In August 2009, the Freetown Declaration by the African finance ministers committed their governments to 'implement fiscal stimulus measures' to counter the effects of the international financial crisis. This paper analyses the institutional and economic feasibility of realising this commitment....

The paper argues that the Greek debt crisis, as well as those of other Southern European countries and Ireland, has to be seen in macroeconomic context. The sum of the public sector balance, the (domestic) private sector balance and the current account deficit (or equivalently: the capital...

The paper takes a fresh look at the governance of the most important macroeconomic objectives: price stability and full employment. On the basis of a post-Keynesian market constellations approach, the necessity and institutional requirements of the coordination of macroeconomic policy areas in...

In the mainstream economics, the postulate of rational expectations downgrades the relevance of macroeconomic policy and institutions. In a world of full information and rational expectations, aggregate demand is irrelevant in anything other than a strictly short-run context, and the only...

In this paper we advocate a way of approaching macroeconomic policy, which stands in contrast to the now discredited 'new consensus in macroeconomics' policy framework. The five pillars of our approach are: the need for budget deficits to support the level of aggregate demand; full consideration...

This article reviews the establishment and use of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in Ireland. It notes the many difficulties experienced in obtaining a precise view of the composition of the Irish public sector and comments on ambivalent (and therefore often destructive) attitudes to the control...

In recent years, the local government sector in European countries has undergone important changes involving, among other things, the externalisation of local public service provision through various forms of corporatisation, public-public collaboration, public-private partnerships and...

The reported turnaround of the Indian Railways (IR) has attracted wide notice. This article locates the enterprise within the broader Indian public sector and explores the factors that led to the turnaround from a low performing organisation to a high performing one. The case study method is...

This article recognises that the Mexican financial crisis of 1982 marked a turning point in the country's development. The crisis followed a period of steady economic growth. Since then, the entrepreneurial state has been under steady attack by members of a new business elite, who are direct...

Recent studies of the effectiveness of privatisation programmes in the water and sanitation sector have highlighted the diversity of experiences, especially with respect to the distributional consequences of reforms. This study of water and sanitation privatisation programmes in the city and...