European Journal of Government and Economics
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Territorial diagnostics and citizen perception of municipal public management, towards an efficient reform of Local Administration
No full textSpain has a population distribution dispersed in small population centres where 60% of municipalities have less than 1,000 inhabitants. This situation generates a financial and functional incapacity to guarantee the successful and efficient provision of local public services. In order to fulfil its competences and improve services, a territorial diagnosis of the investigated area is necessary to adapt the size and structure of its administration. However, the social superstructure is reluctant to change the form of administrative action, despite being perceived as slow and bureaucratic by citizens. For this reason, this work proposes a reform to improve local economic and financial management by redesigning its administrative structure, thus achieving citizen recognition of the advantages of change. The proposal is developed through a computerised reporting model for public decision-making, the result of which is a systematic spatial report of administrative-financial decisions, which optimises decision-making and makes public management more visible
Assessing the fairness of the EU Council qualified majority voting. A voting power critical perspective of the liberal intergovernmentalist accounts
No full textThe Qualified Majority Voting (QMV) used by the Council of the European Union developed to a high degree of complexity from one modifying treaty to another, until the latest definition stipulated in the Treaty of Lisbon. This paper analyses this EU intra-institutional voting method using a rational choice approach and emphasizes that there are situations when not even the institutions, as rational actors, can avoid a collective irrational outcome even when they are addressing subjects such as voting power distribution. It also addresses several shortcomings of the Liberal Intergovernmentalist explanatory framework focusing on the insufficiently developed level of credible institutional commitments. The core part of the article consists in investigating several types of EU Council internal decision-making options, proposing how they can be designed to be considered in the same time fair and efficient, and in analysing how close this voting power ideal type configuration is to the current decisional system
Wagner’s hypothesis in Europe: a causality analysis with disaggregated data
No full textThis paper examines Wagner hypothesis of the growth of public expenditure alongside the growth of economic activity for a panel of 28 European economies during the 1995-2018 period. The hypothesis is verified using Pesaran (2007) panel unit root and Westerlund (2007) cointegration tests that account for cross-sectional dependence in the series, and three panel causality tests (Toda-Yamamoto, Dumitrescu-Hurlin and Juodis-Karavias-Sarafidis) that are suitable for mixed order of series’ integration, heterogeneous balanced panels and cases of limited evidence of cointegration. The empirical results suggested that expenditure and output variables were non-stationary in levels and stationary in the first differences; the cointegration among the variables was present; the causality was principally uni-directional (from output to public expenditure), in line with Wagner’s hypothesis, or bi-directional; the causality from public expenditure to output along Keynesian lines was limited
Panel data analysis of internal conflict and income inequality
No full textThe study determines how worsening internal and external conflict affects income inequality. The paper accounts for contributing variables and analyzes panel data in an unbalanced panel of 106 countries from 1988 to 2018—the panel data model groups by development status. The econometric model uses Driscoll and Kraay standard errors to account for heteroscedasticity, cross-sectional dependence, and autocorrelation. Worsening internal conflict increases income inequality in developing countries but not in developed countries. Worsening of internal conflict by one standard deviation increases income inequality by 0.068 in developing counties. External conflict does not noticeably affect income inequality in developed or developing panels. 
Determinants of bilateral current account balance between the Eurozone and the United States
No full textLong- and short-run current account balance (CAB) determinants of the nineteen Eurozone (EZ) member states vis-a-vis the United States (US) are examined. Particularly, the competitiveness of the EZ vs the US, the relationship between the current account deficit and the budget deficit (twin deficit), and other factors determining the current account balance are studied. Quarterly data was used in a sample of the nineteen EZ member states with the US as a trading partner over the period 2008 - 2018. It is found that the CAB in the long run has a positive relationship with the real interest rate, real exchange rate, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, and exchange rate volatility, but a negative relationship with the fiscal balance. In the short run, it is notable that only the real exchange rate affects the current account balance. Finally, policy implications are discussed regarding the determinants of the current account
Does real interest rate reduce income inequality in India? Evidence from multivariate framework analysis.
