One of the most important decisions that governments face is how to allocate the public resources necessary for development, given each country’s budget constraints. According to the literature on the links between wealth and institutional performance, highly kleptocratic countries are...

We describe the pension plan features of the states and the largest cities and counties in the U.S. Unlike in the private sector, defined benefit (DB) pensions are still the norm in the public sector. However, a few jurisdictions have shifted towards defined contribution (DC) plans as their...

Fiscal equalisation refers to the transfer of financial resources to and between subnational governments with the aim of mitigating regional differences in fiscal capacity and expenditure needs. However, the determination of fiscal capacity and expenditure needs is not a straightforward task....

Globalisation and subsequent competition among cities have triggered a profound change in the mode of the governance of cities. It is often described as a shift from a managerial mode of governance, which had been primarily concerned with provision of social welfare services and control of...

Based on a survey, this paper presents new data on the decentralisation of the housing system and co-ordination mechanisms across levels of government, focusing on the provision of social housing. Decision-making in social housing tends to be more devolved to sub-national actors, as compared to...

Pedestrians are vulnerable in traffic, with frequently reported injuries and fatalities. These risks are believed to be correlated with socio-economic attributes such as age, income or education levels. For Korea, it is shown that elderly pedestrians have a higher mortality risk than other road...

Cultural policy often implies the transfer of public resources to cultural institutions. In this contribution we focus on the determinants of a government's choice between subsidies to external cultural organizations and in-house cultural production. We argue that the determinants of grants in...

This paper empirically investigates the mutual influence of traffic volumes across routes serving the same airport. Regression analysis using the data on Japan's domestic air transport market reveals that an increase in passengers on a given route has a positive effect on the number of...

Recently, political and scientific debate is strongly focused on issues questioning the economic sustainability of environmental policies at regional level. Following European directives and protocols and in accordance with the principles of sustainable development, the interventions designed by...