. Education policy makers at all levels of government will rely on this book to inform policy discussions about NCLB and state accountability systems.