No full textThis study empirically examines the impact of real interest rate on income inequality in India within a Kuznets Curve framework considering the role of economic growth, trade openness and technological innovation as the control variables. This study employs the ARDL bounds test for validating the long-run relationship over the annual data period 1995 to 2019. The results reveal the long-run relationship between the series in India. The findings suggest that the initial increase in interest rate significantly reduces income inequality. But, in a later stage, a threshold exists for such an increased interest rate to revert the prior beneficial impact. This finding further shows that Kuznets’ inverted U-shaped hypothesis is not valid for the relationship between income inequality and real interest rate in India. It shows that the real interest rate impedes income distribution in the long run. These findings are also found to be robust using FMOLS and DOLS estimators. We find that economic growth significantly reduces income inequality, whereas trade openness promotes it. Surprisingly, technological innovation enhances income inequality, but this effect vanishes in the long-run. However, these findings suggest that policymakers in India should not ignore the impeding role of real interest rates while aiming at achieving effective income distribution between haves and have-nots in the long run
Social spending as a development tool: evidence from developing countries
No full textIn this paper, we aim to study the interrelationship between social spending, economic growth, and income inequality in developing countries from the year 1990 to 2013. We observed that all the categories of social spending produced a significant reduction in income inequality. Further, the impact of health and education spending on economic growth is significant, and that of social protection is insignificant. This indicates that both health and education spending can break the trade-off between equity and efficiency, that is, it can lead to both growth and progressive distributional change. However, given the importance of social welfare measures in reducing income inequality, developing countries need to focus on active social spending like labor market reforms that can increase gross domestic product growth rate and simultaneously reduce income inequality
Corporate governance and organizational commitment: the mediating role of organizational culture
No full textThis study seeks to determine the impact of corporate governance dimensions (compliance with the corporate governance code, top management, control environment, transparency and disclosure, rights of shareholders and stakeholders) on the three main types of organizational commitment, (affective, continuance and normative). It also aims at examining the impact of organizational culture, as an intermediate variable, on the relationship between the two above mentioned variables. The sample of this study comprised 152 respondents working at five types of Jordanian companies. The results of the study have confirmed the positive effect of the three corporate governance dimensions (compliance with the corporate governance code, top management, and control environment) on three types of organizational commitment (affective, continuance, and normative). The results also confirmed that there is no significant effect of t transparency and disclosure and the rights of shareholders and stakeholders on affective and normative commitment
Can a corporate well-being programme maintain the strengths of the healthy employee in times of COVID-19 and extensive remote working? An empirical case study.
No full textThe COVID-19 pandemic and the increase of working-from-home have drastically changed many aspects of work life, causing very negative effects on employees' physical and psycho-social well-being. Healthy organisations have healthy employees, who have at least five psycho-social strengths of engagement, self-efficacy, resilience, optimism and hope, which are reinforced by physical activity, relating to each other in a positive way and leading to numerous benefits for the company. These strengths are being weakened by the pandemic, and the aim of this empirical study is to analyse through a case study the effects of an updated corporate wellness programme in times of pandemic on these strengths of the healthy employee. The sample was of 251 employees, 91 women and 160 men. The instruments used were the International Physical Activity Questionnaire and the adaptation of the Healthy and Resilient Organization questionnaire. The results indicated that workers with high physical activity, higher seniority, well guided by supervisors, as well as a comprehensive (multi-component) well-being programme, not only physical but also psycho-social, and with the use of different digital tools (an App is not enough), can mitigate these negative effects. Whereas companies are grappling with reduced employee engagement among other harmful psychosocial and physical effects, this case study suggests that a good corporate well-being programme could help mitigate these detrimental consequences for their workforce and be helpful for the company to adapt to this rapidly changing workplace
Gender accessibility to credit among entrepreneurs: Empirical evidence from women entrepreneurs in Kano Metropolis
No full textThis study was carried out to empirically assess women entrepreneurs’ access to credit in Kano metropolis. The study was aimed at analyzing the maximum willingness to accept loans by women entrepreneurs and exploring the major problems hindering women entrepreneurs from fundraising for businesses in Kano Metropolis. The study employed a multi-stage random sampling to select a total of three hundred and seventy-six (376) women entrepreneurs as the sample of the study. The analysis of the data was carried out using frequency count and simple percentages to analyze the demographic characteristics of the respondents. Furthermore, the inferential statistics were done using logit models to capture the specific objectives of the study. The findings of the study revealed that high interest and collateral requirement prevent women entrepreneurs from accessing a loan from financial institutions, while religious affiliation is a major factor affecting women entrepreneurs' access to credit facilities. Based on the findings of the study, the study recommends that financial institutions should introduce and operate an Islamic finance system to encourage women entrepreneurs to go for a loan as the interest rate is one of the most important constraints to women entrepreneurs seeking financial credits. Additionally, collateral demand attached to a loan for women should be removed to encourage women entrepreneurs to raise capital