The WG
on Fiscal Policy plans again to meet at the 20th NISPAcee conference
in 2012 at Ohrid Lake and invites papers dealing with fiscal policy, public
finance and public financial management.
We would
like to announce two tracks:
·
General track: East
and West: Twenty Years of Development: Fiscal Policy and Public Finance.
·
Specialised track:
Contracting
and outsourcing in the public sector.
The
authors are invited to submit original research papers, i.e. papers presenting the
results of their own research. We welcome high quality theoretical studies, but
especially empirical papers, providing concrete data and their analysis. The
form is quite open, e.g. single or multiple case studies, comparative papers, and
survey results or papers applying some statistical analysis. Detailed research
protocols for both of the announced tracks are attached.
The paper selection will be
based on the submitted abstracts, which have to clearly define objectives and research questions (i.e. what
the researcher wants to find) and to carefully describe the research design and
methods (i.e. what the researcher will actually do). Thus, there is no need for
a literature review in the abstract.
The
abstracts, which will not contain this basic information, will be accepted
conditionally and the authors will be asked to complete the abstract.
General track:
In the last
twenty years, all countries from the NISPAcee region undertook numerous reforms
or reform steps in the area of fiscal policy, public finance and public
financial management. Many of these reforms were inspired by western examples,
by international organisations, or took place during the pre-accession process
to the EU.
The main
objective of this track is to collect cases/papers which critically evaluate the
outcomes of such reforms, comparing either the original intent or expectations
with the final outcomes, or comparing the implementation of the same reform or
process in two countries. Thus, there is room for both longitudinal and
comparative research papers.
The standard
structure of the paper should be as follows:
-
Introduction,
which clearly states the objectives of the paper and in detail describes the
applied methodology
-
Description of
the problem studied, showing a good knowledge of the relevant literature in
both the local language and in English
-
Short
introduction of the country or countries, i.e. present all information
necessary (and relevant) to understand your paper
-
Analysis of the
problem
-
Evaluation,
conclusions and recommendations (this part needs to result from the previous
parts of the paper)
Specialised track: Contracting and outsourcing in the
public sector
Contracting and
outsourcing are one of the most prevalent types of semi-privatisation in the
public sector. For the purposes of this research protocol, we assume that under
contracting out and outsourcing own activities of a public economic subject are
delegated to an external supplier. In order to use the terminology in the same
manner, under contracting out, this means delegation of services and functions,
and under outsourcing, we mean delegation of individual complementary services.
Two main levels
should be distinguished:
-
Delegating the production
of external functions and services when government retains the responsibility
for their provision but hires private firms to produce the service or to
deliver the function.
-
Outsourcing
internal services and functions of the public organisation to the external
supplier.
Contracting/outsourcing
should begin with the organisational decision to make or buy a good or
service. As such, it is a fundamental
decision faced by both public and private sector organisations. "To make or to
buy?” is a question faced by public organisations when considering how public
services should be delivered to the citizens. Public organisations must decide
whether to produce goods and services internally or to acquire them from
external sources—contract out a public service.
The authors are
invited to submit papers (country studies or comparative papers) focusing on
experience with contracting/outsourcing. There are no limitations on the cases
regarding the government function or level. The focus is on evidence-based
papers and high quality theoretical studies may also be accepted.
The standard
structure of the empirical paper should be as follows:
-
Introduction,
which clearly states the objectives of the paper and in detail describes the
applied methodology
-
introducing the
country (stage of PA reforms, NPM or Weberian based, economic development,
etc.)
-
overview of the
relevant theory (if appropriate, simple case studies can be accepted)
-
introducing the
case
-
analytical data
about the case (own research or secondary data)
-
evaluation (of
results, problems, factors, purposes for results…)
-
proposals (if
possible),
-
conclusions from
the case (if relevantly linked to the presented overview of the theory)
NISPAcee Working Group on Fiscal Policy was established in 2011 and it responds to two needs:
, Ph.D., Department of Public Finance, University of Economics, Prague, Czech Republic, E-mail:
Lucie
Sedmihradska teaches at the University of Economics in Prague. Her
research is focused mainly on Public Budgets and Budgeting, both at the
central and municipal government levels. She received several grants
including the Jean Monnet Project, Czech Republic (1999-2002),
post-doctoral grant from the Czech Science Foundation (2003-2005), LGI
Fellowship (2008-2009) and has participated in several domestic and
foreign research projects. She took part ina post-doctoral study stay at
Carl Vinson Institute of Government - University of Georgia.